Good morning, Speaker. This question is for the Premier. After the previous Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing resigned in the midst of a scandal and, of course, this ongoing RCMP criminal investigation, there was a real opportunity for a new minister to actually take the housing crisis seriously. But last week’s bill was weak, it was unambitious, and it lacked the vision that we need to actually get housing built. Among other shortcomings, the bill doesn’t legalize fourplexes and as-of-right, which means they’re going to remain illegal in many, many parts of this province.

A single detached home is out of reach for about 80% of Ontarians, but a fourplex apartment could be an affordable option. So why is the Premier ruling this out?

To reply, the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

Members will take their seats. Order. Order.

Restart the clock. The minister still has some time.

Interjection.

Start the clock. Final supplementary.

Thank you to the member opposite for their presentation. Our Minister of Housing often talks about the process, the driving forces of housing prices based on infrastructure and also—it’s a process. In my previous life as a municipal councillor, I’ve seen through my eyes that processes took so long to put the shovel in the ground.

I ask the member, I was with the municipal stakeholders at the Standing Committee on Heritage, Infrastructure and Cultural Policy. We heard from numerous local governments, including municipal councillors, that across the province a use-it-or-lose-it policy would help build homes in their communities. Does the member opposite agree with these locally elected officials?

Yes, one word, and it’s infrastructure. We had the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing visit my riding recently, coming to St. Catharines and speaking with the mayor of St. Catharines through the Building Faster Fund, and also had the opportunity to meet with officials from the town of Lincoln, who have a remarkable project just shy of 100 acres where there will be 15,000 people able to live on just shy of 100 acres—a really remarkable mixed-use community of density, mixed-use and then also single-family homes. And they spoke about the need to get water infrastructure, waste water infrastructure and how so many of their housing targets have been held back by the need to make sure that those investments happen.

They spoke glowingly about the investments that this government is making in infrastructure, that we’re not just listening to our partners across the way in the NDP but really listening to municipal partners, who are actually working day in and day out to get those homes built, working with the partners in the building industry. They said that the game-changing investments that this government is making in our budget are going to supplement many of the actions we’ve taken and ensure that homes get built.

This is the legislation we have in front of the House, and this is legislation that is going to be bringing forward one of the pieces that I’ve heard about from my municipality partners, as well, which is the use-it-or-lose-it component. They want to be able to have some tools to push and prod some of those builders who maybe need a little bit of pushing and prodding in order to get going.

I think, in my riding of Niagara West, when I look at some of the projects that are under way in Smithville, where they’re going to be doubling their population over the next 10 to 15 years; in Grimsby on the Lake, where they are expanding a massive number of new projects, intensification around a major urban transit area, I see that these partners speak about the tools that are in this legislation, and I’ve had a lot of messages, texts and emails from elected officials and those who work with them saying, “This legislation is going to help get that job done and we thank you for it.”

Interjections.

He’s going to have to talk to his grandkids, he’s going to have to talk to his great grandkids about how their opportunities were throttled by that government when they were in office, and how it’s only under the PCs and Doug Ford that we’re able to ensure that opportunities, again, exist for this generation, here in the province of Ontario.

I appreciate the member opposite’s question, and I appreciate our shared commitment to building more transit in the province. I would note, it would be nice if the government would help municipal transit operational funding as well and reinstate the 50% operational funding so we can have reliable, affordable transit.

But what I’ll say is, in addition to having transit-oriented development and allowing more density around transit nodes, which I support, I would challenge the government to ensure that a certain percentage of those are deeply affordable homes. Because we absolutely need to increase supply, but we also need to increase the supply of homes that people can actually afford. Housing Now Toronto was actually at Queen’s Park today for their lobby day, asking us to ask the government to do exactly that as the Ontario Line is built.

Two, I’m also concerned because you have a number of regions—and I think Waterloo region is a great example of this—where regional planning has shown how they can meet their housing targets without sprawling onto farmland, for example, which is so critically important to the region’s economy—

We are in an unprecedented housing crisis. And to the credit of some members opposite, they have talked about the need to push back against “not in my backyard” in this province if we are going to address the housing supply crisis. It feels like, with this bill and recent comments from the Premier, the government is backtracking on that commitment. And right now, I believe we would need an all-hands-on-deck, full-on mobilization to say “yes in my backyard,” legalizing fourplexes, legalizing—

Because let’s face it: Farming contributes $50 billion to Ontario’s economy. We need to protect the asset base, which is the farmland that generates all that wealth, while we support the farmers who farm that land.

The bill says it’s cutting red tape to build more housing. Then let’s cut red tape to build more housing by making fourplexes legal in the province. While we’re at it, let’s go beyond fourplexes. Let’s make it legal to build six- to 11-storey buildings along major transit lines as well—two key recommendations in the government’s own Housing Affordability Task Force. I don’t know why the government—