I’ve received many requests over the years, and in particular one group called Parent Finders of Canada. They reached out to me because they wanted to express how important it is that adoptees who have biological parents who have deceased are able to access their heritage and their family lineage. Right now, the legislation doesn’t allow for people to find that out, but our petition proposes that we give post-adoption birth information. That separates the immediate family members and prohibits the children of deceased adopted people from gaining access and knowledge of their identity and possibly their Indigenous heritage. So this petition allows them to do that when their biological parents or next of kin is deceased.

I fully support this petition. I will give it to page Shylah to deliver to the table.

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.

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?

It’s a privilege to stand on the behalf of the fine people from St. Paul’s to speak on this bill with regard to building more housing. Affordable housing is what we’d hope it’s building.

I’d like to ask the member if they feel, from their interpretation of this bill, that it’s actually going to create the real, deep affordable housing that we need in our communities today.

I’d also like to ask the member to reflect on whether or not rent control is something that comes up at the doorstep, day after day, when they’re knocking or on the phone. It’s certainly something that comes up in St. Paul’s.

I’d also like to ask whether or not this bill addresses demovictions and illegal evictions, which are a couple of other things that folks in St. Paul’s are quite disappointed about and are looking to this Conservative government to provide answers, leadership, accountability, so they can feel safe and secure in their homes and not have to worry about being pushed out of St. Paul’s or any other community in Ontario.

I’ll just ask on the bonusing part of it because the member is passionate about that. This House actually approved bonusing measures with respect to the Volkswagen deal, the St. Thomas deal, which was unanimously supported by the House.

What the legislation, of course, contemplates is putting that same type of measure into the authority of the cabinet. It does not give the municipalities the right to automatically bonus. It gives municipalities the right to come to cabinet and seek approval to provide that bonusing, in much the same way it was handled with St. Thomas.

So I’m wondering, with that explanation, if the member would be more inclined to supporting that part of the bill.

That gives me more comfort. There’s no question about that. I just feel that it’s a slippery slope. I guess we’re going to find out how it works out with Volkswagen. This whole idea—and even when we were in government—of picking winners and losers, it’s a mug’s game, right? Sometimes you come up short. You spin the wheel.

So that gives me more comfort. I still think that there’s risk in there. There will be a lot of pressure inside cabinet to do this, and you may get a lot more requests than you think because they’re going to start to play that against us. More and more corporations are coming for our money—taxpayers’ money—and we have to be very wary about that.

On rent control, here’s the reality: On anything built after 2018, or with an eviction or somebody leaving, rents are out of control, so there has to be some sort of throttle, and there’s none.

I’ll give you a story—I think I’ve told this story here before. I called my pharmacist to get a prescription and talked to a woman who I’ve known for 30 years. She’s in tears on the phone, saying, “I don’t know where I’m going to live. My landlord is raising my rent, and I can’t afford to live there. I’ve lived there for a long time.” Now, that’s a different issue altogether, but that also involves the Landlord and Tenant Board. She can’t wait a year.

It didn’t cut red tape for tenants in any way, shape or form. It didn’t help them. It didn’t help them with affordability, and the member is perfectly right.

I think it’s fair for me to think that the government might do that. Maybe that’s not the intention of the minister, but I could see it being the intention of the government at some point to say, “Guys, you don’t have a problem. We gave you this power; use it. Make some money. Get some income.” That’s the way I see it, and I thank the member for his question.

I’d like to thank the member from Beaches–East York for her presentation. I think it’s important in this discussion, whenever we’re discussing landlords, that we differentiate between those small landlords, those families who look after their tenants in a kind way. They’re responsive, they treat them like a member of the family and they are fair, as opposed to those corporate, faceless landlords who really try to gouge people.

I believe it was the former Liberal government that brought in vacancy decontrol, which really incentivized these corporate landlords to kick good, long-term tenants out because they knew they could jack up the rent to whatever the market could withstand, and that this Conservative government has really continued that system of exploitation.

To the member from Beaches–East York: Do you have any thoughts about vacancy control?

Thank you very much to the member from London North Centre. I was not here at that time. As you know, I came in in June 2022. I’m happy to consider anything I can to keep people housed—from an equity point of view, from an affordability point of view. We were just evicted from our constituency office. It’s different than a home, but my whole team has experienced what that feels like now and have a lot more empathy in that situation.

But I’m really perplexed that the government isn’t looking at bold and brave measures, as they have been told by their housing task force, as has been mentioned in this House a million times. Our own backyard is looking at provincial lands.

Many cities like New York, Manhattan, they don’t have downtown surface parking lots because they put the parking underneath and they build housing on those. So we are not looking at—I’m looking at the Minister of Housing over there, when he’s going to sign off on the MTSAs, things like that. There are many tools in the tool box we could be—

Thank you.

The Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

I wanted to follow up on the question from the member from London because, as you know, the elimination of rent controls on new purpose-built rental housing actually was a policy of the NDP government back in 1991, when the current Leader of the Opposition was a staff member with the government.

The reason they did that was because the policies of the Liberal government, from 1985 to 1990, were so disastrous that nobody was building rental housing. So the then government, the NDP government, decided that the only way to get people back into building rental housing in the province of Ontario was to eliminate rent controls on new purpose-built housing after 1991. So I’m wondering if the member doesn’t find it somewhat ironic that the NDP now are against their own policy there.

On the MTSAs, if she reads the provincial planning statement, she will see that it is very clear of what the expectations are around major transit station areas—in fact, larger than that. And you will know—it was before your time. The transit-oriented communities were passed before you were there.

But I wonder if she can comment on the irony of the NDP position now on a—