I recognize the member for Whitby.

I want to thank my colleague for her presentation.

Periodically, I meet with my Whitby Chamber of Commerce, and when I do, they point out that there’s a continuing need to eliminate red tape on the close to 1,000 businesses in Whitby. They want to do that because they want to continue to grow and provide jobs in our local economy in Whitby.

I’d like the minister to take a few moments to talk about how our actions that we’ve taken thus far and this legislation will help us to continue to deliver results for hard-working local businesses.

I do want to thank the member opposite for the question. It’s a good question.

In my previous role as the Associate Minister of Housing and when we worked with many municipalities throughout AMO, the COHB funding was very, very important—even through to the Homelessness Prevention Program, which we actually provided an additional $202 million to, to help support municipalities through their service managers and service providers, to work with those people who needed that top-up. We made that funding very flexible so it allowed them to support more people to get into housing. There was a massive gap. There was a gap between shelter, transitional, supportive housing for individuals, housing for families. It’s an area where we need to do more work.

This bill actually has streamlined the processes, and we’ve worked with providers to get more rental housing built so there’s more supply. When there’s more supply, there’s more affordable housing for everyone.

We heard loud and clear from his chamber and chambers right across this province, BIAs, boards of trade on how we as a government have made it much more easy for them to do business, but they’re also telling us about the challenges that they’ve faced in the past. They’ve come to us, through these red tape reduction packages, to let us know how difficult it has been for them to really just do what they need to do best: streamlining licensing and permits, maybe making singular dates for those renewals of those licences and holding on the fees. Every year, the fees were going up exponentially.

This government has made permits and licence fees stagnant instead of increasing them. That has helped businesses.

And let’s just face it: Every single person in this province, most businesses also, single sole proprietors, may own their vehicle. We have now cut having to renew the licence plate sticker. That $120 a year for each individual across this province has made a massive impact, and that’s something that our government is very proud of.

When it first came to my attention about two and a half weeks ago, I came back, I immediately spoke to—I had a few of the individual family members reach out to our office, who we immediately got back to and started up casework, because we need their permission to talk on their behalf, and you know that; I also spoke to Chartwell and heard from both sides what was happening.

Chartwell has sold that building. It blindsided all of us. Nobody wants to see anybody evicted, let alone our seniors. I heard from them that they’ve sold the building to another company, and they’ve issued notices for the seniors to move. They’re assisting with these seniors. I just spoke to them again yesterday.

I actually met with seniors on Friday, with some of the families, and so we had a conversation. I’ve got all the details that they’ve received.

I’ve got the details from Chartwell—

I’d like to talk a little bit about the record of the previous Liberal government, the biggest bloated bureaucracy we’ve ever seen. They would use their unemployment numbers by increasing their bureaucracy as opposed to helping businesses come to Ontario. They drove away over 300,000 jobs from Ontario. This government—Premier Ford and all of us collectively here—worked and took massive steps to encourage investment. We reduced red tape through a number of packages to help bring that investment. And it’s working—more than 700,000 people wake up to a job today than they did when they left in 2018. That is something that our government is extremely proud of.

Yes, when I visited her riding a couple of years ago and met with that company, it was actually very heartwarming to see their creativity. This was something they built from scratch—such beautiful Ontario-made products, something that we should encourage more of across this province.

And to really welcome, congratulate and support the success of our small businesses is critical to a government—to create that environment, to help them not just start a business but to grow. I think that’s where we see one of the areas where our government—where we can create that environment to help more businesses grow.

Through this package, by eliminating processes, by making fees more affordable, by making sure that everybody has the ability to say, “I want to grow. How do I do that?”—having their backs to do that is so critical and something, again, that our government is very proud of.

Thank you for the question.

I recently spoke to 200 seniors who are being evicted from Chartwell Heritage Glen. This retirement home is in your riding. I’m very concerned that these seniors are being renovicted.

Two days ago, we spoke to them, and they said that the member opposite has not met with them yet—two days ago.

So these are my two questions: Have you met with them and can you meet with them? And what is your plan to ensure that they are not renovicted?

It’s great to be debating this legislation here this morning.

Recently, it has come to light that there are some 48 members of the Premier’s office on the sunshine list, and his gravy train is getting bigger and bigger and bigger as every year goes by.

I’m wondering if the minister can explain to the House how many Ontarians who are not on the Premier’s gravy train sunshine list, making over $100,000 a year, which is more than the average family in Ontario—how many Ontarians who aren’t on the Premier’s gravy train will actually be able to afford to buy a home as a result of this legislation?

I want to thank the minister. She travels across Ontario to hear first-hand what businesses are hearing.

I had the honour of hosting her in my community to meet with a lot of small business owners, and one of the great business owners that she came to visit was Great Bear Products. They were a small, mighty team, family-operated. They have a daughter who is a proud graduate of Georgian College—go, Grizzlies. And they’re expanding. The reason they could expand is thanks to burden reduction and this government that believes in working with business, not against business.

I’m going to ask the minister: What else is she hearing across the province on how we are alleviating these small businesses that are still on the brink of recovery, to really help them expand and really break down those walls and break down those barriers so they can grow their business?

Thank you, Speaker. Please resume debate.

I apologize to the member for Thunder Bay–Superior North, but 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.

I recognize the associate government House leader.

It is now time for questions.

Speaker, the previous Liberal Party leader and current mayor of Vaughan recently admitted that the housing affordability crisis actually started while he was in office, while the provincial Liberals were in power. As a municipal member for the last 22 years, I certainly witnessed all of that kind of challenge, and that the Liberal government, supported by the NDP at the time, took zero action on the housing crisis.

Can the member opposite speak to—if you’re so impassioned about moving forward and addressing the housing crisis, why didn’t you push the previous government to act sooner?

I recognize the member for Niagara Centre.

It’s time for further debate.

Thank you to my friend from Thunder Bay–Superior North for a very good presentation.

Every region of Ontario is very different when it comes to the housing crisis. They have things in common, but certainly Thunder Bay is a unique part of the province.

I’m wondering, in your riding, what could have been in this bill that you would hope might be in a bill in the future, that would most help the residents and homeowners in Thunder Bay?

What are some of the other issues that we’re seeing in Thunder Bay around people not being able to afford their rent due to the skyrocketing costs, and what is the best solution, moving forward, to deal with that?

Recently, at the Standing Committee on Heritage, Infrastructure and Cultural Policy, we heard from numerous local governments’ representatives from across Ontario that a use-it-or-lose-it policy would help build homes in their communities. We had representatives from all parts of Ontario at the standing committee.

Speaker, through you: Does the member opposite agree with these locally elected officials?

I’d like to thank the member from Thunder Bay–Superior North for her excellent comments. I was particularly taken by her comments on supportive housing.

I’d like to quote Sister Joan Atkinson of the Sisters of St. Joseph, in the Office for Systemic Justice, who wrote to me and said that for the supportive housing model to work—if it is not fully funded, “it will collapse and homelessness with all the other problems that accompany this will escalate....

“We believe there is inadequate funding for these critical human resources that are required to both prevent homelessness and transition people out of the chaos of homelessness, encampments and emergency shelters.”

To the member: I’d like to know, should the government have addressed the critical plight of homelessness and the lack of funding for supportive housing within Bill 185?

Thank you to the member for the question.

Yes, I do agree. We know that municipalities were asking for this before, and we know that this proposal has also come from this side of the House. Use-it-or-lose-it is absolutely essential.

Again, there are other things that need to be addressed in the bill that aren’t there to support affordable housing.

Rent control is critical, and limitations on selling out people’s apartments and turning them into short-term rentals, and support for seniors’ housing. Access to affordable financing, which is not there, is really needed. This is why the seniors’ complex has not been able to be built. There is no access to affordable financing.

There are many other problems in our region. For example, you can’t build down the road. There are 11 municipalities in my riding, and in many of them. we can’t get housing built, because it’s too expensive to bring in material and bring in the workers. At this point, in Terrace Bay, if you could convince a contractor to come, it would be a $750,000 home, but nobody in Terrace Bay could afford to have a home at that level, so the homes don’t get built. So we have a problem in the region of actually not enough housing to bring in professional workers.

Given my knowledge of what has been happening over the last six years, I would like to see—there are so many things that this government could have done and can still do differently to help people get affordable housing. That’s where I think our energy needs to be.

Yes, I wish that this bill did support, did recognize the need for supportive housing, to adequately fund it, to adequately fund—obviously, this is a housing bill, so it’s not talking about all of those wraparound services, but we have a tremendous need in our city; we have amongst the highest rates of any part of the province, with addictions.

People are working around the clock in their basically very underpaid jobs trying to support people trying to find transitional homes. They really are having an extremely difficult time doing this because the funding is not adequate. It’s critically important.

As I say, all of these things snowball. If the short-term rentals are taking up affordable housing, then that also snowballs and there are no other places for transitional housing because everything has been kind of knocked down along the way.

We know we need rent controls. We know we need affordable housing. We also know that the people on ODSP and on OW don’t have enough money to keep a roof over their heads, and if, God forbid, they live with someone, then their money is going to be clawed back so that they have even less.

We need to be building affordable housing that is not built for profit, not built for the betterment of investors; it’s built for the betterment of our communities so that people have safe, affordable, quality places to live.

We know that there is so much homelessness, particularly in our area—it’s desperate, really. So I need the provincial government to sort out whatever its issue is with the federal government, whatever it is that’s not being provided, so that the federal government sends that money to the province that can then go to the municipality, to the—

It’s a pleasure to rise. I have a feeling I’m one of the last people who will be debating this, as we’re nearing the end of our time.

I want to commend my seatmate from University–Rosedale, who has done a great job as our housing critic, not only in addressing this bill and many others, but in fighting, especially, for tenant rights in Toronto and across the province.

We know that the government obviously has a majority, so this will end up in committee. I know we’re all going to work hard to improve this bill when we get to committee.

The last six years, watching the government attempt to address the housing crisis, have certainly been interesting. I think we know that it has not been very successful. We saw a 7% drop in housing starts last year. The government likes to say that they’re making great gains, but actually, when you look at the numbers, that’s not really the case. We’ve talked a lot about the fact that we believe that’s because we need to have a proactive approach to the housing crisis, not a reactive approach. We’ve talked many times about the need for the government to get back into the business of housing.

I’ve heard, throughout this debate and in question period, Conservatives talking about the former Liberal government as the government under which the housing crisis started. I would suggest that’s not really true. I’m not going to defend the Liberals’ record—certainly, their most recent record in creating housing. But I’ve been around politics for a long time. I was a city councillor prior to coming to this place. I was also involved in federal and provincial politics since the mid-1990s. I actually ran for provincial government in 1995—a long time ago. I was still in university at the time. I can remember, in the late 1990s, when that Conservative government got elected, the massive downloading that happened from the province to municipalities. Housing is certainly one of the things that suffered most from that downloading. There’s lots of blame to go around. There was a downloading of the federal responsibilities from the then Liberal federal government to the provinces. But certainly, the provinces had a choice, and Ontario, under that Conservative government, decided to engage in a massive downloading to the municipalities. That’s really when the crisis began, in my opinion, and certainly in the opinion of many people who look at this problem.

So municipalities already have this massive issue with funding housing. For our regional housing in Niagara, I can tell you there’s an 18- to 20-year wait. You might as well not even be on the list for regional housing. That’s a problem that has built up over many, many years.

You’re going to hear us talk about a proactive approach to housing, which is the government getting back into the business of housing, making sure that we have affordable housing, that we cut down on speculation, that we look at things like social housing, co-ops, and that the government gets back into the business of actually working with municipalities to directly build housing. Many experts across Canada are calling for that solution and, of course, for governments to work together.

The other thing I want to talk about briefly in the time that I have is the governance review committee—the standing committee that travelled. My friend across the way was there. I was at most of those meetings, in places like Barrie and Vaughan and Kitchener and Niagara. We heard a lot from those municipalities. I have to say, while our criticism of this bill is certainly that it’s not the proactive approach that the province needs, at least municipalities and the complaints that were brought forward to that committee are reflected in this bill.

We see a number of things that we heard over and over and over again as we travelled across the seven regions. The first thing that we heard, actually, that I should mention is that there is no appetite for any kind of significant restructuring of those municipalities. People have said loud and clear, from city to city and region to region, that they are interested in addressing the housing crisis directly and working with the provincial government to bring things forward; not in engaging in some kind of navel-gazing exercise, where we’re forcing municipalities to amalgamate and those kinds of issues. So that came through loud and clear. They wanted to focus on housing.

The results of the committee—there were a number of things that came through. One of them, of course, was—and we’ve talked quite a bit about the use-it-or-lose-it policy, something that we have been pushing on this side of the House for quite some time. The government, in Bill 109, I believe it was, came forward with measures that—municipalities had to process planning applications in a certain period of time, and that created a lot of issues for municipalities that were already struggling with capacity. We said that if the government is going to force municipalities to process those applications—and that’s not a bad measure, if we have reasonable time limits, if there were some developments that had been out there for many years. It’s also fair for developers and builders to have restrictions placed on them, so that when they use the resources of the planning process, they get shovels in the ground in an appropriate time period. There was a lot of resistance from the government. They are pretty captured with developers—a lot of the policies of this government have been that they listen only to developers and have come forward with the intent of making life as easy as possible for developers; certainly not for municipalities. So it’s good to see that the government has finally listened. We heard, I think in every single region and pretty much every presentation that was made, the need for some kind of measure to get developers to get shovels in the ground because of the amount of speculation that was happening right across the province, and because it’s only fair, if municipalities have to process those applications, that developers have to get shovels in the ground.

Also, with Bill 23, there was a loss of revenue to municipalities of upwards of $4 billion, according to AMO, and that had to do with development charges, of course. When the province came forward with their building communities fund, which was about a $1.2-billion fund—of course, that is only a fraction of the revenue that municipalities lost. One of the biggest problems for municipalities that applied for that fund is that the criteria for getting money was shovels in the ground, and of course municipalities have no control over shovels in the ground. With interest rates and inflation, it became less and less economic for developers to actually start their developments, so those started to stall even more. When you have the speculation that was happening and then you have those developments not moving forward—that was creating a real logjam. The Ontario Big City Mayors, for example, and AMO all came forward and said, “There are hundreds of thousands of homes in the pipeline. We have to get those moving. There’s far too much speculation, far too many developers sitting on developments.” I had one in Port Colborne, in my riding, that was there since the 1980s. These are builders and developers that took up municipal time and resources to put those through.

It is good to see measures. We’re going to watch very carefully how those come out in committee.

A use-it-or-lose-it law that gives municipalities more power to motivate a developer to build a development, once they’ve been given the approvals to do so, is something that we’re certainly supportive of, and we’re happy the government has come forward with that.

I’ve mentioned already the money lost in Bill 23 through the development charge issue. We see that AMO, in response to this bill, is still not completely satisfied with what the government has done here. They’ve made some move to help municipalities recover some of those funds, but there’s still an awfully big funding gap, and there are many municipalities that don’t qualify for the money.

I can tell you, in my area, in Niagara Centre—I represent a small part of St. Catharines, but most of my riding is Thorold, Welland and Port Colborne. Of the 12 municipalities in Niagara, as the governance review committee heard when they were in Niagara, in St. Catharines—they heard very clearly from Thorold, which is the city where I live, with less than 50,000 people, so they don’t qualify for that money, to get that money they lost through the DC changes back. They don’t qualify simply because they have less than 50,000 population. But they built more housing than any other municipality in Niagara, and so they’re actually asking the government for a housing target because they know they will far, far exceed it and they could use that money.

So there’s certainly an inequity from municipality to municipality in having some arbitrary cut-off like 50,000 population, and all of these municipalities, especially smaller ones, are not qualifying. That’s exacerbated because a lot of the small municipalities, of course, are in rural areas. And in rural areas, what’s the biggest problem that we heard over and over and over in the governance review committee? It’s water and sewer infrastructure. You can’t build homes unless you have that water and sewer infrastructure. Yes, it’s good that the government has finally come forward with a fund where those municipalities can apply, but there is an inequity there for municipalities that are working really hard and are actually asking for housing targets so that they can qualify for that funding.

We’re also pleased to see some changes with respect to MZOs—we believe very similarly to what AMO believes. AMO just came out with their analysis of this bill. In their analysis, they very clearly state that they believe MZOs should only be used in emergencies and in areas of the north, for example, where there is not a planning regimen there and so the intervention of the minister is appropriate. So we’re not satisfied; we still believe that MZOs are not something that should be used other than when they’re actually needed. But we’re certainly happy to see that there is a more transparent and accountable process for them now, and we’re looking forward to looking at that in committee and possibly putting forward some amendments to that.

I see I’m almost out of time, but I would be remiss if I didn’t touch on the Peel dissolution issue. As we travelled around from region to region, certainly we brought up what was happening with Peel at the time. The government moved forward without doing their homework, without doing their research, and created a situation in Peel where there were, at one time, 350 staff per week leaving Peel region—just on the rumour or on the legislation that was about to move forward. They don’t need to stay somewhere they’re not wanted or where they’re not going to be able to keep their jobs, so they were leaving in droves. It created a great deal of—

I am pleased to rise today to speak about the grand reopening of the Native Horizons Treatment Centre that will be taking place tomorrow in Brantford–Brant, where I will be joined by the Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addictions.

In December 2018, I was deeply saddened to learn that Native Horizons, located on the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation, had burnt to the ground in a devastating fire.

Over the last few years, Native Horizons has undergone a transformation of its own and has been rebuilt bigger and better than before. The new facility boasts rebuilt portions of the building, including the addition of multi-purpose and spiritual rooms, and the construction of spaces for trauma-informed programming and cultural-based activities.

Some staff at Native Horizons have compared the journey of the facility to that of a phoenix rising from the ashes. I think that is a perfect analogy, as in many ways, Native Horizons’ rebuild symbolizes the change that it has on its clients, by empowering countless Indigenous individuals to reclaim control over their lives and rise to overcome mental health and addictions obstacles.

Native Horizons’ story is one of resilience and hope, and I am proud of the work that they have done to rebuild and the work that they continue to do in the community.

We enjoy great privileges in being elected officials, and one of them is when the community reaches out to us and touches us personally.

I want to thank the students from Hopewell public school and their teacher Ms. Vorobej, who are hopefully watching this right now—hello, everybody—for touching my heart about an issue I was unaware of before your leadership, and that is the health of Ontario’s boreal caribou.

These students at Hopewell public school did a module last semester where they talked about the fact that of the 51 populations of boreal caribou in Canada, 37 of those populations are deemed not self-sustaining. What it means for our pristine and beautiful north is that the species of the boreal caribou, an iconic species for Ontario, are literally poised, potentially, for extinction. I note that Ministers of the Environment in this current government and previous have made this a priority, and I note that the federal government has said that Ontario needs to have the strategy that they deem to be acceptable by this month, April 2024.

I want to thank the students from Hopewell public school who wrote me personal notes and who helped collaborate with me in a letter to Minister Andrea Khanjin that I will be hand-delivering this morning, because that is what citizenship actually is. Citizenship is when you use your voice to speak out to people in our profession, to send a message, to care about someone you’ve never met.

Bless you, students at Hopewell public school. Thank you for your leadership. Let’s work together to protect the boreal caribou.

Today I rise to celebrate National Volunteer Week 2024, a week to pause, reflect and give thanks to the many individuals who give tirelessly every day in our communities. As we honour this year’s theme of “Every Moment Matters,” it is important to truly recognize every volunteer who adds value to those words.

A volunteer is defined by many adjectives and actions, often including words like “dedicated,” “consistent,” “loving” and “welcoming”. They bring hope, joy, strength and support to all of those they engage with.

In Hamilton Mountain, volunteers support school nutrition programs, classroom activities, food banks, literacy groups, community gardens, co-ops, long-term-care facilities, hospitals, hospices, cancer assistance programs, community sports, neighbourhood associations, events, festivals, and so many other amazing activities.

Volunteers are from neighbourhoods, organizations and groups spanning many diverse interests. They’re working together to support one another, sharing common visions and goals, and inspiring future generations to continue this important and much-needed work.

To all volunteers, I sincerely say thank you. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your commitment to helping others. Thank you for making a difference in people’s lives. Thank you for continuing to show up and lend a hand, a smile and a moment that matters.

Many sayings and expressions have been shared over the years about volunteers and volunteerism. To quote Elizabeth Andrew: “Volunteers do not necessarily have the time; they have the heart.”

Happy National Volunteer Week.