I thank the member for her remarks. She touched on a couple of subjects.

Before I start, I want to say the words “climate change” for the member from Beaches–East York, just to put it on the record.

I noted the speaker’s comments on housing and, in particular, the topic of intensification. I’d just like to make it very clear that of the 1.5 million homes that will be built over the next 10 years, the vast, vast majority of them will be intensification within existing municipal boundaries. In fact, I hope she would acknowledge that the new housing policy passed by the city of Toronto last fall was a direct result, frankly, of the work this government has done. Would she agree that that intensification is the right approach for housing in our province?

Thank you to the member from University–Rosedale for those scintillating words this afternoon. This government has done a lot of things, proposed a lot of policy, and then they’ve gone ahead, and they’ve come back and reversed it and gone ahead and reversed it, and people are losing trust out there. They just want to have a better, more sustainable Ontario. I’m just wondering, with the proposal to amend the Environmental Assessment Act, do you have faith that they will be able to do that or that they’re going to do that properly, safely, sustainably?

Thank you, Speaker.

When we’re talking about building more affordable housing, the project that comes to mind is the 59-modular-home project in the MPP for Willowdale’s riding. That project has been stuck in the lands tribunal for two years now.

Interjection.

That’s what I’d like to see.

And then when we’re talking about Highway 413—there are a lot of people who have extremely long commutes in the GTHA, because where their school is is very far from where they live and work and play. It just takes them a long time to get anywhere. It is true that, when we look at all the cities and the congestion rates around North America, Toronto is one of the worst. There is a lot that we can do to fix the transportation and the transit issues that we have. I don’t think building Highway 413 is going to solve our transportation issues. When you look at the amount of money that is going to be spent on that highway and the amount of time that people will save while driving on it—it’s not 30 minutes; it’s a minute. It’s not going to save people time.

When we’re talking about investing in new infrastructure projects to ensure that our economy works and that people can get from A to B at an affordable price and have choice, it’s essential that we do smart urban planning and we build more homes near where people work and play and go to school. It’s essential that we invest in public transportation, like the GO—we’re still waiting for all-day, two-way GO—and we need investment in local municipal transit systems. I don’t see that, and that’s what we need.

I’m pleased that I was given the opportunity to speak on this bill, and I welcome your questions.

Let’s go back to Bill 23. There are some measures in Bill 23 that I thought made sense; there are a lot that didn’t. One measure that I liked was the decision by the Conservative government to allow three residential homes on one residential lot. That was a good decision. We are asking for our government to go further and allow fourplexes, because our housing crisis is so acute, and it is also extremely important in areas like the city of Toronto to really encourage the kind of density that we need near transit stations so that people can get to where they want to go, live near public transit. Unfortunately, the city of Toronto’s official plan—we’ve been waiting for a very long period of time for the Conservative government to approve it, and the city of Toronto’s official plan does allow for increased density. So I’m looking forward to seeing you say yes to that.

There’s this idea with making legislation where you measure twice and cut once. What we see with this government is that they measure and cut at the same time. Maybe they don’t even measure at all; they just cut, cut, cut and see what happens. We’ve seen this with Bill 124, the unconstitutional wage caps. We have seen this with the heavy use of the “notwithstanding” clause to interfere in the right for people to collectively bargain. We have seen this with the greenbelt act. We have seen this with them dissolving and now reforming the Peel region. It happens again and again and again. That’s what concerns me. You have a lot of power. You have a lot of responsibility. Use it wisely.

If we are going to ensure that people stay here in Ontario and raise a family here, live their lives here, then we really need to address the housing affordability crisis and make it possible again for people to rent and buy a home that they can afford.

Further questions?

It’s a pleasure to rise on the 162 “not getting it done” bill. I’m going to start on something I’ve been talking about all afternoon because I think it’s important. I think it’s an important one to talk about because when this bill was introduced, they had a big press conference, Madam Speaker. I think you remember it. Remember, they had a big press conference about this bill? And what was the headline on CP24 and CFTO? All the headlines were very clear. It was, “They’re not going to take any more tolls on our highways.” And everybody went, “Oh, yes. Oh, yes.” And then it came out that we don’t have any tolls right now except one, which they never discussed at the press conference. We know the 407, and we can have the discussion about the—I could talk for hours on the 407 and what happened there when Harris was in. He wanted to balance the budget, so he said, “Well, I’ve got to find a way to balance the budget. I’ve got to get elected,” so he sold off the 407 for next to nothing. I’m not saying it was nothing. I don’t know the exact amount. It might have been a couple of million dollars. It’s now worth a billion dollars or more, so somebody’s made some good profit on that. But they took that money to say they balanced the budget.

But they now have the 407 east, which isn’t owned by an international company on the other side of the world. It’s actually owned by the province of Ontario, who still wants to charge the tolls on the 407 east. I had this conversation with my colleague from Oshawa, a very, very good—I think she’s a great NDP MPP. We had this conversation, and then she told me something interesting. She told me that in her community, the Durham council—which, by the way, and I find this interesting: I believe there’s five MPPs on that side of the House. Not one of you has raised this issue today, quite frankly. Not one of you has said, “No, you know what? Maybe we made a mistake. We should take the tolls off.”

But she raised it with me. But the council wants it. So it isn’t the member from Oshawa. It’s not Wayne Gates, the member from Niagara Falls, representing Niagara-on-the-Lake and Fort Erie, of course. It is actually the council of that area. And the reason why they’re so upset is they say you’re punishing the people that live in the Oshawa-Durham area because they’re the ones that travel the 407 east more than anybody.

I thought, you know what? To the member from Oshawa: It was brilliant—because she raised it. I’ve said this before. Madam Speaker, you know when I was watching this? It was about 1:30 in the morning—showing you how I can’t sleep at night—so I thought I’ll watch the Parliament station. Well, in this particular case, it was a good idea because I heard it and then I went directly to the member and I said, “This doesn’t sound right.” So I started reading the bill. I was amazed. It’s in the bill. Nobody can stand up and say I’m not talking to the bill right now, because it’s in the bill.

So I’m saying to my colleagues, I hope when you stand up, you say, “You know what? This sounds fair and reasonable. We shouldn’t be attacking the people from Oshawa, where, by the way, we have a number of our members, our MPPs. We’re going to listen to that council and we’re going to agree with an NDP amendment to take the tolls off the 407 east part.” I think that would work out really well.

Then, the other thing that has been suggested by the NDP which I think, “You know what? I didn’t think of it. I wish I did”—I would have probably done a video on it, because I have a lot of trucks. I live in a border town. I know you’ve been to my town quite a few times. I’ve seen you down there. You guys enjoyed it. Actually, I think you guys were there just a little while ago. I waited by the phone for days thinking you’d call me to go out for dinner. Nobody called me. Go for a glass of wine, go for things, take you on a tour—nothing. None of that happened, unfortunately. I was ready, though. I just want my colleagues to know, if you come to Niagara, I’m more than willing to take you out and show you a good time. I’ll leave it at that. I’m not going any further than that, Madam Speaker.

But I want to say, another thing that I think we could do collectively is take the tolls on trucks going down the 407. Let the trucks use the 407 to clear up the congestion. Because I heard how everybody cares about the environment, although you never talk about the greenbelt and some of the stuff you did there, so I thought that would be a very good idea. I’m hoping that you guys decide to reduce the congestion and take care of it.

On schedule 1, Environmental Assessment Act—and we had a lot of conversation about the 413. Madam Speaker, did you hear that mentioned a few times today from some of my colleagues? Well, the problem with the 413 is you’re going to save 30 seconds. That’s what you’re going to save. We can argue whether it’s 30 seconds or 30 minutes, but it’s 30 seconds. It might be a minute if you drive slower.

But here’s the problem with the 413. And it’s a problem that we faced during COVID. How many remember COVID when we had the COVID outbreak, and because we didn’t have any PPE, we didn’t have any resources and gloves and aprons because we were relying on places like China? Even our biggest trading partner, the United States, wouldn’t give us PPE. Do you remember that, Madam Speaker? Remember those times?

Well, here’s what’s happening with the 413. Never mind about the assessment that they don’t want to do—and they’re arguing with the federal government. It would take me another 20 minutes to have that debate. But what I do know is, we’re losing 319 acres of prime farmland every single day in the province of Ontario and a lot of it, quite frankly, is around the 413, up in that area.

I come from an area with a lot of agriculture. There was a big article in the paper that climate change is going to have a big effect on the fruits and vegetables in the Niagara region. But what I want to say to my colleagues—I know some are listening; I know my buddy in the corner always listens. Some others are talking. But I want to say what’s important and why I want to raise this is that if we cannot feed ourselves, if we’ve got to rely on China, Mexico, Jamaica and some of these other countries and we can’t feed ourselves and they get into the same problem we’re getting in with climate change, they are going to take care of their own. They’re going to feed their own and, quite frankly, they should, just like we should.

So I’m saying to your government, take another look at the 413. Do not destroy any more farmland—not just for ourselves, because a lot of us, as I look around this chamber, are older, like myself, but we need it for our kids and our grandkids to make sure they’re going to be able to have food, nutritious food. I think it’s important. That’s in the schedule, and I’m trying to make sure that—because I’ve got a speech, by the way. I’ve got a speech here, but I might not get to it because I’m trying to stay on my notes. I don’t think my speech probably was completely on the issue.

I want to talk about the carbon tax just for a minute. I’m going to read this in my notes. The Ontario NDP—now, I want my colleagues to listen to this because I know the other 60 people that are elected are just glued to their TV right now at 20 minutes to 6 or whatever time it is. The Ontario NDP has never supported a provincial carbon tax on regular consumers, but we have supported a cap-and-trade system focused on making large emitters pay. The only reason—this is important for my colleagues, and you guys should go back to your ridings and when you knock on the door, this is what I’d like you to say to them, because now you know the real story around the NDP, that we actually want the emitters to pay.

The only reason Ontario has a carbon tax is because the Ford government cancelled the cap-and-trade system whose costs were much lower than the federal carbon tax that replaced it, and you guys didn’t replace it with anything, and then the federal Liberals put it onto the province. If you just would have done the cap-and-trade instead of forcing consumers to pay, you would have had the big corporations that are destroying our environment paying instead of everybody else.

I think that’s important, and this is all accurate, by the way.

Interjection.

Thank you so much for that question. Removing tolls on roads that don’t have tolls is not going to result in people having more money to pay the bills, to buy food at the supermarket and to pay their rent at the start of the month. It’s just not going to.

We’ve got a provincial budget coming up shortly. My hope is that in this provincial budget we see some real investments in public services, we see some real measures to address the affordability crisis, because what I’m seeing in the Get It Done bill is not going to cut it, is not going to make things more affordable.

There are better things that we can do. There are better things we can invest in to help people get from A to B at an affordable price and spend time with their families or doing what they want to do in their spare time, in their free time—investing in transit, doing smart urban planning so people live near where they work and play so that they don’t have to spend an hour and a half in a car in the first place, really thinking about where we’re going to put our employment hubs so that we’re thinking it through and people don’t just have to come to downtown Toronto for that job. There’s a lot we can do. I don’t think Highway 413 is the answer.

Thank you to the member from University–Rosedale for her eloquence. I want to compare and contrast something. I think of traffic gridlock in my communities of Leamington and Chatham-Kent. It happens twice a year. They’re both celebratory: Hogs for Hospice in Leamington and probably our holiday parades.

The traffic gridlock in Toronto and in your community, your home community, is the real deal and it’s infuriating. It diminishes family time—time with family and friends and being at home and being productive. So does the member from University–Rosedale not believe that genuine investments in Highway 413, in the Ontario Line, in the Scarborough subway extension—will they not reduce gridlock, contribute to better family time, better productivity and be more welcoming to people from all over that are coming to make Toronto and Ontario their home?

I appreciated the comments from my colleague the member for Niagara.

He talked about the fact that one of the schedules in this bill, schedule 3, reverses changes to official plans, urban boundaries, that had been forced on municipalities by this government and were later reversed. So it un-reverses a reversal that had been put in place by this government.

That was not the only reversal that we have seen in this Legislature. A number of bills have been reversed.

I wondered if the member would like to comment on this government’s track record of introducing—

Thank you so much to the member from Niagara Falls. It’s always entertaining when you get up and tell it like it is. I really appreciate that.

Let’s just go back to this government wanting to save people money. They want to put money in people’s pockets. But they will not come clean on the fact that they have a carbon tax. It’s called the emissions performance standard, that you’ve imposed on large industries, and I did hear the member from Mississauga–Streetsville say that they’re just going to pass it down to the consumers. Yes, that’s exactly what you have. That’s your plan that exists now. Look it up. It’s a line in your consolidated finances, in the finances of the province of Ontario. And you are going to collect billions and billions of dollars on that emissions performance standard, also known as a carbon tax.

What could this province be doing with the billions of dollars that they are currently collecting on a carbon tax for the people of Ontario?

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker, and I thank the member opposite for his remarks. I always appreciate listening to him. In fact, his area makes me draw back to earlier in my life when I was a rebar bender at the Stoney Creek plant of Harris Steel back when—so a connection on labour and one very small part for me.

Anyway, I noted his remarks on the tolls and I noted his reaction that—observing there was very strong, positive press from that announcement, and we were pleased with that. And that shows that the folks out there who—pleased to hear confirmation there are no tolls on—whether it’s the QEW down to Niagara, Don Valley Parkway or other highways.

So won’t the member support us in this confirmation of no new tolls on these—

It is now time for questions and answers.

I recognize the member for Bruce–Grey–Owen Sound.

Second reading debate deemed adjourned.

Report continues in volume B.

I know I can’t—I don’t know the riding that the one person is screaming at me about, but everything I’m talking about is absolutely the truth, and I’m going to say that.

I’ve only got a minute left, and I know everybody’s happy about that because I was hoping for 20 minutes, but here’s what the Conservatives could have put in this bill that I and my colleagues could have supported. How about ending deeming for injured workers? Why isn’t that in the bill? How about passing paid sick days? Because people get sick. Why not make sure that we tackle the price gouging? Why not talk about Loblaws and some of those others that are making record profits as people just down the street here—just down the street, somebody died on the street last week. That’s the second one in about six weeks in the richest province, the richest country in the world, yet our CEOs are making record profits, our companies are making record profits as people are starving and have to go to food banks. Thank you very much for that last minute that wasn’t—

On the tolls: The reason why I mentioned about the press—because it was misleading; it wasn’t accurate, because we are still going to charge people tolls. If you really care about affordability and you care about the people in Oshawa and Durham region, and you care about that council that was extremely serious the other morning when they had their council meeting, take the tolls off the 407 east. That’s why I’m saying it. When you did your press conference, you got all kinds—and that’s great. That’s what you want when you put a bill forward. But don’t mislead people, and certainly don’t get the councils across the province of Ontario upset. Take the tolls off the 407 east. That’s when I may even decide to support you.

The issue is that we should want to protect our environment, and that’s why the NDP has been very clear—and I said this over and over, although you guys might not be listening to me. It is late Thursday afternoon, and maybe you’re saying, “Finally, finally, we’re just about done for the week.”

I’m telling you: The cap-and-trade is what the NDP has supported. And why have we supported it? It was because the polluters were going to pay. What you’ve done is, with the carbon tax, you guys have supported it—through the Liberals, that were now going to every resident in the province of Ontario and charging them. Why don’t you want to charge the emitters that are causing the environmental crisis that we’re facing today? It makes absolutely no sense to me. And yet, you stand up day after day after day, not talking about cap-and-trade and making the big corporations that are killing our environment, not only here in Ontario but right across the country—why shouldn’t they be paying?