SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

Ontario Assembly

43rd Parl. 1st Sess.
April 9, 2024 09:00AM
  • Apr/9/24 11:10:00 a.m.

Actually, Speaker, that’s in fact not what I said. What I said is that there were not enough details with respect to the announcements made by the federal government on its infrastructure programs. I also said that we would be working very closely with our municipal partners—AMO; big city mayors; ROMA, the Rural Ontario Municipal Association—and we will be coming forward with a Team Ontario approach to ensure that we can access as much as of the federal dollars that have been put on the table.

At the same time, I’ve been very clear. The Premier has also been very clear that we don’t think that we’re in the best position to mandate what 444 municipalities should be doing across the province. We want to ensure that we meet our goals of building 1.5 million homes. That is why, of course, the Minister of Infrastructure has brought forward one of the largest infrastructure programs in the history of the province to ensure that we can get sewer and water in the ground. It is also backed up by the Minister of Education, who will be building more schools, and the Minister of Transportation, who is building more roads and transit. We’re building communities, Mr. Speaker.

The reality is that we want to work with our municipal partners—there are 444 of them—who have very unique circumstances across the province of Ontario. We have set a goal of building 1.5 million homes, and across the province, we have heard one issue constantly gets in the way of building more homes, and that is sewer and water. That is why we brought forward a nation-leading program of $1.8 billion to build sewer, water, roads and bridges across the province of Ontario.

But what also gets in the way are high taxes and regulation. So the high interest rate policies of the federal government because of high inflation, because of overspending and taxation, are stopping people from building homes. They are also stopping people from being able to afford homes. So what we’re going to continue to do is double down on removing red tape, putting sewer and water and infrastructure in the ground, working with our municipal partners to build not only hundreds of homes but millions of homes in communities across—

I have talked about the student and the family in my riding. He works at Circle K. He works at the Petro-Canada. He and his family live in a basement apartment miles away from their college. You know what he said to me? He’d like to live closer to the college. He’d like to live on campus. He would like options. For the NDP, he’s a bother; he’s a nuisance. For us, he’s somebody who builds the province of Ontario, and we will stand by him every step of the way.

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