A lot.

Our MPP from Oshawa has made clear—she just had a wedding, and she gave out bottles of maple syrup. So there is another way. Gifting MZOs, which is gifting land in the province, is not the way to go.

An Ancaster councillor, Craig Cassar, said it best: “It’s entirely undemocratic for the province to accommodate for-profit interests that are in complete contradiction to the public’s interest.”

We also know that many of these changes came directly, word for word, from speculators.

So it is well and good that the government is reversing this, because certainly it was a messy business indeed.

Again, the fact that we are here in this House, just having rammed through legislation and rushed legislation, giving the power to issue MZOs to a minister—it’s in stark contrast to what happened with issuing these MZOs and what happens when you shortchange a process, when you cut the public out, and when you don’t fulfill your duty to consult Indigenous First Nations. There are consequences. I’m standing here, right now, as a consequence of this, while you’re rolling back and revoking this bill.

I’m just going to talk about some of the stakeholders and some of the consequences of what you’ve done by rushing MZOs.

Let’s start with everybody’s favourite, if you will—an article from Colin D’Mello that says, “Ford Government Forced to Fix Rushed Zoning Order That Put Tower on Flight Path.” Well, how is that for a headline, Speaker?

“The Ford government was forced to scale back” an MZO “after the developer was given permission to build a skyscraper right in the middle of the flight path of Pearson International Airport ... after a rushed process....

“The gaffe is likely to draw more scrutiny to the province’s use of ... MZOs a controversial tool that allows the province to overrule and replace ... decisions made by local councils....

“Sources with knowledge of the provincial process told Global News the request for one building included in the zoning order—a 50-storey tower—come from the developer and was turned around by the Ford government in less than two weeks.

“The order to allow the building near Toronto Pearson airport came through the Premier’s Office and was given to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing....”

They turned this MZO around in two weeks, put a tower in a flight path of Pearson airport—if that is not evidence of a rushed process that needs to be reversed, I don’t know what is.

Also, consequences in Hamilton: We know this government is under RCMP investigation, I would say justifiably. But Hamilton city council moved a motion to request the RCMP to investigate the province’s changes to the official plan and urban boundary. Hamilton city council is requesting that the RCMP investigate not only the province’s greenbelt land removal, but also its decision to expand the city’s urban boundary and make other surprise changes to its official plan.

As reported by CBC, Hamilton and the province “copied a developer’s exact request into the official plan so he could move forward with building condos in Ancaster. The developer’s representative had attended Premier Doug Ford’s daughter’s stag and doe in the summer of 2022.” Again, it’s a consequence of a process that is rushed.

That you are still continuing on with your Ontario Place shenanigans has consequences.

I never in a million years thought that I would get elected to this esteemed House to represent the people of Hamilton West–Ancaster–Dundas and I would be talking about a developer and an MPP having couple massages in Vegas. I never thought that we would hear planning decisions made on massage tables in Vegas. It’s funny, but it is not funny. It’s a sad state of affairs.

Finally, what I want to say is that these things have consequences, and there are questions that remain. I mean, the minister—we want to know, was he going to abandon his plan to make lower-tier mayors responsible for his decisions? Will the minister confirm that no further changes to these official plans will be imposed? Will the minister promise not to slow down or complicate housing plans by allowing sprawl developers to appeal official plans themselves? And will the minister promise to maintain and respect the settlement boundary system and the ban on avoidable boundary expansions from now on? These are the questions that remain.

While this bill is here because of the community that saw through the actions of this government and rose up, and while it is important that we are reversing this here, I hope that we all understand the importance of good planning, the importance of democratic processes and the importance of why we’re here as legislators, which is to do the right thing the first time, and not spend time reversing decisions that shouldn’t have ever been made in the first place.

And with that, Madam Speaker, I cede my time. Thank you.