More women are working today as a consequence of our government’s commitment to reduce child care fees, after they exploded by 500% under the former Liberals—$50 a day; today, under our Progressive Conservative government, it’s at $23, on the way down to $10 a day. That is an achievement that makes a difference to supporting women and mothers and supporting more of them in the economy. And we’re going to keep doing this. We’re going to keep reducing fees, even if New Democrats oppose our historic reduction. We’re going to keep increasing spaces, even if Liberals oppose our budgets, which commit to 86,000 more spaces for the people of Ontario.

Mr. Speaker, we’re going to keep increasing wages—a 19% increase in year one; $1 per hour per year, every year thereafter. That’s a commitment to support our workers, our families, our economy.

Let’s do this. Let’s keep cutting fees for the people of this province.

We cut fees, saving families $10,000 to $12,000 in Windsor, and the member opposite from the New Democrats had the gall to vote against a 50% reduction. This is a member who opposed a 19% increase in ECEs; this is a member who opposed 86,000 spaces, with thousands of net new spaces for Windsor-Essex families—taking one position in the House and another position in Windsor.

Why doesn’t she stand up in her place and stand with affordable, accessible child care for the people of Ontario?

My question is for the Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade.

Across the world, governments have taken a more active role in trying to secure investments that will strengthen their economy for decades to come. Since we took office, under the leadership of Premier Ford, we’ve restored Ontario’s competitiveness so that, once again, we can compete on that global stage.

But with the federal government’s carbon tax, they’re putting all of our progress at risk. Their tax is driving up costs across the board, at a time when workers and businesses are already grappling with inflationary pressures and higher interest rates. We’ve seen businesses and workers come into our province in massive numbers, and now the federal Liberals want to push them out.

Can the minister explain how the federal Liberal carbon tax is putting the economic progress we’ve made as a government at risk?

I’m proud to introduce legislation that protects consumers from corporate gouging when it comes to maintenance and repairs on heavy farming equipment, wheelchairs, motor vehicles, electronic products and household appliances. This legislation is better known as Right to Repair. This bill is co-sponsored by the MPPs from Timiskaming–Cochrane as well as Parkdale–High Park.

This legislation would require manufacturers of electronic products, household appliances, wheelchairs, motor vehicles and heavy farming equipment to make the following available to consumers and repair businesses: the most recent version of the repair manual; replacement parts; software and tools used for diagnosing, maintaining or repairing their products; and tools for resetting an electronic security function if it is disabled during diagnosis, maintenance or repair.

The bill would enable our farmers to have access to repair manuals and parts for equipment that they have purchased. Furthermore, the manufacturer must also provide the repair manual at no charge or, if a paper version is requested, at a reasonable cost. It would require the manufacturer to provide the replacement parts, software and tools at a fair cost.

There’s too much heckling in here.

On a point of order, I would also like to welcome Brian Crews from the Ontario Federation of Agriculture.

Order. Order.

The opposition will come to order.

Interjection: They get all excited when we talk about raising taxes.

Interjections.

Please start the clock.

Minister of Economic Development.

The member for Thunder Bay–Superior North, on a point of order.

There being no further business this morning, this House stands in recess until 3 p.m.

The House recessed from 1145 to 1500.

Report adopted.

Mr. Rakocevic moved first reading of the following bill:

Bill 187, An Act to amend the Consumer Protection Act, 2023 with respect to the right for consumers to repair consumer electronic products, household appliances, wheelchairs, motor vehicles and farming heavy equipment / Projet de loi 187, Loi modifiant la Loi de 2023 sur la protection du consommateur en ce qui concerne le droit des consommateurs de réparer les produits électroniques, appareils ménagers, fauteuils roulants, véhicules automobiles et équipements agricoles lourds grand public.

First reading agreed to.

I’m pleased to have the opportunity to speak to a petition being tabled today, titled “Vulnerable Persons Alert.” This petition is calling on the government to push Bill 74 through the justice policy committee and back to the Legislature, which would ensure that people who are vulnerable and have gone missing in their communities make their way home safely to their families.

This bill is also hand in hand with the over 100,000 people who have signed online petitions, one calling for a “Draven Alert,” which was due to the death of a young boy with autism; secondly, for a senior in my community of Hamilton. Her name was Shirley Love and she went missing, had dementia and was found days later, unfortunately, deceased. This bill would absolutely ensure that the community was aware that someone was missing in their local geographic area and hopefully bring them home safely.

I wholeheartedly support this petition, will affix my name to it and give it to page Simon to bring to the Clerk.

The petition is to raise social assistance rates. We know that people who are on social assistance in the province of Ontario are living in legislated poverty. The lack of funds does not even cover the rent, and we are seeing so many people end up in food banks.

There were 230 organizations that signed a letter to the minister and to the Premier asking them to double social assistance rates. People on Ontario Works have not seen an increase in over a decade—$733 a month, as we all know, is impossible to be able to rent safe, affordable housing, and people on ODSP are truly not much better at $1,308 with minimal increases.

I wholeheartedly support this petition, will affix my name to it and give it to page Audrey to bring to the Clerk.

I beg leave to present a report from the Standing Committee on the Interior and move its adoption.

Your committee begs to report the following bill without amendment:

Bill 165, An Act to amend the Ontario Energy Board Act, 1998 respecting certain Board proceedings and related matters / Projet de loi 165, Loi modifiant la Loi de 1998 sur la Commission de l’énergie de l’Ontario en ce qui concerne certaines instances dont la Commission est saisie et des questions connexes.

I would like to introduce Judy and Rick from my great riding of Perth–Wellington, and Aunt Marilyn, as well, who is here from Toronto—it’s an okay place.

I’d also like to recognize Judy. She has worked in the member for Wellington–Halton Hills’s constituency office for 33 years, and I believe she is most likely the longest-serving staff to an MPP currently in Ontario.

Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Applause.

Back to the minister: The people of Ontario and, quite frankly, the people across our country have been loud and clear in their opposition to the carbon tax. It doesn’t matter where we are in the province; everyone is telling us that the federal government needs to scrap the carbon tax. We know the members opposite are hearing the same things in their riding. And yet, like their counterparts, they’re not moving forward to scrap the tax.

Bonnie Crombie, just like Justin Trudeau—they are all the same. They’re out of touch. They’re not listening to their constituents.

Minister, please tell the House why it’s so important that the federal government scraps that tax.

Recently, I had the opportunity to tour Ark Aid Street Mission’s Cronyn-Warner site. I’d like to dedicate these petitions on behalf of Rob, who told us his story about finally having a place to be safe and to be warm. The petition is entitled “London’s Urgent Homelessness Crisis.”

In this petition, Speaker, it talks about how the shelters are running over 100% capacity on a daily basis, that there are almost 2,000 people on the homelessness registry and that there are over 300 Londoners experiencing chronic homelessness. What this petition calls for is this government to actually invest in affordable housing, supportive housing, those vital wraparound supports we hear a lot of talk about but less action upon from this government in particular to make sure that people have the supports that they require so that they can be safe, they can rebuild their lives and they can contribute to our community in the ways that they know that they can.

I fully support this petition, will affix my signature and deliver it with page Shiara to the Clerks.

This petition is entitled “Improve Ontario’s Child and Youth Mental Health Services.” What it calls for is this government to actually make significant investments to make sure that children and youth are able to access mental health care in a timely manner. We need to make sure that we’re addressing the root causes of these things, not dealing with everything that comes afterwards.

This government has the opportunity to make sure that kids have the supports they need when and where they need them, not making people wait endlessly on a wait-list while problems compile and while situations get out of control. Let’s think about those six kids that were reported at committee, which are actually now nine kids put into care who didn’t actually need care but because they weren’t able to get mental health supports.

I’m going to sign this petition on their behalf and deliver it with page Brayden to the Clerks.

Speaker, we’ve been talking about this carbon tax, and what we’ve seen today is a fundamental difference between how Liberals and NDP raise revenue and how Conservatives raise revenue. To raise revenue, the Liberals and the NDP raise taxes. That’s the only thing they know how to do. That is their go-to solution: raise taxes. But we have shown them that there is another way. We’ve shown them there is a right way to raise taxes—or to raise revenue.

Interjections.

Interjections.

We have shown them the right way to raise revenue. We have lowered taxes by $8 billion annually, creating 700,000 jobs. Revenue is up $64 billion since we took office, and that is by decreasing taxes.

We are doing our part, by building homes, cutting the gas tax, creating the conditions for businesses and workers to succeed. We need the Liberals to do their part now.

Scrap this terrible tax today.

It’s a pleasure to rise and speak about Bill 185. There are some good things in this bill: the use-it-or-lose-it, the reversal on the development charges. It’s not too late to do the right thing, even when you’ve done the wrong thing, so it’s good to see that.

One of the things, though, that—speaking of reversals—we may end up in a reversal on is the proposals for bonusing, allowing municipalities to bonus people who want to come to the city, usually large corporations who are looking for a corporate tax break. Of course, that wasn’t allowed in Ontario because we didn’t want to pit communities against each other—like Cornwall against Ottawa, or an even smaller place like Arnprior against Ottawa—that couldn’t afford to bonus, that it would bankrupt them if they provided a great benefit to a corporation coming in.

And we can see that it’s kind of a mug’s game when it comes to—well, people call it “corporate welfare.” You have the Ford plant, which is going to have lay off workers for, I don’t know, a couple of years because they’re not going to get it done, but they got millions and millions and millions of taxpayer dollars.

These corporations, they’re not anchored here. They change; they get sold. You get different leadership. So this bonusing is not the right thing to do, and I think what we’ll find out, once we go through this, is we’ll be doing the same thing that we’re doing on development charges. We’ll go, “Oh, my gosh, we did this. It wasn’t the right thing to do,” because we’ve got all these small municipalities who stuck their neck out to get a corporation that came to town, and they wanted to beat out somebody else or a bigger city, and they won’t be able to afford it. And do you want to know who gets stuck with that bill? The province.

So I don’t understand why this is in this bill. It smells to me—feels to me like development charges—so this one we’ll be driving in reverse again, which seems to be the favoured gear. R is not for race; it’s for reverse. I can’t support this bill for that reason, that reason alone.

I think it’s a risky financial move for the province, not just municipalities. In the questions, I would like to hear why it’s a good idea, why it hasn’t been a good idea. Maybe it’s actually just downloading the costs of attracting businesses on to municipalities and on to municipal taxpayers. It doesn’t make sense.

Building more student housing is a good thing. Now, maybe the whole idea is going to try to create another income stream for universities, like foreign students, that will ensure that the government doesn’t have to fund them better. I’m not sure. I think it’s a good thing. I hope that’s not it. But if I was going to say anything about this bill, it’s that the idea of bonusing is a very risky one, financially. I think the long-term consequences of that will not be good for Ontario, for municipal taxpayers, for municipalities and, in the long run, for this Legislature.

This is a petition about raising the ODSP, and it comes from Dr. Sally Palmer, who has collected thousands and thousands of signatures.

In the petition, it points out that under current costs in this affordability crisis, if you’re on ODSP or OW, it is almost impossible to live. It’s almost impossible to pay your rents, impossible to pay your foods.

There has been a call to double ODSP for a long time, and marginal increases are just not enough. I certainly will be signing this petition and giving it to page Simon.

Resuming the debate adjourned on April 16, 2024, on the motion for second reading of the following bill:

Bill 185, An Act to amend various Acts / Projet de loi 185, Loi modifiant diverses lois.

Further debate?

Today, I will be sharing my time with the member for Ottawa South—the amazing member for Ottawa South, actually.

Bill 185, Cutting Red Tape to Build More Homes Act: The government is being a little sneaky because, yes, the Minister of Housing did put forward this bill, but it was under his role as Minister of Legislative Affairs, not as Minister of Housing. This is all they would let the minister get away with, I suppose, after what I hear were some intense cabinet meetings. And the thing is, it is literally so far from an actual housing bill that they cannot even call this a housing bill and propose it by the Minister of Housing. So that’s telling. That is very telling.

The legacy of this government will be how it failed young people, families and newcomers by making the dream of home ownership a nightmare. What a shame. What a wasted opportunity. When I’m out and about in my community, I hear from young people—I also have two young people I call my children—and they’re so disheartened. They’re just so disheartened; some of them leaving Ontario. Yesterday I heard prices of homes in Scotland are a third of what they are in Ontario. It’s such a shame to lose our youth because we can’t get it done.

The province is proposing to study the building code and the changes that would make four-storey buildings easier to build. That’s great. Yet, they refuse to allow fourplexes as of right across Ontario. How does that even make sense? I think cutting red tape should mean skipping these extra steps and implementing provincial zoning standards, not relying on municipalities to do this for you. We’ve proposed to do this with the BUILD bill put forward by my colleague the member from Don Valley East, and what was the government’s response? A bill that is not even enough about housing to be put forward by the Ministry of Housing. Where is the leadership?

Parking minimums in protected major transit station areas are to be prohibited, as well as in areas where minimum densities are required by official plans or provincial policies. So Bill 185 will eliminate parking minimums near major transit stations. Again, this is good. It’s a good thing for densifying these areas. However, the Minister of Housing has still not approved the MTSAs in Toronto. I think he’s getting tired of me asking where these approvals are, but I will not be quiet about it until he approves them. What is the point of the elimination of parking minimums if these areas don’t have approval yet to build? As I have said before: Tick tock, you need a clock, Minister.

Something Bill 185 does do right is to allow 18-storey mass timber construction, which is a step in the right direction, as it will help bring down construction costs and mass timber can store carbon for generations, keeping it out of the atmosphere—more of that, please, and more of removing the requirements to drywall over this cross-laminated timber.

However, changes to the rules around development charges are disappointing. Development charges in municipalities like Toronto have increased much more rapidly than property taxes, unfairly burdening newcomers and young people entering the housing market.

Limiting the rates of increases to these taxes is reasonable. It does not make sense to excessively tax construction of new housing during a housing shortage, yet the province is backtracking to allow this.

The government’s proposed provincial planning statement, coupled with this bill, seems calculated to ensure that the greenbelt sprawl and real estate scandal—still under an RCMP criminal investigation, may I remind you—spreads and expands into a wave of suburban greenfield scandals. I think they could have called it the cutting environmental protections and building more sprawl act. That would be a much more accurate title.

Bill 185 would hinder efforts to speed up housing construction by promoting the wasteful, low-density sprawl that has already caused Ontario’s housing shortage.

Why does the government continue to ignore the advice of experts? They refuse to follow the advice of their own Housing Affordability Task Force as well as this year’s Blueprint for More and Better Housing, which was co-authored by former federal Conservative deputy leader Lisa Raitt.

Time and time again, we hear the same thing: Focus on new housing in cities and communities where there is existing infrastructure to cut housing costs, speed up construction times, reduce carbon pollution and prevent catastrophic loss due to climate threats like wildfire and flooding. Yet with Bill 185, they would effectively wipe out the protective settlement area boundaries and municipal comprehensive review processes that prevent low-density sprawl from destroying what remains of farmland and natural areas.

This government is refusing to take responsibility for building housing in Ontario. They’re at risk of losing federal funding for housing and I don’t think the non-housing housing Bill 185 is going to cut it. They want to pass the buck onto municipalities because they don’t have the courage or foresight to be bold and build housing themselves.

The truth is many of these municipalities are made up of NIMBY councillors and groups. But hey, so is this government, so we really can’t be surprised that they too refuse to act.

Here we are, six years later into this government reign, and we are no longer closer to solving the housing crisis. Bill 185 is not even a housing bill. It does not do enough. This government reverses so much, they seem to only be driving Ontario backwards.

Now we’ll have questions to the members who presented.

I have two universities in my riding: Ontario Tech and another, Trent Durham. The need for more student housing is very clear every time I go on campus, and after the introduction of our bill, I wasn’t surprised to see a quote from the Council of Ontario Universities. I’m going to read it into the record, Speaker, with your permission:

“Exempting universities from provisions in the Planning Act and removing zoning barriers will help expedite the development and construction of much-needed campus housing projects”—and that’s the truth—“as well as help ensure student success.”

Universities like Ontario Tech and Trent Durham are asking us to support these important measures; our bill does that. Can the member opposite from Ottawa South—and he has universities as well—tell us if they can answer the call and vote for this important legislation and help students succeed?