We are on the side of women—women being in the driver’s seat of their economic future, women who can have the choice to be in the C-suite or to work the front line. I am so proud of what we’re doing to ensure that we are fighting to see that women have any area that they want to get into.

I have been able to go down 10,000 feet in a mine, and guess who I found down there? I found women working down there. In a sector that has traditionally been male-dominated, we are seeing more women taking on the brave step to say, “I can be down in those mines. I can be working in Women in Wood,” which is another group that I have been able to meet with.

Do you know what else, Mr. Speaker? We’re ensuring that women have the opportunity to be in the leadership positions. We want to ensure that men will support women and give them the opportunity to take on these leadership positions.

We know that we’re going to see more women in these leadership positions that the—

I think the support and the fellowship that we have with women in every single sector, especially our front-line workers, is paramount.

I want to talk about the number of women on boards. I think our government has done some major things to ensure that we are seeing equal representation on boards. We want to keep encouraging this trend. More women are sitting on boards than ever before—and when you have more women at the head, you have a 75% increase of the rest of the company having gender equity.

These are the things that we’re doing. And we’re working in these sectors to ensure that we are putting women in these leadership positions everywhere in the province.

That’s why a quote from the chamber of commerce release said, “The good news is that women’s wages have grown faster than men’s in recent decades....” That’s because of the work we’re doing in our government to make sure that we’re building Ontario’s economy.

If we understand the economics, a poor economy means women suffer. And if we actually look at what’s happening today—we saw the federal Liberals, supported by the Liberals in this House, increase the carbon tax. Do you know who that impacts? That impacts women.

Right now, we have so many women who have to choose whether or not they’re going to put their child in swimming lessons or pay their hydro bill.

Mr. Speaker, we know a poor economy is what really impacts women. We saw, when jobs were being chased away, women had to become the sole income earners for homes. That’s terrible.

That’s why we’ve made the steps. Our Minister of Economic Development has attracted billions of dollars of new industry investments in Ontario, and women are going to be the beneficiaries of that.

Supporting women and supporting our economy means making sure that women are kept safe.

We’re going to continue to move forward and do what we’re doing to build Ontario’s economy, and women are at the forefront of that.

I’m proud to rise this afternoon to speak on Bill 185, the Cutting Red Tape to Build More Homes Act, introduced by the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. I want to thank him and his team, including the associate minister and the parliamentary assistants from Perth–Wellington and Etobicoke–Lakeshore, for all their work on this bill, which will help us towards our goal to build 1.5 million homes by 2031, including 120,000 in Mississauga.

Speaker, the former Liberal government doubled the number of provincial regulations, from 200,000 to 383,000. They added over 10,000 new regulations every year. That is an average of 30 new regulations every single day for 15 years. In 2018, our government inherited the largest red tape burden in Canada. Stakeholders like the Federation of Rental-housing Providers of Ontario warned that red tape was complicating the development process, leading to more delays, higher costs and less affordable housing.

As the other members have said, former Liberal leader Steven Del Duca admitted the housing crisis began eight years ago, under the former Liberal government. But the steps in Bill 185, combined with other actions we have already taken, are expected to save people and businesses $1.2 billion and over 1.5 million hours each year. I’d like to speak about just a few of these this afternoon, beginning with schedule 12, which would amend the Planning Act to help reduce the cost of new homes.

As the minister said, we’re committed to working in partnership with municipalities, not micromanaging or taking a “Queen’s Park knows best” approach. But we also have to recognize, as the Housing Affordability Task Force did, that some municipal leaders will always give in to NIMBY pressures to resist new housing. And no municipal leader in Ontario has resisted new housing more than former mayor Bonnie Crombie. From 2016 to 2021, the population of the GTA grew by about 270,000 people, or 5%, but in Mississauga, we lost about 1,000 people each year under Mayor Crombie.

Eric Lombardi from More Neighbours Toronto said that her record was absolutely ridiculous.

As Oliver Moore wrote in the Globe and Mail, Mississauga was “shrinking because of deliberate municipal policies.”

Earlier this year, Steve Cornwell at the Mississauga News wrote that in 2023, Bonnie Crombie’s last full year as mayor, Mississauga city council approved seven development applications, including 2,000 residential units, but they rejected at least 13 applications, which included about 17,000 units. In other words, under the leadership of Bonnie Crombie, Mississauga rejected about 90% of the housing units proposed last year. As a result, Mississauga hit only 39% of their target and failed to qualify for provincial funding through the Building Faster Fund.

Some of the developments the city rejected include new buildings near the Port Credit GO station, the future Port Credit LRT station and the Mississauga transit bus terminal. One of these was a proposal for a 17-storey building with 148 units of purpose-built rentals just a few hundred metres away from three transit lines, including higher-order transit. The local councillor said this proposal was “the most offensive.” And Speaker, Bonnie Crombie agreed with this. She said it would add “way too much density,” and she asked the builder to come back with a proposal that would “fit.” The city planned for an area of a maximum of three storeys. Again, this is just south of a major interregional transit hub. Nearby, the city rejected a proposal for another 11-storey building with 42 units because, again, it was over three storeys and it included only 37 parking spaces where the city wanted 80.

So, Speaker, again, I want to thank the minister and his team for schedule 12, which would amend section 16 of the Planning Act to eliminate parking requirements for development near transit.

Home builders and homebuyers should be able to decide for themselves based on the market and how much parking is needed in major transit station areas. Minimum parking requirements don’t take into account the personal choice of residents who might prefer to take transit and not own a car, especially right next door to the Hurontario LRT, a MiWay bus terminal and the Port Credit GO station.

I want to take a moment here to thank the Premier and the Minister of Transportation for their announcement yesterday on the historic expansion of GO Transit service on the Lakeshore line and Milton line. ONxpress is planning to run up to 18 trains per hour on the Lakeshore West line. That’s an average of one train every three minutes. It’s no wonder why some residents might not want to pay an extra $100,000 for a parking spot. And Ontarians should be free to make their own choices. This is what Bill 185 would allow, and it could save up to $50 million for a 500-unit development in some municipalities and make it easier to build and to buy new homes near transit. This was recommendation 12(c) of the Housing Affordability Task Force, which Bonnie Crombie opposed as mayor and now supports. In fact, she said that she now supports all recommendations, but as mayor, she supported only 30% of them.

Speaker, I’ll give you another example: schedule 12 of Bill 185, which would amend section 35 of the Planning Act to eliminate municipal restrictions, like limits on the number of bedrooms allowed, to help add new homes, including basement apartments and laneway homes.

But some of the changes in Bill 185 also reflect the advice of the municipal partners, including Mississauga. In particular, I’m glad to see changes to sections 41 and 70 of the Planning Act, which would introduce a new use-it-or-lose-it policy. As the parliamentary assistant said, seven municipalities have reported that work on over 70,000 planned housing units has not been used over the last two years. The changes of schedule 12 will help us get shovels in the ground faster on developments that are ready to proceed.

Speaker, I want to take a moment to talk about schedule 7, which would refocus the Peel Region Transition Board on building homes and making local government more effective, including the transforming of services like land use planning and regional roads from Peel region to lower-tier municipalities. As the minister said, we originally thought dissolution was the best approach, but it’s now clear it would have cost us more taxes in the city of Mississauga. That’s why we are going back to the Peel region.

Speaker, Bonnie Crombie might be okay with that, but it will not help the people of Mississauga. It will increase their taxes.

I want to note that the government is also proposing to update the provincial planning statement to encourage density around transit and through the redevelopment of plazas and shopping malls. Some members will recall that a year ago, a local NIMBY group presented a video at the Mississauga PDC meeting that suggested plaza redevelopment would attract sex traffickers as tenants and become an actual threat to children. Speaker, Bonnie Crombie said that that was a wonderful video.

I want to urge everyone to read our proposal. It is available online at the Environmental Registry. Your submissions have to be in by May 12.

Once again, I just want to thank the minister and his team for this bill today.