I thank the member for his comments. He covered a number of subjects there and I’d maybe touch on one of them: the environment, he mentioned. Shockingly, it’s an extremely important matter for this side of the House—the government—and a few teeny, tiny measures that we’re doing, such as transit. You know, people have a choice to take the car or get on transit. The biggest transit expansion in the history of the province—a teeny, tiny measure.

Our energy system—90% greenhouse gas-free, given our thrust on nuclear.

Another teeny, tiny thing we’re doing: steel industry—converting away from coal to electricity, electric cars.

So these legacy matters for the environment—hate to say. Wouldn’t you agree that these are extraordinarily strong environmental measures the government is taking?

That’s it?

Now, Durham council is saying to the Conservatives that the only road that’s being tolled is hurting the residents of Durham. So I’m going to say to my colleague, if the council wants the toll taken off, why do you think the Conservatives, who have five Conservatives that represent that area, out of six, are leaving it in this bill? It makes absolutely no sense. Do you agree with me, take the tolls off the 407 east?

I’d like to say hi to two members of our excellent staff team, Kirsten Snider and Madeleine Vogelaar. Welcome. Hello. They do excellent work.

My question is to the member for Spadina–Fort York. You mentioned that the BC government is taking a really bold and sensible approach to the housing crisis, and we see that starts in BC are up by 11%. At the same time, housing starts in Ontario are actually going down. What is the BC government doing right? What lessons could the Conservatives learn from what the BC government is doing?

I see the member opposite questioning my number. Look it up. Just Google it. We import $10 billion more food than we export.

We also are welcoming 400,000 new people to Ontario every year, and one thing I know about those people—I can guarantee it: They will want to eat. And the most environmental and healthiest way to eat is to eat food that’s grown locally. So we need to maintain our farmland. That’s the purpose of the greenbelt. And yet, this government keeps cutting huge tranches out of the greenbelt. They did it with the 7,400 acres of the original greenbelt scandal. They did it with the expansion of the urban boundaries and they’re doing it with the paving over for the 413.

This government is not only jeopardizing our environment—I speak about this at a time when, again, the city of Toronto is engulfed in smoke, this time from forest fires in Texas—but they’re also jeopardizing our food security in the future. With global warming, it’s going to be more and more difficult to grow food because we are seeing incredible swings in temperatures. We’re seeing all kinds of climate crises around the world and it’s making it more and more difficult for countries to grow food. At the same time, when we are in this environmental crisis, this government is paving over even more farmland than was paved over by the former Liberal government. This bill is of great concern to anybody who cares about the environment and also future food security in the province of Ontario.

I’ve got 45 seconds. I’ll just mention the other thing I’ve got to say: The government is really good at selling their bills. When they brought this one out, they announced that there were going to be no more tolls on Ontario roads and then they didn’t mention that—except the only road that has tolls is the 407, which the Conservatives sold to a private, for-profit, Spanish corporation at the time and sold a 99-year lease. So it’s not just we who are paying those tolls; our children and grandchildren are going to be paying those tolls forever. But they got this blurb out in the media, this message out that, hey, they’re going to remove tolls—except the one that exists.

The other thing this government should be doing, the 407—initially we paid for it and it was our asset. As taxpayers in Ontario, it was our asset. This government sold it off with a 99-year lease and then their tolls are so high that people can’t afford to drive on it, and because they can’t afford to drive on it, the 401 is much more congested. So the 407 was fined $1 billion for increasing congestion, for not having enough vehicles on the road and increasing congestion on other roads. Do you know what this government did? The response is that they waived the billion dollars because they said, “Oh, the taxpayers of Ontario don’t need that billion dollars back.”

You don’t get anything done if you don’t get it right. If you keep having to reverse, then you’re just spinning in circles and you’re not actually accomplishing anything.

That’s what’s been happening with this government’s housing plan. In order to build that 1.5 million homes over 10 years, we need to be starting 15,000 housing units per month in this province. Last month, there were 5,000 started, so only a third of what is needed to achieve that goal. So our housing shortage is exploding under this government because you’re not getting it done.

I would just contrast this with the British Columbia NDP. They are also building 5,000—started 5,000 housing units last month—but they’ve got a third of the population. So their housing starts are three times per capita what ours are in Ontario. The NDP in British Columbia are getting it done, and they’re getting it right.

Well, thank you, Madam Speaker. I listened very attentively to the member. I also want to acknowledge the late Mr. Ed Broadbent. He was a great Canadian, no matter where you sit as a parliamentarian in Canada.

Madam Speaker, the opposite of getting it done is not getting it done. The opposite of building roads and transit, infrastructure and hospitals is not doing it. So I just don’t understand, having listened to the member, why he feels all the actions that the government is taking to lay the seeds for people to come here, to have a job and to start a family—I’d like to ask him a simple question. Why does he feel that getting it done is not good for people who want to start a family, have a job here and contribute to our economy?

What the BC government is doing to build those houses is that they’re not afraid of building government housing. They’re not afraid of just rolling up their sleeves and saying, “Hey, in the government, we’re going to build housing.” Because that’s what we did from 1945 to 1995 in Ontario: the government built housing. The private sector was also building housing and we need the private sector as well, but the government wasn’t afraid of doing it and the government built the housing that made it affordable.

After the Second World War, the government was building the strawberry box war houses that you still see in communities across this province. They built it so that the soldiers would have a home to return to when they got here. The government did this. This government? Somehow, the Conservative Party—I don’t know what happened to them, but they call that a communist plan. I actually heard the member from Perth call it a communist plan.

So, what he really called was all the former Conservative Premiers who were building public housing, and that includes Bill Davis, George Drew, John Robarts, Leslie Frost—he called them all communists because they wanted to build housing because it’s a solution that works. The British Columbia NDP are not afraid of building housing; they’re doing it and they’re getting it done and they’re getting it right and people will have a place to live in British Columbia. I wish it was that case in Ontario.

The 413 is being built and it’s crossing 132 watersheds, and also there are 26 species that are at risk from the development of the 413. There are tens of thousands of acres of farmland that could be paved over with the 413, especially if it leads to more sprawl. It’s not the kind of housing that we need and it’s certainly not going to leave the next generation or the next seven generations with a healthy environment. That is the legacy that we have to leave the next generation.

Further questions?

Further debate?

You came in and it changed.

You should.

I couldn’t help notice that the member was quoting British Columbia. For British Columbia to achieve what they have, they have already been ahead of Ontario in terms of streamlining their environmental assessment process, which now we’re finally modernizing in Ontario after 50 years of not having this process embrace some new technologies to modernize it.

If you’re embracing your BC partners, who are doing such a great job on housing, shouldn’t we adopt practices like EA modernization, as well?

Sorry, Stan.

I apologize to the member from Ottawa South.

Pursuant to standing order 50(c), I am now required to interrupt the proceedings and announce that there have been six and a half hours of debate on the motion for second reading of this bill. This debate will therefore be deemed adjourned unless the government House leader directs the debate to continue.

Interjection.

We could have 20 minutes of questions, Speaker. Look, I have a lot of respect for that member. He knows that. But earlier, two of your colleagues, the member from Beaches–East York and the member from Scarborough–Guildwood were talking about highways.

The member from Scarborough–Guildwood was bringing up some of the safety concerns along Highway 69. You know, good concerns, talking about how that highway needs to be twinned, good concerns, talking about some of the other highways in the north that need to be twinned. But then the member from Beaches–East York talked about how Highway 413 shouldn’t be built, how it’s a bad highway, talked about the climate crisis that would come if we built those highways. So my question is—and I didn’t get an answer when I posed it to those two members—what does the Ontario Liberal Party stand for? Do you want to build highways or not? Yes to highways or no to highways?

It’s always great to stand and rise on 162, the “not getting it done” bill. But I’m going to ask my colleague from the Liberal Party: Do you support tolls, and do you agree with the NDP that we should take the toll off the 407 east, knowing full well that there are five MPPs from that side representing that area, and the Durham council has just said, “Listen, take the toll off the 407 east.” You can’t do it on the 407 because they sold it off and signed a crazy deal for 99 years, something like they do in long-term care. But my question to you: Do you agree with the NDP that they should take the tolls off the 407 east and support the councils that are representing that area?

Thank you.

There we go. I didn’t want to miss out on the questions, guys. That’s the best part. I want to hear great questions.

Have I gone over 10 minutes yet? Can the table—have I gone over 10?

Interjections.

I don’t want five minutes of questions. I want 10 minutes of questions, and they better be good questions, guys.

Again, “omnibus bill” sounds like it’s this heavy-duty thing that’s coming down on all of us, and we will not be able to sustain the weight of the omnibus bull—bill, or bull. Actually, that’s it: It’s the omnibus bull. That’s the best way to put it. My God, sometimes your mistakes work out.

Pardon me, Speaker. Pardon my irreverence.

In this—and I’m not going to stop saying it—omnibus bull, they’re not doing very much. At least with certain kinds of bull stuff, you can grow things—but not with this bill.

Anyway, I digress. Sorry. I’m off on a bad spot. Now it feels alive in here, folks. You feel alive.

We’re here, it’s Thursday afternoon, and we’re talking about really important things to Ontarians, like road tolls that will never exist but ones that will continue to go up; or licence fees that won’t go up, but somehow that’s putting money in your pocket; and referendums about things that governments should just damn well figure out for themselves. We have one—I’ll support it—every four years. Right? So it gives you the power to make decisions. The problem is you can’t over-read your mandate. If you want to look at it as a referendum, I think a plurality is something over 50%. And I’m not going there. You guys are the government; you earned the right; you worked hard. But as a referendum, it didn’t give you carte blanche to do whatever you like.

Anyways, I think I’ve gone over my 10 minutes, so I’ll get 10 minutes worth of questions and they better be good, folks. Thank you.

Now, in fairness, that happened when we came into government. So here’s the thing: The north needs safe roads. The member from Scarborough–Guildwood, who is not from the north, can see that. She saw that when she went up north and that’s why she mentioned it.

Now the 413—because I’m trying to get this in under a minute—if we actually still owned the 407, maybe you wouldn’t need the 413. So the things that I get concerned about are the same things I saw in the greenbelt giveaway, aligning along 413, so I would hope that it’s not about land speculation.

The premise of the question, that we didn’t do anything, is nonsense, because if you even look economically, we led the G7 in jobs and growth for five years until 2018. We were top three for foreign direct investment. We had historic investments too in public transit, in hospitals—all sorts of things.

And you know what? When we did those investments, guess who voted against it? Not you guys, but there are a few who did vote against it on the other side. So let’s not—

Interjections.

Here’s the other thing: I know you guys are big on auto, but guess what? In 2009—the bailout, the crisis—we had a vote in this House. Guess who voted against the bailout? Your party. So don’t throw that stuff out. It was a good question, but forget that stuff, because you guys voted against as many things as we did, and far worse.

Yes, the government is collecting tolls while it’s outlawing—okay. Did I say that? They’re collecting tolls while they’re proposing a law to outlaw them—collecting tolls but outlawing them.

There’s a solution to that: Amend your bill; take the tolls off the 407 east. And you know what? You’ll get support from all of us.

And I think the member from Scarborough–Guildwood just said, “Look, I was up north. I heard this.” She doesn’t live there. Those aren’t her constituents. She’s not searching for votes up there. There’s a big problem.

I just said earlier, if you hadn’t sold the 407 or if the tolls were lower or if you took some of the tolls off it, maybe you wouldn’t need quite as much as you’re building right now. That’s the kind of thing you have to think about.

I would just say to members of this House, go and take a look at the map of who owns all the land on the 413 and their connections to the government. You might find some of the same names that you found in the Auditor General’s report—

I didn’t hear an answer to the primary care question posed by the ray of hope for Perth–Wellington, so I’ll give you an opportunity—to the honourable member—to answer either that question on primary care or maybe my question, because—

In Peel region you don’t have a single seat. In fact, all of Peel region’s seats and York region’s seats sit here on the government side, and I think the voters speak the loudest. They clearly said they wanted those highways. So the question is, which is it? Do you stand for highways or do you not stand for highways?

It wasn’t answered.

Further questions?

I recognize the member for Mississauga–Erin Mills.