Last week, I reported to this place that there were calmer winds in carbon tax paradise as Jagmeet had reaffirmed and, in fact, embraced the carbon tax. Well, in his second perfidious act in as many weeks, he’s now not sure he would bring forward further increases. He said, “I recognize the hardship that it brings to families and businesses.” And, of course, mum’s the word from the queen of the carbon tax.

These inveterate vacillators aren’t fooling any of us.

From Kiiwetinoong to Cochrane, from Sault Ste. Marie to Fort Severn, the message is clear from northern Ontarians: We can’t afford this carbon tax. Scrap the tax.

My friend Pascal Fraser from Kapuskasing owns Buma Apartments. This guy talks about every aspect of this business costing more. He relies on fleets of vehicles for various operational needs—increased costs for gas, maintenance, repair, tenant services.

This is embedded in every supply chain imaginable, and in a region of Canada that’s more expensive than just about any, we’re feeling it the most.

The message is clear: The people of northern Ontario are saying, “Mr. Trudeau, Mr. Singh and Mrs. Crombie: Scrap the carbon tax.”

My question is to the Premier.

Last year, representatives from Niagara region came to Queen’s Park with several straightforward asks, one of them being a commitment to funding for the South Niagara Falls Wastewater Solutions project. Although members in the region were able to get that commitment, funding was only guaranteed if the federal government introduced an infrastructure program that would support the cost-sharing structure. The provincial and federal government must each do their part, but the region stated that they must move forward with this critical project now.

This government says they want municipalities to build thousands of more homes and they’ve given targets, yet we all know when we continue to build, we must ensure municipalities’ infrastructure keeps pace. When we build more homes, we have more water waste. Ensuring we have appropriate waste water treatment infrastructure in place in Niagara as it continues to grow is vitally important to our community—

I’m proud to be standing up here today to propose and present some of the practical solutions that we have on this side of the House to address the housing crisis and the homelessness crisis.

What is very clear right now is that in Ontario today housing is utterly unaffordable. It is utterly unaffordable. It is extremely difficult to find a place that is affordable for you to rent and it is next to impossible for to you find a place that you can afford to buy. The Conservatives have had five years—really, six—to fix the housing crisis, and they have failed. I know they love to look at the federal government and they look at the Liberals and they say, “Well, you know, they’re the reason why we’re having a housing crisis.” I’m here to tell you very clearly that it is the Conservatives. You are the reason why we have a housing crisis today.

I think about the wait-list for community housing, for affordable housing, and there are—I just checked; I went to the city of Toronto website this afternoon—85,000 people waiting for an affordable home. Some of them have been waiting for a decade or longer. These are people, these are seniors, these are people who have disabilities, these are single parents. These are people who need help.

We know that up to 50% of people in Ontario are paying unaffordable rent. Now, I have been following very closely what this government has been doing over the last few years on housing, and from my perspective, things have gone from bad to worse. I, quite frankly, think this government doesn’t want the price of rent to go down, because if this government wanted the price of rent to go down, it would have happened, but it doesn’t. It doesn’t.

This government knows full well that more housing will never significantly lower housing prices to affordable levels. This government has put all their eggs in the basket of “Let’s build a whole lot of housing and it’s just going to have a trickle-down effect and maybe it will reduce the price of rent.” It doesn’t. Evidence shows very clearly that it doesn’t.

What we also know, very clearly, is that rent control does not stymie the construction of new purpose rental. I know you like to stay that it does, but evidence very clearly shows that it doesn’t.

A new two-bedroom apartment going for $3,500 a month in Toronto is never going to be affordable for someone on minimum wage. It’s never going to be affordable for a senior on a fixed income. It is never going to be affordable for someone on social assistance. It is never going to be affordable for a student. It is never going to be affordable for an entry level worker who has just moved to Toronto and is looking to start their career. It’s just not. And that’s how much it costs to rent a new vacant two-bedroom apartment in Toronto today.

It shocks me that the federal government is now sending warning letters to the provincial government saying, “Hey, you’ve fallen so far behind in your affordable housing targets that we’re going to hold back funding for affordable housing and we’re going to hold back funding for infrastructure.” That’s how bad it’s gotten because this government, quite frankly, when it comes to affordable housing, is cheap, cheap, cheap. You don’t want to invest. This government doesn’t want to invest.

And their track record is abysmal; 1,187 affordable homes have been built by this government since 2018, at a time that in Toronto alone we have 85,000 people waiting for affordable housing. You’re doing this much—this much—when we have a crisis that is huge. It’s hard to watch.

I also think about all the projects in my riding, the affordable housing projects in my riding that aren’t proceeding even though these projects are so desperate to go ahead. I think of Scott Mission. Scott Mission is in a riding—the residents’ associations fully support this affordable housing project to be built. The affordable housing project will house men, primarily men, who are chronically homeless. It is a very hard population to house, but Scott Mission has had over 100 years of experience serving that community, this community, and they have been working extremely hard to raise millions of dollars.

They already have the land to build an affordable housing project to deal with the homelessness crisis that we have in our riding. Literally 100 metres away, there’s an encampment—100 metres away there’s an encampment. Scott Mission cannot get their project off the ground because they need assistance from the provincial government and the federal government to make it happen. They need assistance. You are not going to make money off people who have been chronically homeless for 15 years. The private sector is not going to be building homes for these people. We need government investment. It’s not coming, and as a result, communities suffer.

I think about all the people in my riding who are struggling to keep their homes. I’ll give you an example. In the last two weeks, we’ve had a 90-year-old senior; his landlord keeps trying to take him to the LTB again and again and again in order to evict him. I have no idea where this individual is going to go if the landlord is finally successful in evicting this tenant, even though the landlord clearly has no intention of moving into this tiny one-bedroom apartment.

I think about Pat, who’s being threatened with eviction from her home at 145 St. George. She tells me she’s not going, but she has the provincial government and the provincial government’s laws stacked up against her. I’m worried about Pat. I’m worried about her because it’s very easy to evict in Ontario today. I’m concerned.

I am proud that we are here today calling for practical, bold solutions to address the housing crisis. The centrepiece of it is to establish an agency called Homes Ontario which will build thousands of non-market and affordable homes, where much of the initial investment is recouped over time through rent. By providing access to public land, of which the provincial government has so much; financing; and low-interest loans, Ontario can and should lead the way in building affordable housing and non-market housing.

Because if we do this, if we move forward on this, we can address the homelessness crisis and the encampments that are in nearly every town and city across Ontario. It’s not just a Toronto problem; it’s in nearly every town and city. If we do this, we can address the affordable housing supply shortages in small towns and rural towns and mid-sized towns across Ontario by partnering with municipalities. We can address the very real backlog of 85,000 people or more who are just looking for an affordable home, a rent-geared-to-income home that they can live in. And it will also allow us to build homes for newcomers and seniors and young career professionals who really want to find a rental they can afford to build their lives and their careers and their families here.

The Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing likes to say that we’re going to be bringing Communist Russia to Canada. That’s one response. But when you take off your ideological blindfold and you look around, you see that other levels of government are moving forward on this very practical and sensible idea with great success. We need to take those very wise ideas and implement them here in Ontario.

I look to the BC government. The BC government has established BC Builds. They are investing $1 billion and $2 billion in financing to build thousands of rental homes on underused public land with the goal of targeting middle-income renters.

I think of the city of Toronto, with their Housing Now program. They are looking at building 15,000 new homes—5,000 of them are affordable—on 22 properties. It is practical. They have the infrastructure. They’re near transit.

I think about the federal government. Even the federal government finally—the polls are not going well for them, so finally, they’re starting to accept some half-decent housing proposals. They are allocating $1 billion to the Rapid Housing Stream to provide loans to developers who will build affordable housing, and they are providing $1.5 billion to support the construction of co-operative housing.

It makes a lot of sense. Other levels of government are doing it, and I believe it is time for Ontario to take that step and, instead of being cheap, invest in non-market and affordable housing so we can address the housing crisis that we have in Ontario today. I urge you to support it because it makes a lot of sense. What this government is doing right now is clearly not working, so start listening to us.

Further debate?

I appreciate the opportunity to speak to this bill today. As Associate Minister of Housing, I spent the last number of months laser-focused on housing and I look forward to sharing some of my perspectives.

I want to point out, to begin, a few issues that I have with the NDP motion and I’d like this chance to talk about some of the history of housing supply in Ontario.

Our province needs more housing of all types. Our government is investing in building more affordable housing, more supportive housing, and we’re cutting red tape to make more market housing get built by community home builders and the not-for-profit sector, not by government.

I’ve read the NDP motion. Some of it I agree with, particularly the first two lines: “Whereas everyone has the right to an affordable home,” I agree; and “Whereas any solution to the housing affordability crisis must include public, non-profit and co-op housing options,” as they do today. The rest, frankly, Speaker, I take exception with.

They say to look forward, you must take a look back, and what we can see when we look back is what worked and what didn’t work and what we can do to build a better future for housing in Ontario. Everyone agrees that Ontario is in a housing supply crisis, and I emphasize the word “supply.” It didn’t happen in the last five years. In fact, Speaker, it happened over the last 30 or 35 years, and we must remember that this crisis was created then.

We have had a population explosion in Ontario; I say this often. Since I was in high school, the population of this province has more than doubled. In fact, the small town of Streetsville that I grew up in was about 6,000 people. And when you talk to the member from Mississauga–Streetsville, she will say that all the farms around Streetsville that I grew up working on are now houses. What do we do, Speaker? Tell those folks to go away? I don’t think so.

We continue to see a massive housing explosion in this province, and we are doing everything we can—under our power, under our will, under our conviction—to get more homes built.

Looking back, under the leader of the former Bill Davis Progressive Conservatives in Ontario, we built houses that we needed. In fact, Premier Davis set the provincial record for the most housing starts in a single year. Then, in 1990, the world changed. We ended up with a new government, led by Premier Rae.

If you’re wondering, Speaker, there’s a reason the NDP doesn’t talk about their record. The reason is that the NDP experiment did not work. In fact, it failed miserably. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation has detailed housing data that goes back to 1955. By the time the NDP left office in 1995, Ontario set a record for the lowest—I repeat, the lowest—number of housing starts since 1955, at 35,818.

I want to reiterate that over the last year of the Peterson Liberal government, Ontario had approximately 73,000 housing starts. When the NDP took office, they inherited a good housing situation, and by the time they left, housing starts were cut in half and the NDP were responsible for creating a housing supply crisis that’s continued on since. In essence, we’ve been playing catch-up since 1995.

When Mike Harris and the PCs won government, they inherited a tough situation. After 2003 and after eight years of steady increases under Premier Harris and Premier Eves, we grew housing starts exponentially. Sadly, in 2003, the last year of our government, we saw housing starts drop. At that time, we’d had the best years since the 1980s, and after 15 years of Liberal government, housing starts waned dramatically. Under the McGuinty-Wynne Liberals, Ontario’s housing starts didn’t fall off a cliff like they did with the NDP, but they certainly did decline. Over the last decade in office, the Liberals averaged just under 67,700 housing starts per year.

Under this government, Ontario has had the best three years of housing starts since the 1980s. Starting from July 2018 going through the end of 2023, Ontario has averaged 86,500 housing starts per year. That’s almost 20,000 more housing starts per year than the Liberals averaged over their last decade in office, and dramatically more than when the NDP were in office in the 1990s.

In 2023, we set a record for the most housing starts on purpose-built rentals in a single year, up 27%. After just over five and a half years of this government, Ontario has already had more housing starts on purpose-built rentals than the Liberals through the last 15 years of their government.

Speaker, the story of housing over the last 35 years has been clear. In 1990, the NDP walked into a good housing situation and failed to get the job done. The Liberals failed to get the job done—

Further debate?

Further debate?

It was a recession.

And as always, facts speak for themselves—facts. And as always, we were left to clean up the mess, and we’ve been cleaning it up ever since.

Look at the situation we have today. We have a housing supply crisis. We’ve had more people coming to this province than we’ve had housing starts. We’re facing economic headwinds. Affordability is the big issue facing all Ontarians and all Canadians. For every one of our constituents, that’s the number one issue. The global economy is sluggish, yet we’re still growing housing starts.

Years of high inflation have caused high interest rates, which, combined with the CMHC stress test, make it very difficult for first-time homebuyers. And let us not forget the lovely carbon tax. It raises costs on every component of every home. The carbon tax on fuel raises the cost to deliver everything, from the concrete used for a foundation to the shingles on the roof. It’s prohibitive. It’s terrible. It’s wrong.

In spite of these challenges, as I have said, Ontario has had the best three years of housing starts since the 1980s. In 2023, Ontario had just under 19,000 housing starts on purpose-built rentals. This year, our finance minister put forward an infrastructure budget that invests billions in housing-enabling infrastructure like water and waste water systems that create more places and more opportunities where homes can be built. Infrastructure need, frankly, is the biggest constraint we have on getting more homes built faster, and this government is doing something about it. We’re investing in the future of home building in Ontario.

Now, let’s examine fourplexes. The motion calls for legalizing fourplexes as of right. This government has moved to three as of right, and we trust local mayors and councils to make their own decisions for their own communities. Today, any municipality can build fourplexes—anyone can. One size doesn’t fit all. As I believe my colleagues already know, fourplexes as of right have already been adopted by many cities throughout the province. However, the fact remains that while housing starts have grown, building fourplexes has not been part of our housing growth in spite of that option existing in large cities or communities across the province.

Speaker, as the Associate Minister of Housing, I was honoured to be able to go to communities like Sarnia, which beat their housing target by 250%, and Chatham-Kent, which beat their housing target by 500%. All of these cities I visited very, very much appreciated their well-earned recognition from the Building Faster Fund, which is a three-year program, as you know. If you didn’t get it this year, you can earn it next year or the year after. When it comes to building new housing, these communities are getting it done, and, as part of the Building Faster Fund, they’re receiving additional funds for housing-enabling infrastructure so they can build even more homes, whatever type of house it is in the housing continuum.

Chatham-Kent and Sarnia, again, as examples, also allow fourplexes selectively. They are allowed in some communities where they make sense, and they aren’t allowed to be built in communities that they don’t make sense in. Let them decide. These cities don’t need to be told what to do by the NDP, the party with the worst housing record in the history of Ontario. These communities are getting homes built.

We’ve travelled from Thunder Bay to St. Catharines, from Sarnia to Ottawa and all points in between. What was the common denominator? Municipalities created a good environment for success, an environment where more homes were built faster. The opposition is acting as if they think that as-of-right fourplexes are a magic bullet to solve the housing crisis. They are wrong. Based on what we’ve seen, based on the evidence from municipalities that chose to do so, that is not the case.

We’ve talked about successes like Chatham-Kent and Sarnia, communities that far exceeded their local housing targets. Perhaps we should also talk about a few failures. One of the biggest failures when it comes to building new housing is Bonnie Crombie’s record. I should note to the opposition that Bonnie Crombie implemented fourplexes as of right in Mississauga. Did this get housing built? No, it didn’t. Bonnie Crombie had one of the worst records for building housing of anyone in the province of Ontario. She accepted housing targets. She boasted that they would not only be met but they would be exceeded by those in her municipality.

I should note that the province of Ontario set housing targets for 2023 and we hit 99% of that target in that year. Now, outside of the city of Mississauga, we exceeded our targets by 104% in the rest of the province, so no lessons needed there when it comes to the carbon tax and how Bonnie Crombie has failed this province in terms of getting more homes built faster.

Affordable housing: This government recognizes the need to get more housing built of all types, wherever you are in the housing continuum. That’s why we’ve invested in more supportive and affordable housing than any previous government. We’ve increased funding for homelessness prevention programs. In my riding alone, in London alone, it went up 62% and switched to a more stable, multi-year funding model that is working and I know is very much appreciated by our municipal partners. That helps our local service managers deliver programs more effectively, again suiting the needs of their particular municipality.

I want to give a shout-out to our not-for-profit stakeholders, whether it’s Indwell, Habitat for Humanity, the Good Shepherd or Ontario’s housing co-operative system, just to name a few. They’re all doing a magnificent job, and we will continue to support them and give them the tools they need to get more housing built.

We’ve also removed development charges for affordable housing, and we’ve lowered them for purpose-built rentals. We’ve also removed the HST from purpose-built rentals in conjunction with the federal government. These changes have had an impact, and we’ll see the results for years to come.

This January in Scarborough, the largest co-operative housing project in the history of Ontario was announced at 2444 Eglinton East. Just down the street across the corner, also in January, Atria Development broke ground on 1,600 new purpose-built rental units near Scarborough Town Centre.

Ontario is building more housing of all types faster than any government in the history of this province. Market housing and non-market housing are getting built. Do we need to get more housing built? Absolutely. We are putting the tools in place to get that done.

This part is important, and I think we talk about it regularly when we’re in this Legislature. It’s clear that we need more places to build homes and more people to build them. That’s why, in this year’s budget, we put a heavy emphasis on investing in housing-enabling infrastructure, and the budget is building the infrastructure we need to get more homes built.

That’s also why this government is working for workers. I would also like to point out that we’re training more people to enter the skilled trades than ever before. Last year, there was a record 27,319 apprenticeship registrations because our government is working for workers. We need more people to build homes, and we’ve taken action to promote the skilled trades and get more people trained. Training more people to get more homes built is a key part of this government’s plan to get more homes built faster.

But I can’t help but notice that the skilled trades aren’t even mentioned anywhere in the NDP motion. In fact, when the NDP released their housing platform in October 2023, a simple word search revealed that there was no mention of training, no mention of workers and no mention of the skilled trades. In October 2023, the NDP housing plan had 14 mentions of “Homes Ontario,” the name of the new bureaucracy they want to create. That will really get homes built.

Much like the motion they put forward today, the official NDP housing plan had zero mentions of labour, zero mentions of the trades, zero mentions of training, zero mentions of jobs and zero mentions of workers. There’s only one party in this Legislature that’s working for workers, and that’s this side of the House. I’m proud that this party is making workers a key part of their plan to get more housing built. That is the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario.

I advise members of this House to vote against this motion. The motion also calls on the government to force fourplexes into communities that choose to take a different direction. The Liberal and NDP plan does not do anything to build new homes faster in Ontario. I encourage members to support a housing plan that is actually getting it done when it comes to building new housing.

In conclusion, in summary, we have a population explosion, a crisis that we’ve not seen in 30-plus years. We’re getting homes built and getting them faster, housing and all parts of the housing continuum. Fourplexes are not a magic bullet; they can be a tool for some communities if they choose to do so. At the end of the day, we’re creating the environment for community home builders, for the not-for-profits and for our municipal partners to create the environment to get the job done.

I was going to start my debate off one way, but I think in fairness, seeing as the member just spoke about Bob Rae—who has been a Liberal for 47 years of his life, I just wanted to say—but you didn’t mention anything about the Premier of Ontario, Mike Harris. I’m going to look at the Speaker because she knows exactly what I’m talking about.

During when he was in power, they closed schools. They closed 26 hospitals. And you know what else he did? You remember this because you were a reporter. They laid off 6,000 nurses—no mention of that by that member over there. It was a surprise. Then, it even went further.

I’m looking at the Speaker because that’s what I’m supposed to do, talk through the Speaker. I knew her before she became a big shot here in the Legislature and an MPP, and she’s sitting as the Speaker. You know what? During that Harris time, do you know what we had? We had rallies in 11 cities in Ontario: London, Windsor, Niagara. But you know the best one was when they were wrapping it up. Do you know who led it? It was led by the NDP and what? The unions. The unions and the NDP, just like that, just like we are today.

Interjections.

But you know what happened? I want to look at the Speaker when I say this, because there’s a reason why I’m looking at you. The last one was in Hamilton. I’m not going to talk out of school here, but I think the Speaker gives me permission to say she was in Hamilton. She was a really good reporter with the paper in Hamilton. Some 110,000 people were at that rally—110,000. Do you remember that? And why were they there? Because they were attacking our schools. They were attacking our hospitals. They were attacking workers. As a matter of fact, it was under Harris. I remember this.

I’ll tell you a quick story. This is a true story. I wasn’t an MPP back then; I was just a president of a local union. It was Mike Harris who cut social assistance to people and told them, “Well, what you can do is you can have bologna sandwiches.” Do you remember that? Well, do you know what I did as president of the local union, because I’m a nice guy? At that time—I’m a good friend of his now; I don’t mind saying it now—the MPP was Bart Maves, who I ran against twice in Niagara; I beat him both times. I was kind enough to him. I took him a box of bologna sandwiches and I put them in his downtown office. I remember doing that, and he was so mad at me for years—true story. So when you bring up about what Rae did or what somebody else did, you have to look at your own house.

And I want to say to my Conservative friends: I look over there and there’s only a few over there—as a matter of fact, I don’t think there’s anybody there, maybe one that I see, who was there for the 15 years that you were the official opposition. Remember that? You guys don’t talk about that—never—and what you guys voted down. But I’ll get off that. I wasn’t going to talk about that, but seeing he raised it, that kind of opened up the door for me.

And I want to say for the Speaker, thank you for participating in those rallies, because you made a difference, and you know that.

I’m going to start to talk about a couple of other things I just heard about: 85,000 people here in Toronto are on a wait-list for affordable housing. That’s a little surprising, that; although when I go down to the Blue Jays games, which I love to do—because I don’t drink or smoke or anything, I’ve got to have some entertainment. I like to go to the Blue Jays game, or I go to a Leafs game. You see the people who are homeless, who are on the streets of Toronto. Well, here’s the reason why: 85,000 can’t afford to pay their rent or to have a home.

I don’t know how long my leaders here are going to give me to speak, but some of the reasons are that you brought in a bill in 2019—and I’m not going to disagree with you; there have been corporations that have built high-rises for rental. And guess what? We just found out, just the other day, that to get a one-bedroom apartment in Toronto in a high-rise that’s owned by these corporations, it’s between $3,200 and $4,000. Think about that.

So when we come here and my leader brings a motion forward and talks about what we have to do so people can have a home to live in—I have a daughter who lives in my house. I’m sure some of you guys may have that same situation. I love my daughter; she can live in my house as long as she wants. But that’s an issue. But it’s because of 2019 and not putting controls on the rent. That’s what has caused some of our crisis.

And then—how much time have I got, Monique? Help me out here.

I want to make sure that I talk about the greenbelt, because I want to be clear—and I have been clear in this House. I stand up here, and I’ll say it over and over again: I agree that we need $1.5-million homes. I agree with that. Our party—

Interjection: Whoa, whoa.

I always thought COVID would smarten everybody up. Remember when COVID hit? We didn’t have masks. We didn’t have PPE. We didn’t have anything. We had to rely on the Americans or China or wherever you could get it from. I always said, “Why aren’t we making sure that we can get that here?” Well, it’s the same thing with prime farmland: 319 acres lost every single day. One of our members down here says it all the time, from up north. He talks about that all the time. Why do we allow that to happen? So we agree you should be building 1.5 million homes; we don’t agree it should be done on the greenbelt, and we certainly don’t believe that we should be losing prime farmland.

I just want to talk real quick on my own riding, because this is important, because I believe it’s in your riding and it’s in your riding. I even think it’s in the housing minister’s riding, and even my good friend there over in the corner. I think it’s in your riding too. But in my riding, our stock of affordable housing is horrible. It’s absolutely horrible. In Niagara, the wait times almost seem like they’re fake. You wouldn’t even believe it if you said it: 20 years. Think about this: In Fort Erie, the wait time for affordable housing is 20 years.

And then, you look at the Falls, where we all talk about tourism and it’s a great place to come. Come on down to the Falls anytime you want. You guys come and visit. You never invite me to go out for a sandwich or anything when you guys come to the Falls. You should. I’d love to go with you and show you the Falls, show you the wine industry. It’s a great place. It’s 21 years in Niagara Falls—that’s how long the wait time is for affordable housing.

In Niagara-on-the-Lake, another great place—I know some of you guys have been down to Niagara-on-the-Lake. You love the wine. You love the Shaw Festival. You love Queen Street. You love everything about it. It’s 16 years in Niagara-on-the-Lake for affordable housing.

And I’ll talk real quick because I’ve got to wrap this up. I’ve got lots more to say. I wish I had an hour because the most important thing, I believe, is the environment—protecting our environment when it comes to our water and our air quality. But there’s nothing more important than housing, and I can tell you, I have four employees, they’re all unionized. We are the only party—when he talks about unions, I challenge him to show me the union that they belong to, their staff.

My staff belongs to a union. They get paid fair wages with fair benefits and with a pension. I don’t even have a pension here, just for the record, and you know what? They’re even struggling to buy a home when they’re making that kind of money.

We’re doing something wrong in the province when our kids and our grandkids can’t afford to buy a home, can’t afford to pay their rent, and they’re living in our basements or part of our homes. It’s wrong. We’ve got to do better in the province of Ontario, and I believe this motion helps resolve that issue. Thank you very much for listening to me, Speaker.

Further debate?

Two minutes.

Further debate?

I appreciate the opportunity to join the debate this afternoon on opposition day motion number 4. I want to thank the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, the Associate Minister of Housing and the parliamentary assistant from Perth–Wellington for all their work to help our partners build more homes, including Bill 185, which I spoke about just last week.

Together with the investments we’re making in infrastructure, like water, sewage and roads, including $1.8 billion in the 2024 budget, Ontario is on track to build at least 1.5 million homes by 2031, including 120,000 in Mississauga.

As the minister said, over the last three years Ontario has had the most housing starts in the last 30 years. Under the former Liberal government there was an average of fewer than 68,000 housing starts each year. Since our government was elected in 2018, there has been an average of 87,000 starts. That is an increase of about 20,000 homes in a year.

Last year, our goal was 110,000 new homes. Ontario created over 109,000—99% of our target. But, of course, we all recognize that more needs to be done. The NDP motion today proposes legislating fourplexes, restoring rent control, implementing vacancy decontrol and a substantial increase in the number of non-market homes. Speaker, I’d like to touch on a few of these points today.

Firstly, Speaker, as the minister said, fourplexes are already legal. In fact, fourplexes are already allowed as of right, without any extra approvals, in the city of Mississauga. Many members have seen the video of Bonnie Crombie fearmongering about the Housing Affordability Task Force and showing fourplexes as giant orange boxes in residential neighbourhoods. But, Speaker, in the end, Mayor Crombie used her strong-mayor powers that this government provided in Bill 3 to allow fourplexes as of right. Fourplexes are also available as of right in Toronto and over 20 cities across the province, with a total population of about eight million people—roughly half the population of this province.

Speaker, listening to the debate about fourplexes here in Queen’s Park, or in Ottawa, we might think this is the solution to the housing crisis, but the fact is, less than 70 fourplexes were built in Toronto last year, and in many other cities like Vaughan or Richmond Hill, not even one was built. That’s why Toronto city councillor, Gord Perks, a former NDP candidate—and certainly not a supporter of this government—said that fourplexes will never create affordable housing and the government should focus their efforts on areas that actually do.

Speaker, I agree with this. As the minister said, our municipal partners have told us that housing-enabling infrastructure is what they need most. That’s why our 2024 budget includes a new billion-dollar Municipal Housing Infrastructure Program and $825 million for the Housing-Enabling Water Systems Fund. We made this announcement in Lakeview at the Arthur Kennedy water treatment plant, where an expansion will support tens of thousands of new homes along Mississauga’s waterfront, including Brightwater and the new Lakeview Village. The infrastructure funding is giving municipalities the support they need to get shovels in the ground to build the housing that Ontario needs. As the minister said, we’re committed to working in partnership with municipalities, not micromanaging or taking a top-down, “Queen’s Park knows best” approach.

Next, Speaker, the NDP motion asks the government to restore rent control on new units built since 2018. The minister already said this, but I want to reiterate: It was the NDP government of Bob Rae that ended rent control for new purpose-built rental homes back in 1992, when the Leader of the Opposition was an NDP staff member. At the time, there was a shortage of rental housing, and Dave Cooke, who was the NDP Minister of Housing, said that this change “will provide for some additional flexibility for the private sector and will result in new rental units ... being built across the province.” Again, Speaker, this was the NDP Minister of Housing on June 24, 1991. This wasn’t a loophole; it was a deliberate policy. And though the Mike Harris government extended the policy in 1997, it was deliberate NDP policy.

So, just to be clear, in 43 elections, over 157 years, Ontario has voted for only one NDP government, in 1990, and this one NDP government also created exemptions for rent control for exactly the same reason we’re doing today: to encourage the construction of new purpose-built rental homes. And this is exactly what the policy is doing, together with other changes like the HST exemption and reducing development charges in Bill 23.

Last year, there were about 19,000 purpose-built rental housing starts in Ontario, the most in the history of this province, up from 15,000 in 2022, an increase of over 27%. At the same time, the vast majority of rental units remain under rent control, and the government has held the 2024 rent increase guideline to 2.5%, which is below inflation and the lowest in Canada—even lower than the 3.5% increase allowed under the NDP government in British Columbia.

Next, Speaker, the NDP motion says the government has failed to implement vacancy decontrol, but this policy was implemented almost 30 years ago. In fairness, the NDP housing plan says they would scrap, not implement, vacancy decontrol, which is maybe what the Leader of the Opposition meant to say.

Lastly, Speaker, the NDP motion calls for a substantial increase in the number of non-market houses. I certainly agree that there’s a role for non-market housing. We’re making the largest investment in the homelessness program in the history of Ontario, including $700 million each year for homeless shelters, supportive housing and other programs.

In my community of Mississauga–Lakeshore, we’re supporting the expansion of Armagh House for victims of domestic violence and abuse, and we’re investing $24 million to help build 219 affordable homes in Lakeview, including 68 units at Indwell’s Lakeshore Lofts for people with disabilities.

But the NDP housing plan calls for 250,000 non-market units. As my friend from Essex said, if we assume the cost is $500,000 each, this would cost the province about $125 billion, over 60% of the entire provincial budget. And that’s for only 250,000 homes, when we need 1.5 million homes. Non-market housing is an important part of the housing mix, but some of my friends in the NDP take it so far and argue it’s the solution to the housing crisis.

Speaker, I mentioned Bob Rae earlier. Ontario’s one NDP Premier wrote that he left the party in 2002 because they opposed the Third Way and they “sat on their hands” when people like Tony Blair praised the advantages of free markets.

In my community, Lakeview Village Partners are building 1,600 affordable units at no cost to taxpayers. I know Liberal leader Bonnie Crombie is still livid about this, and she’s promising local ratepayer groups that she would cut the number of affordable units in half, but I hope the NDP will join us and support this important project in Lakeview.

Speaker, again, I want to thank the minister and all members for being here this afternoon for the debate on opposition day motion number 4.

Further debate?

I’m so pleased to join in the debate on the official opposition’s motion today. I think that all of us in this House understand that without stable housing, without a strategy to address the precariousness of housing, we will not reach our potential. This is what housing provides to people in Ontario.

I’m going to go through a couple of stats here because it’s important for the government to have their eyes wide open on this situation on housing and homelessness. In fact, this government has refocused their energy on addressing homelessness, and homelessness is a crisis. Homelessness are encampments.

We just met, the leader and I, on Friday with the social development centre, and they described what they’re seeing in encampments as criminal purgatory. It’s where people are not seen; they are not heard; they are the great unwashed. We do not want to acknowledge their humanity.

The normalization of these encampments is a very dark point for us in Canada and in Ontario. We all should agree that people should not be living in tents in the winter on a corner, in a park. It’s almost like this government is content, if you will, that they’re there and they’re not over here. We had a really honest and emotional conversation about the loss of dignity for people in this province. We have to talk about “these people” because they are our people; they are our citizens. They should not be treated like second-class citizens in the province of Ontario.

Now, the government, though, has really been playing a little bit of a shell game with the money on housing, I have to say. We have proposed some solutions here. One of them—it was really interesting. It’s always interesting how many times a member on that side can say, “Bonnie Crombie, queen of the carbon tax.” They’re very consistent in that regard. But I have to say, what’s happening with the commentary around fourplexes—now, the government should remember that it was less than two years ago that they made threeplexes a right of way, not right of way but right of—what is it?

It was less than two years ago that this government made threeplexes as of right. Now it’s the fourplex—this is the line in the sand, right? This is the line in the sand where this government has said, “Oh, forget it.” What do you do with a Premier who says that we can’t have these eight-storey fourplexes? What do you do with that, Madam Speaker? Because this is what the Premier has said, “We can’t have four-storey, six-storey or eight-story fourplexes.” Everybody in this House should fully understand that fourplexes are either two storeys, sometimes they’re three storeys, but for some reason this government has said, “Nope, we’re drawing the line in the sand. The threeplexes are as good as you’re going to get, Ontario.” Maybe they aren’t the whole solution, but they are definitely part of the solution, and we need all of these tools to address the homelessness and housing crisis in Ontario.

It’s important, if you track the money—and I’m the finance critic, so I like to do so. In 2018-19, Ontario spent a total of $1.1 billion on its housing programs. The breakdown is really interesting: $397 million was on homelessness, $693 million was on community housing and $7.8 million on Indigenous housing. My good friend from Kiiwetinoong, this is a familiar story that you’ve heard before. In 2024, the province was planning on spending $1.4 billion, but $707 million on homelessness and only $215 million on community housing. And $422 million was from the National Housing Strategy with the federal government, who are obviously in a point of tension right now with this provincial government, because they want to bypass the provincial government and get money right into those communities.

I will say, they are putting some pressure on this government. Why would you not come together in the face of this housing crisis when money is on the table? We need the resources in the community. This ideological game is such a dangerous place in politics, in my view.

Just to recap, the government has lowered spending on community housing by 70%. For the love of humanity, how do you solve a housing crisis by reducing the funding on community housing? How do you do that? It seems like you’re content to see those encampments. You’re content to spend some more money on the crisis of that moment but not the solution of the moment. This is so short-sighted. To be fair, it’s exactly what the Liberals did.

Timmins Mayor Michelle Boileau states that in northern Ontario, local towns “have seen an increase to homelessness prevention dollars while either seeing status quo or most recently a decrease to community housing funding.”

It is an exercise in futility to acknowledge that homelessness is a crisis, that those problems are complex and require strategic investment, strategic resources and talent and yet not have the solution around community housing, which is supportive housing.

Tim Richter from the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness said that “when Ontario is spending less on housing, they’re going to end up spending more on homelessness....”

This is exactly what’s happening in Ontario right now. It defies all logic for a government that says that 1.5 million homes need to be built. Right now, the homes that are being built, as my colleague from Niagara has pointed out, are unaffordable homes. It is not the solution. The financialization of our housing sector is killing this province. It absolutely is.

I’ll just summarize by saying that in Waterloo region, the number of people who are experiencing chronic homelessness has grown by 129%, but this is going to triple in 2028. This is a community, quite honestly, that does have wealth. We have a very strong religious and social fabric in our region that has really been trying to lift people up, but that net has holes in it. It is frayed; it is tired. There’s no mending it. We need a new strategy.

That is why the official opposition has brought forward some recommendations here to the government. It sounds like they’re not open to the suggestions; you’re not open to the learning part of this. But I have to tell you, when we met with The Working Centre, Joe and Stephanie Mancini, this past Friday, they have described what’s happening to people who are the most vulnerable in Ontario as beyond cruel.

We need to solve the housing crisis. Please contemplate other options, because your plan, the PC plan, is not working.

As of right.

I’m honoured to stand today to discuss one of the more important problems currently facing people in every community across Ontario: access to housing. Our government understands that people across Ontario need a wide range of housing options at various price points to best reflect their needs at every stage in life. Industry experts, economists, home builders, and countless financial and market professionals have offered solutions about what can and must be done to solve this problem. Our government is listening and we’re taking action. We know that government bureaucracy doesn’t build homes, which is why our government is choosing to reduce red tape and create the environment for our community home builders to increase Ontario’s housing supply.

When examining the roots of the situation we’re facing in Ontario with respect to housing, similarities can be drawn across many jurisdictions—across Canadian provinces, American states and even globally, as many countries are struggling with similar challenges. Ontario is certainly not immune from global forces.

I have heard from people in my riding and have listened to media pundits discuss the factors exacerbating the housing crises affecting communities across Ontario, Canada and North America. Rising building costs remain a challenge for builders. Interest rates on mortgages remain a major challenge for potential homebuyers and for people renewing their mortgages. One common denominator I’ve heard directly from home builders, from existing and prospective homebuyers and from renters remains a lack of housing supply.

With a little luck, at any time of day you can tune in to Newstalk 1010 here in Toronto, or AM 800 back in my hometown of Chatham-Kent–Leamington, and probably hear a live radio personality and their guests discuss this very situation at various times throughout any day. I’d agree with some of them that the current housing dilemma involves a constellation of deep and complex factors involving local and global market conditions, population growth, current lending rates and the consequences from policy decisions made many years ago that resulted in diminished supply relative to our population growth, especially the net growth experienced here in Ontario because of years of sustained and positive immigration levels.

The main issue driving this prolonged period of record immigration was that communities weren’t building homes at the same rate equal to the families and individuals who needed all forms of housing. Home builders have long identified challenges with slow, arduous local planning processes, outdated rules and the NIMBYism that unnecessarily delayed important projects that can contribute to the very housing solutions Ontario has been seeking.

To continue to grow our economy and fill the wide range of available jobs now and in the future, we need to attract and retain these hard-working, entrepreneurial, industrious, skilled and motivated people who want to build a life for themselves and their families here in Ontario. To this point, Ontario stands apart from the broader cross-section of other jurisdictions experiencing similar housing pressures. The reason? Since 2018, Ontario has cultivated a climate and nurtured the conditions to attract record investments and create unprecedented opportunities for now and for the future.

In spite of these pressures, setbacks and delays the world experienced during the pandemic, Ontario’s economy recovered quickly. Led by Premier Ford, it’s on a course to lead all jurisdictions across North America in terms of investment in the next generation of meaningful, well-paying jobs.

In response to this housing supply crisis, our government has adopted an all-of-government approach to tackle this very difficult situation, emphasizing collaboration between both municipal and federal levels of government to facilitate the environment needed for community builders to construct homes more efficiently. With a goal of building 1.5 million homes by 2031, it requires partnership with Ontario’s elected mayors and councillors, because municipalities know their communities best. They understand where it makes sense to build and where it just makes sense not to.

Under the leadership of this Premier, we’re working together in supporting municipalities by giving them the tools they need to build more homes faster and tackle the affordability crisis that’s pricing too many people, especially young families and newcomers, out of the dream of home ownership.

We have set ambitious housing targets and we’re holding municipalities accountable while rewarding them for successes with our $1.2-billion Building Faster Fund, designed to help municipalities pay for critical housing and community-related enabling infrastructure needed to accommodate growth, such as site servicing and building new roads. The Building Faster Fund includes $120 million that’s being reserved for small, rural and northern municipalities, to help build housing-enabling infrastructure and prioritize projects that speed up the increase of housing supply.

In partnership with municipalities, Ontario will continue to work hard to unlock housing opportunities and support growing communities. The province continues to call on our federal government to pay its fair share and help fund housing-enabling infrastructure investments and support vibrant, growing communities.

Municipal infrastructure is vital to fostering Ontario’s economic prosperity and enhancing quality of life. The crucial funding will power municipalities to sustain the province’s expansion by maintaining essential systems, like water and sewer networks, and facilitating connectivity to roads and bridges.

My riding of Chatham-Kent–Leamington is expansive. It follows the shores of beautiful Lake Erie. Chatham-Kent is home to the Thames campus of St. Clair College. It is still largely rural and made up of several smaller municipalities, like the former city of Chatham, Comber, Tilbury, Wheatley, Blenheim, Merlin, Ridgetown and Highgate, all amalgamated to form the current municipality.

Just consider the network of legacy infrastructure in a community like Chatham-Kent: several different water and waste water treatment plants, hundreds of kilometres of underground pipe and an extensive network of municipal roads. Chatham-Kent possesses one of the highest concentrations of bridges and drains anywhere in the province, with watersheds that include Lake St. Clair, Lake Erie and the Thames River.

Nevertheless, Chatham-Kent identified an opportunity to seize the moment to attract families and grow. Despite targeting to build 81 new homes last year, Chatham-Kent broke ground on 522 new housing units.

Interjection.

I thank you.

For their efforts, the municipality received $440,000 to contribute to much-needed infrastructure for exceeding its 2023 provincial housing target. The Associate Minister of Housing was on hand to present one of the very first cheques from the Building Faster Fund to our mayor, Mayor Darrin Canniff, to council and to our team.

Chatham-Kent home builders are getting homes built. Local officials in Chatham-Kent can choose when and where fourplexes work for their community. Mayor and council are continuing to streamline processes. This NDP motion seeks to remove the ability of our local leaders to make decisions about their own home communities.

Furthermore, elements of this motion are misleading. Fourplexes do not need to be legalized. Several cities have them already, including right here in Toronto. Communities like Chatham-Kent are getting a wide range of homes built, and as such, I think it’s best to let people in Chatham-Kent and elsewhere make their own decisions. We don’t need an ineffective policy forced upon them by the member from Davenport.

Let’s talk of Leamington, my home community. Leamington is one of Canada’s southernmost communities, nestled along the shores of Lake Erie in Essex county. Its temperate climate makes it attractive for retirees and its close proximity to the US uniquely positions it as an ideal destination for automotive investment, food processing and advanced businesses to support the area’s traditional field and orchard crops, along with the highest concentration of greenhouses anywhere in North America. This industry employs thousands of local and international agricultural workers. These ideal conditions continue to attract investment, but further highlight the need for a wide range of diverse housing to accommodate a growing and vibrant population.

Recent work by our municipal officials concluded that strategic investments in water and waste water infrastructure alone could unlock the potential for 8,000 new homes in a community of roughly 30,000 people. Housing-enabling water infrastructure, like that proposed by this government for projects like water, water treatment, waste water and road building, remains a top priority, with the potential to double the population of this little town in less than two decades.

The case study to unlock the potential in Leamington is precisely what our Premier has heard from areas across Ontario. This is why we’re investing $1.8 billion in new housing-enabling infrastructure, so communities like mine can get shovels in the ground and build the 1.5 million homes we need by 2031.

The funding includes $1 billion for new municipal housing infrastructure and $625 million more for housing-enabling water systems funds. The new $1-billion Municipal Housing Infrastructure Program will support core infrastructure projects that help enable housing for growing and developing communities, for roads and water infrastructure. We’ve heard it loud and clear, and we’re taking action.

Ontario is quadrupling its investment from $200 million to over $825 million over three years to expand housing-enabling water systems. This will help municipalities repair, rehabilitate and expand drinking water, waste water and stormwater infrastructure to build more homes now.

By growing our investments, we’re helping create an environment that’s conducive to building housing and having our sectors across Ontario thrive. Our substantial investments in this infrastructure are the pathway we need to bolster home construction while concurrently easing regulatory constraints and burdens on developers. The dual approach aims to stimulate a diverse array of housing options, ultimately augmenting the housing supply and to achieve market stability.

Members in this Legislature who want to truly support housing must work together to create good policy to allow home builders to build a wide range of homes across Ontario. I strongly recommend that members keep doing what’s working and get away from things and policies and motions like this that do not.