Seniors in my riding of Ottawa West–Nepean are being gouged by Alavida Lifestyles, and this government is letting Alavida get away with it. Residents at Park Place and the Ravines are being told that they need to pay thousands of dollars more per month in order to retain their housing. In one case, an elderly woman has been served notice of an increase of $27,000 more per year. Another resident has received notice of a $24,000 increase. Speaker, I doubt that there are many of us who are working who could afford to pay that kind of increase in our housing costs, and these are seniors on fixed incomes.

These residents feel like they are being forced out of their homes, forced to abandon their friends and their community. Some of them are also feeling so scared and isolated by the high-pressure tactics that Alavida has been engaging in that they are having trouble eating and sleeping.

I reached out to the Retirement Homes Regulatory Authority, who said that it’s not their problem. I reached out to the minister of seniors and the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing to ask them to shut down this predatory behaviour. They literally responded with talking points, saying that retirement homes can charge whatever fees they want.

This is completely unacceptable. Seniors deserve a dignified retirement, not to have their home held hostage to increase the profits of a private developer.

Shame on this government for siding with a developer rather than with the seniors. It’s time that they actually stand up for seniors and come up with a plan to stop this kind of price gouging.

Mr. Speaker, this morning the Premier showed his true colours when it comes to building affordable housing. This Premier doesn’t care about getting people housed in homes they can afford.

Just this morning, while standing in front of massive single-family homes that the majority of Ontarians can’t even dream of affording, he completely ruled out allowing four units as of right in communities across the province. Such units would supply more housing to families, renters, students, downsizing seniors and anyone else struggling to find an affordable place to live in their community. After today’s revelations, will the Premier finally admit that he doesn’t actually care about building affordable housing?

Listen, it’s clear to me that the Liberals still have not caught on, right? This is coming from a party whose leader had the amazing responsibility of building homes but saw the population of her community, under her leadership, actually decline. She really knocked it out of the park with those two housing starts that she had in the month when she left office, right—two housing starts. Not only did she not even come close to meeting her target, she actually saw people fleeing her jurisdiction.

The only reason Mississauga is doing as well as they are is because of the members of provincial Parliament from this caucus, who have been focused on jobs and economic growth, bringing investments to that community. We have been bringing forward measures to help build housing supply across the province of Ontario. It is becoming increasingly clear to us, working with our municipal partners, that the thing they want is for us to get out of the way and help them get infrastructure in the ground.

Today’s announcement will do just that. We’ll put infrastructure in the ground and homes will be built.

The former leader of the Liberal Party came in front of a committee that this House had brought forward and said that the housing crisis started under the previous Liberal government. You know why? Because of red tape, because of high costs that stifle the ability to build more homes. And now we’re seeing the exact same thing: They’re supporting high interest rates because of their federal cousins—high interest rates which are making it impossible to build more homes and puts many people, thousands of people, out of the market for those new homes.

Working with our municipal partners, we have heard one thing over and over and over again: The infrastructure deficit that was left behind by the previous Liberal government is stopping them from building the hundreds, the millions of homes that are needed. So while we will continue to work with our municipal partners, we’ll actually give them the tools they need to build not hundreds of homes but millions of homes, and that’s what today’s announcement—

Mr. Speaker, the minister might want to look at a city that elected a Liberal member, the city of Kingston, that’s leading the tables in building housing. Ontario Liberals want to treat housing affordability like the crisis it really is for so many people in Ontario. That’s why we want to allow four units as of right, province-wide.

We believe this is a crisis. People across the province feel the pain. The Conservatives are just pretending to be worried. We must, and the people expect us to, build housing differently, with mixed neighbourhoods and gentle density while preserving green spaces. Many of the answers are right under the Premier’s nose in his own task force report, like four units as of right, province-wide.

Through you, Speaker: Premier, why are you giving up? Why can’t the people of Ontario count on you to believe we’re facing a housing affordability crisis?

Thank you to the Associate Minister of Housing for the question.

He said a great comparison with the nurse practitioner program and what we’ve done with that program to improve services in Ontario for all people to get primary care.

Similarly speaking, by regulating and increasing the scope of our vet techs, it will free up time for our veterinarians to increase their capacity to get to our farms and address the more acute illnesses that your livestock may suffer from.

I think the vet techs are very important and the changes in the regulations are very important, so that a vet does not have to be beside that vet tech all the time in order for them to do that work. It will definitely increase the capacity of those veterinarians.

I think the education of our farmers is another aspect of addressing and building the capacity of our veterinarians. But again, like I said in my presentation, we’ve got an untapped resource in the vet techs because some of them have a farming background; they’ve been working alongside veterinarians; they have their professional training, and we haven’t been tapping that resource to its full potential. This bill will make that happen.