But we fixed it.

No, it isn’t. Anyone knows that if you want to buy a house on a street, and there are 10 houses, but you want the one that isn’t for sale, you just can’t take the average of the other houses in the town and say, “Well, that’s what we’re going to give you,” because that house isn’t for sale. It’s a whole different thing, and anyone who doesn’t understand that has never really thought it through.

I’m a farmer, and if your family has built that farm up for the last 100 years or the last 10, and somebody says, “We’re going to build something else there,” well, do you know what? That’s worth a lot more than the going rate per acre. It is, because there was never a “for sale” sign there, and I don’t understand why no one, especially Conservatives, understands that.

I talk to a lot of farmers. Another one they didn’t understand was the three severances per lot that this government was going to implement. That works for some places, but if you have a livestock farm, three severances per lot is going to kill your farm, because if your neighbour sells a lot next door to you, because of minimum distance separation, you can never expand.

Oh, I’ve only got four minutes left. I don’t think I’ve got really much more to say—I probably said too much already. I’m hoping the Speaker hasn’t fallen asleep. I tried hard not to—anyway, I think the biggest thing with this bill is that a lot of the things you’re doing seem to be more for political purposes, more for messaging purposes, than actually moving the province forward. We’re not against moving the province forward, as I said. The announcements for the EV plants, we’re in favour. St. Thomas—not everybody is happy about St. Thomas, but that went through the House no problem. And we understand not everybody is ever going to be happy. That’s why we have the system we do. But please understand how things actually should work.

Rail about the carbon tax all you want. We agree that there shouldn’t be one. But tell people about your industrial compliance fee for carbon. Tell them the truth.

Thank you, Speaker.

Actually, I said that we were proud that we voted against those seven bills. We have voted for lots of bills that you’ve put forward. We don’t vote for your budget bills because we disagree, as the loyal opposition, with many of your budgetary policies. The first term, you were always talking about how we propped up the Liberal government. Now, with this question, I’ll look up the figures—I don’t have time right now—but actually, we looked it up, and we voted for the Liberals, I think, 60% of the time and you voted for the Liberals 50% as opposition. We don’t vote against everything. It’s our job to hold the government to account.

And on the registration for cars, you know what, you should maybe rethink that, because there is a loophole now where car thieves, because we are not going to register cars, have an easier time selling them. So, look before you do things, and there’s a difference between careful legislation or having to rescind whole—

But farmers are business people. They are. I don’t think anyone is going to disagree with that. Treat them like business people. They know the value of what they have built. They know the value of that land if there is going to be an industrial project put on it. They know that. And they know that when that land is expropriated that their value is being taken, and that is where the government is going to run into trouble.

Thank you to the member opposite. He always makes Thursday afternoons a little more tolerable, maybe, I should say.

I want to remind the member, and maybe the member from Spadina–Fort York, as well, that if you do nothing, you won’t need to pivot and change direction. Before you got to your notes, I just want to say that I wouldn’t be too proud of voting against everything. You mentioned the seven bills, but everything is a little bit—because when you accomplish one thing, when you do nothing, you stop to grow, and when an economy stops to grow, it dies. It’s important, and this government is really demonstrating that in continuing to move forward.

This bill, like so many others—together with so many others—creates an environment for growth. The Honda announcement today is an example like that. It also creates an environment for people to thrive, and within this bill—like the eight million vehicle owners that are saving 900,000 hours in time because of the changes that we’re making to licence renewals; it’s just one thing in this bill that helps create that environment.

Would the member agree that creating that environment for the economy and for people is a good thing?

First of all, I have to say to my colleague, that was a really good speech, and maybe you should set aside your notes more often because it’s a very effective technique appreciated by all in the House.

Your comments about farmers and the sale of land: Could you expand a bit and give us a sense of where the rest of the farming community in Ontario is on this at the moment? Because it sounds to me like it would be a red flag.

I’m proud to rise this afternoon in the third reading of Bill 162, the Get It Done Act, introduced by the Minister of Transportation. I want to thank him and his team, including the associate minister and the parliamentary assistant from Hastings–Lennox and Addington for all the great work they’re doing.

I want to thank the associate minister in particular for all his great work on the One Fare initiative. Speaker, it’s been less than two months, and there have already been over five million free transfers between GO Transit and municipal transit systems across the GTA. Again, this will save the average commuter $1,600 each year.

Before I begin my remarks, I also want to congratulate the Premier and the Minister of Economic Development for their announcement today on the largest auto sector investment in Canadian history: $15 billion from Honda for new electric vehicle manufacturing plants in Alliston, north of Toronto. Speaker, this means that, in the last three years alone, we have been able to attract over $43 billion of investment from global automakers here in Ontario.

I remember when the former Liberal Minister of Finance, who I ran against in 2018, said that assembly line manufacturing was “a thing of the past” in Ontario. Speaker, if the former Liberal government had been re-elected, it would have been something in the past. But our government has taken a very different approach, that the bill today, Bill 162, would continue. We’re cutting taxes, red tape, energy costs, and making Ontario open for business again. This has produced an economic recovery that leads the country and leads North America.

In June 2018, there were 7.2 million jobs in the province. Last month, there were almost eight million. That’s an increase of 725,000 jobs. That is an average of about 10,500 new jobs each month, or 126,000 new jobs each year. Last year, Ontario created more manufacturing jobs than all 50 US states combined.

Speaker, to support this growth, the 2024 budget includes the most ambitious capital plan in Ontario’s history. It includes investments of $190 billion in infrastructure over the next 10 years, including $98 billion for new highways and public transit, including many critical projects in Mississauga and across the Peel region that the changes in Bill 162 would help us to build faster.

As the minister said, modernizing and streamlining Ontario’s 50-year-old environmental assessment process would make it easier to build infrastructure we need. That includes the new 20-kilometre Hazel McCallion LRT line in Mississauga, including the new downtown loop and expansions into Brampton that were announced earlier this year. This project is now a priority transit project under the Building Transit Faster Act, together with the Ontario Line and other major subway and LRT projects across Ontario. It includes a historic GO Transit expansion along the Lakeshore and Milton lines and across the GTA. ONxpress is planning to run up to 18 trains per hour on the Lakeshore West line; that is an average of a train every three minutes. Expansion of the Milton line would be a little bit more difficult because the corridor is owned by Canadian Pacific; the passengers share the same tracks with the freight train. But we’re working toward a two-way, all-day service by building a fully separated passenger rail line.

The changes included with Bill 162 would help us get this new rail, highways and other important infrastructure built up to four years sooner. For example, for some projects, terms of reference will no longer be required, which by itself can save up to two years.

Schedule 1 would also make a minor change to clarify that we can acquire property before an EA is approved. While these changes would save time and money, it is important to note that all environmental safeguards would still be maintained, including consultation. But Bill 162 would help to bring Ontario’s EA process in line with other provinces, including Quebec and British Columbia, and with the federal government.

On that note, I want to take a moment here to thank the federal government again for their decision last month to cancel their EA on Highway 413, which would have delayed the project by at least five years. By working together, we should be able to begin construction next year to help connect Peel, Halton and York regions and save drivers 30 minutes each way. That’s five hours per week and 260 hours each year, or a total of 11 days each year.

Ontario grew by half a million people last year, and we’re on track for at least another half a million people this year. That’s more growth than any US state, including the fastest-growing states like Florida or Texas. The western GTA doesn’t have the highway capacity we need to support this growth. All of our major highways, including the 407, will be over capacity within the next 10 years. Highway 413 will finally bring relief to an area that clearly needs it.

I’ve mentioned this before, but when I was first elected, we met with the region of Peel, on September 18, 2018, and they told us that Highway 413 was one of their top priorities. They said it’s “critical to the economic well-being of both the region of Peel and the entire province.” They said Highway 413 is “required to support increased capacity, which is needed across Peel due to our goods movement sector.”

This was the position of Brampton, Caledon and Mississauga, including Bonnie Crombie. Like John Kerry, she was for Highway 413 before she was against it. Not long ago, the federal Liberal environment minister said that his government would stop investing in road infrastructure, but even he is now on side on Highway 413, so I hope that Bonnie Crombie will support 413 again as well.

Next, I move on to schedule 2, which would help make life easier and more affordable for drivers. As you know, two years ago, we eliminated licence plate renewal fees for passenger vehicles, saving drivers $120 each year in southern Ontario and $60 in northern Ontario. Combined with our gas and fuel tax cuts until at least the end of 2024, which are saving the average household another $320, this is real relief for Ontario taxpayers.

Unfortunately, at an event earlier this month at the Empire Club, Liberal leader Bonnie Crombie said that these are just “gimmicks” that she would cancel if she ever got a chance. This couldn’t be any more out of touch with the average Ontarian. I have a lot of respect for the member from Ottawa South; he was right when he said his party lost in 2018 and lost party status because they had a listening problem. Their leader still has that same problem.

Families are struggling with the cost of living, high interest rates, high inflation and, of course, the federal carbon tax. That’s what I’ve been hearing lately when I go door-knocking in Mississauga–Lakeshore or in Milton. I haven’t been in Lambton–Kent–Middlesex, but I’m sure it’s the same there as well. They don’t think that the tax relief we’re providing is a gimmick. That’s why schedules 2 and 4 of Bill 162 would put the current freeze on driver licence and photo card fees in legislation for the first time: $35 for photo cards and $90 for a five-year driver’s licence. This would save drivers $88 million by 2030 and also help to protect them from future increases. Moving forward, this House would have to approve any changes.

As well, schedule 2 of Bill 162 would help us to transition to automatic licence plate renewals for drivers in good standing who have no outstanding tickets or fines. As the Minister of Public and Business Service Delivery said, at a time when people are as busy as ever with their work and families, we can save them time, not just money, by making government services simpler, faster and better. That is what schedule 2 would do. As the minister said, this change alone would save drivers over 900,000 hours each year.

Moving on to schedule 3: As I said earlier this week, our government is committed to working in partnership with municipalities to get shovels in the ground and build 1.5 million homes. As the minister said, we are not micromanaging or taking a top-down, Queen’s-Park-knows-best approach. These changes to official plans in schedule 3 of Bill 162 respond to feedback from municipalities, including the region of Peel, after many months of consultation.

I also want to thank my friend the Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks for all the work she’s doing to consult with our municipal partners to streamline the EA process for water and sewage projects. As Mayor Steven Del Duca told the committee of infrastructure back in January, the biggest problem municipalities are dealing with as they work towards their housing targets is the need for more water and waste water infrastructure. That’s why the 2024 budget includes $825 million for the Housing-Enabling Water Systems Fund, which we announced at the Arthur P. Kennedy Water Treatment Plant in Lakeview. The planning expansion here will support tens of thousands of new homes along the Mississauga waterfront, including the Brightwater and Lakeview developments.

Right now, the municipal-class EA process for new waste water treatment plants or an expansion can take up to two years or more, when we need homes right now. Adding time limits for the first time could help cut these timelines from two years to six months. As I said before, all current environmental safeguards would be maintained, including consultation.

Next, I want to thank the minister for schedule 5, which would protect Ontarians from any new provincial carbon tax by making the government ask for the approval of voters in a referendum.

It was an honour to welcome the Premier and the Minister of Finance to the Pioneer gas station in Port Credit for an announcement in February. I got my first job there at that station when I was 16, pumping gas and propane. At the time, the price of gas was 33 cents per litre. Within the next six years, the federal carbon tax is scheduled to rise to over 37 cents per litre, more than the price of gas when I had my first job there. At a time when many families and small businesses cannot afford it, this will increase the price of gas, groceries and almost everything else. Again, this is with the full support of the queen of the carbon tax, Bonnie Crombie.

As the independent Parliamentary Budget Officer reported last year, the federal carbon tax costs the average Ontario family almost $1,700, far more than any rebate. Still, Bonnie Crombie refused to call on the federal Liberals to cancel their 23% carbon tax hike on April 1. As I said, just a few days later, she told the Empire Club that she would cancel the relief that we’re providing here to help keep costs down for families and small businesses. Speaker, that’s why, when Bonnie Crombie says she won’t introduce a provincial carbon tax, it is very hard to take her seriously because we’ve seen if all before.

Former Premier Kathleen Wynne—who was back here at the Legislature yesterday—promised that she wouldn’t introduce a provincial carbon tax in 2014, but in 2015, just one year later, she introduced the cap-and-trade carbon tax. Now, just last month, the queen of the carbon tax, Bonnie Crombie told Colin D’Mello she thinks that this “was a great program.”

So, again, I want to remind all the members what the Auditor General wrote about it back at that time. She wrote that cap-and-trade would have cost Ontario families and businesses $2 billion every year with hundreds of millions of dollars sent to California for little or no environmental benefits.

On November 30, 2016, the Auditor General wrote that the Liberal government did not study whether cap-and-trade would actually reduce emissions in California. In other words, she wrote, “These funds may be leaving the Ontario economy for no purpose other than to help the government claim it has met a target.”

The Liberals also claim cap-and-trade would cost only $5 on your natural gas bill each year, but two of my constituents in Clarkson, Bill and Muriel Chudiak actually did their homework and they discovered that it would cost at least triple that which was hard for seniors living on fixed incomes.

As Premier Kathleen Wynne admitted, some seniors were forced to choose between paying the electric bill and buying food or paying their rent because of her mistakes on the energy file. They sold off Hydro One and created many new long-term energy costs. They signed over 33,000 contracts to buy power for 80 cents per kilowatt hour when nuclear power was available for nine cents per kilowatt hour.

In December 2015, the Auditor General reported that because of mistakes like this, Ontario consumers were paying for electricity that was overpriced by $170 billion. For a typical family, that’s a power bill of about $1,200 higher than it should have been every year.

Speaker, this mismanagement of the energy sector is the reason—more than anything else—the Liberals lost party status in 2018 and again in 2022. Bonnie Crombie calls Bill 162 a “gimmick” or a “distraction,” but I’d like to share a statement from the former leader of the Liberal Party and now, the mayor of Vaughan, Steven Del Duca: “It is critically important,” he said, “that we help to keep our residents moving and our economy growing while not adding any financial burden to the people we represent.” And he continued, “I thank the Ontario government for introducing legislation”—and he’s talking about Bill 162 here—“that will help to accomplish these important goals.” So I want to thank him for that and for the work that we’re doing together to keep costs down and to support economic growth right here in Ontario.

Lastly, I want to add a few words about schedule 6. This would amend the Public Transportation and Highway Improvement Act to ban any new tolls on provincial highways, including the 400-series highways, but also the Don Valley Parkway and the Gardiner Expressway, once they’re uploaded to the province.

In April 2022, we removed tolls on Highway 412 and 418, which is expected to save drivers another $68 million by 2027. Much like schedule 5, schedule 6 would require any future government to consult the public before they introduce any new tax.

Again, I want to thank the minister and his team for all their work on another important bill here in the House, and I know that as a government, we are saving taxpayers money here in Ontario, and we have increased our budget here in Ontario from $152 billion in 2017, under the former Liberal government, to $214 billion for Ontarians, without raising one tax and giving money back to our Ontario families across the province. So I just want to thank everyone for listening to me here today, and I want to thank the Speaker as well.

Again, with respect to our shared love of agriculture and our farmers throughout this province, we both have been in that realm our entire life. I would say I think this government, with all due respect, understands that the business of farming is that: a business.

There are all types of farmers in the farming continuum: some hobbyists; some sundown farmers, as we used to call them at Masterfeeds. For most today, it’s a consolidated industry. It’s huge. It’s massive.

With respect to Wilmot and again with all due respect, do you not believe that—and you pay fair value for what it’s worth. But how much land has been expropriated and how many farms have been sold? In my opinion, none so far.

That’s actually—I don’t disagree with his statement, because of what happened. So a developer shows up, offers you money for the farm and then you don’t accept that offer. Then, there’s a threat of expropriation by the municipality. Okay.

But because of the directive of the provincial government that you need shovel-ready spots, right—I listened to the Minister of Job Creation, who said several times about St. Thomas and about—that it was not expropriated, and that’s the issue. If the threat of expropriation is taken away, regardless of which level of government, it’s a whole different story. But the threat of expropriation, which comes from the directive from the Premier, regardless of who’s doing it—the directive is from the Premier, we all know that.

And if you’re going to get your critical minerals from northern Ontario, it has to come somehow. And right now, it’s not ready. The problem with Highway 11 is that Highway 11 runs like a main street. There’s 1,800 trucks a day now that go on Highway 11. It’s two lanes, 1,800 trucks a day. It’s closed on a regular basis, miles of trucks waiting—

My question is, you have implemented your own carbon tax scheme: the compliance fee which you charge. Why don’t you use that as a wedge to try—so that your residents and my residents don’t have to pay the individual carbon tax? Put some horsepower behind that instead of just blaming it all on the feds.

Further questions?

I’d like to thank my colleague for his excellent presentation. One of the things that this government has talked a lot about in this bill is around highways, how they’re going to stop tolling highways that don’t have tolls and are quiet on highways that do have tolls.

But one of the things that I’ve also noticed is that they are silent when it comes to the northern Ontario highways. And this member has advocated to make sure that the highways are safe, that lives are not lost or that they are properly maintained. So my question to the member is, can you share with the members of this House, particularly the government, on the importance of maintaining the highways for Ontario’s economy?

To the member across from Mississauga–Lakeshore, thank you for your presentation. I’m just going to ask you about the 407.

Obviously, part of the term sheet in the original agreement between the provincial government and the 407 operator was to maintain a certain amount of vehicles on that highway to reduce the congestion on the 401, and that meant that the operator had to set the tolls at a particular price. It couldn’t be too high, otherwise you would see a drop in vehicle use, and of course we saw that the tolls were too high, and the vehicles came off the 407.

Your government, in 2021, waived a billion dollars of congestion penalties from the 407 for-profit operator. Do you have any regrets about waiving that billion dollars now that we’re facing a $9.8-billion deficit?

Thank you to the member opposite for your presentation, from Mississauga–Lakeshore. My question is about this government’s decision to once again redraw urban boundaries in areas that are abutting prime farmland. I’m talking about Halton, Waterloo, Peel, York and Wellington county.

The government’s own housing affordability task force said very clearly that we do not need access to new land to meet our housing targets. Given that, why is this government moving forward with redrawing municipal boundaries to open up farmland to unnecessary development?

I want to thank the member for that question. As you know, our goal is to build 1.5 million homes through the province of Ontario, and we are on target to build that. I look at my own community of Mississauga–Lakeshore with the Brightwater development and the Lakeview development going forward. We’re looking at building 16,000 new units in the Lakeview development, with 10% of those homes being affordable and attainable for the people here in Ontario. As well, Brightwater has already their Peel homes there. We’re going to continue to build homes across the province.

I look at the Indwell projects that we have right now. We have one on Lakeshore in Lakeview that has units there, as well as we’re going to be building another building in the Clarkson area. We’re continuing to build homes, and we’re going to continue building through the province of Ontario with our municipalities and working together with them.

This is the largest budget ever in Ontario’s history, without raising a tax, and we’re giving money back. We’re building hospitals. We’re building long-term care that was neglected by the Liberal government for so many years. Even in my riding alone, one long-term-care facility has 632 beds—more than the Liberal government built in the last 15 years.

As well, we are freezing our drivers’ licence fees, and that is saving us another $22 million. And the photo cards, as well, will save Ontarians another $66 million. And by building the 413, that will save commuters another 30 minutes each way. But not only that; because of all the automotive investment that we are getting here in the province of Ontario, $43 billion and the $15 billion today, we’re going to need more corridors to move our parts to these plants through the province.

I thank the member. You mentioned that yes, our government has not raised taxes, despite building Ontario. The people in my riding of Richmond Hill are still complaining, or they have a lot of concern about affordability in Ontario. I know this bill, what we have done has been working on that, to help communities to be able to afford their daily lives, even though we’re putting money into their pockets. Can you highlight a few things that we have done to help them and make their life more affordable?

Questions?

I want to thank the member from Malton for that excellent question, and I want to thank you for all the great work you do in Malton as well. And being my colleague from Mississauga, thank you. I’m really honoured to have you as my colleague from Mississauga.

As you know, building that 413 will save commuters an extra 30 minutes each way. That’s a total of an hour each day. But not only that, because of the gridlock that we do have, in the next 10 years, every corridor in the GTA will be gridlocked. So we’ve got to look for the future, how this highway will help us get parts into our plants We’re investing in all this automotive investment in the province; we need more highways and more transit in Ontario.

As we are, we are building the LRT line on Hurontario, which is coming right from my area of Port Credit all the way into Brampton, and with the loop too. We are building more transit than any other government has done in the history of Ontario: over $71 billion in transit and $28 billion in roads and highways. We’re going to continue doing this and building Ontario for the future and for our children to prosper here.

As well, I want to talk about the other highways. I know he mentioned the 407, but I want to talk about the other tolls that we have taken off other highways like the 412 and the 418, which is saving us $68 million.

And building new highways, that is very—like I said all the time, it’s about getting things to market. And it’s very important, because if we can’t get things into market, we’re going to lose that advantage that we have. We have one of the best workforces in the world right here in Ontario, and that’s why we’ve been able to attract $43 billion of automotive investment here in Ontario.

I remember when I used to work for an automotive company. They were going to leave Ontario because this is not a jurisdiction for them to produce vehicles. We’ve changed that here in Ontario because of the Premier and the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Economic Development, who have been able to attract all these people to come here to Ontario.

I want to thank that member for that excellent question.

It’s Thursday afternoon, as we know, and the real title of Bill 162 is An Act to enact the Protecting Against Carbon Taxes Act, 2024 and amend various Acts. That’s the real name of the bill, and it’s six schedules. The layman’s term, or the slogan term, of this bill is “getting it done,” or—I’m going to say “getting it done”; I’m not going to call it the other one. But basically, this bill is strictly a performative bill, because when you look at the schedules that it actually is creating legislation for, a lot of them are really performative. There isn’t a lot of meat behind them.

Specifically, I’m going to look at the first two bills that can impact people to a small degree. The government is going to, of course, exaggerate the type of savings people can have. Under schedule 2, for an example, is the Highway Traffic Act and it sets a statutory driver’s licence fee of $7.50 for each six-month period equal to the existing fee, which is set by regulation. Future fee changes will be required by an amendment to the Highway Traffic Act. It establishes a framework enabling an automatic licence plate renewal system, with details to be determined by regulation.

Again, this is a small piece of affordability. It’s very straightforward and it’s not a complicated schedule. But there are so many pieces of the Highway Traffic Act, Speaker, that we really need to address. When we talk about the slogan name for this bill, “getting it done,” there are things that this government lacks that they didn’t get done and they had to retract. That really took a lot of time up in this Legislature.

One of the things that people have mentioned was the licence plates. The licence plates were introduced by Ford and it was a new blue licence plate, which was part of the 2019 budget—again, putting it in the budget itself. But the government quickly scrapped that rollout after a police officer in Kingston, actually, noted that the plates were barely visible at night. The government is no longer issuing those plates, but as of last year, there are still 170,000 circulating in the province, and the province hasn’t yet articulated a plan to get them off the roads. The member from Timiskaming–Cochrane had mentioned that, I think, they are just going to wait until they fall off. Well, that isn’t really a good plan.

I think the point we want to make on this side of the House is, many times, when small things come to this Legislature and they’re very obviously not going to work, this government doesn’t even listen to that.

The next schedule that’s, again, very simple and is going to be exaggerated as some life-changing affordability piece for Ontarians is the photo card under schedule 4. It sets a statutory photo card fee of $3.50 for each six-month period equal to the existing fee, which is set by the minister’s order, and future fee changes will be required by an amendment to the act.

So, schedules 2 and 4 are somewhat of affordability issues for people—no disputing there; everybody could save a dollar in their pocket. Better a dollar spent on things you don’t need. But those two pieces, again, making this a “get ’er done” act like it’s something that’s going to have a revelation for everybody’s life? The title doesn’t really suit what’s in the act and how it’s going to impact people’s lives to get things done so that we can actually see the great progress this government is talking about.

The other two schedules in this bill are really, again, performative. So we’ve talked about this, where the government has decided that on schedule 5—they call it Protecting Against Carbon Taxes Act. What they’re saying is that they want to have a referendum prior to introducing a bill establishing a new carbon pricing program and establish rules for such a referendum. This schedule does not affect the Ford government’s existing carbon pricing system on industrial emitters, which was established on January 1, 2022—without a referendum, I might add—and the schedule does not affect the federal carbon tax on consumers’ fuels.

So, again, the government has put out something that—they want a referendum on a tax, but they’ve got their own. And they don’t even have a plan for the money, for the compliance fees that they’re going to collect. And if you look up some of these articles—again, why are governments not fully planning and executing their policies so everybody understands that they’ll actually work? So when you throw out an idea, and this government throws out lots of ideas, and when they don’t work, you have to backtrack them. And then, when you throw out ideas, nobody knows what’s really happening with the money. And we want to know what’s happening with the money. The taxpayers want to know, what are you doing with your money—their money? So that’s another schedule, again, that’s kind of performative. Having a referendum—has anybody priced out the cost of a referendum? Did you have a referendum on Ontario Place when you leased 95 years, the spa? Did we have a referendum for that? How much is that going to cost us? How much is 95 years of leasing out that spa space going to cost? We don’t know that.

So when you’re talking about legislation, when you’re talking about policy, we want to have that information. I hope it’s us who’s going to be the government the next time around. The NDP is going to have a majority government in this Legislature; that’s my prediction. And when we do things like that, we’re going to have numbers, and we’re going to tell people what things cost, because NDP governments actually balance budgets when they’re in government. So you don’t just throw ideas out, you don’t know what they’re going to cost. You don’t just throw ideas out. You know the money you’re going to bring in, what you’re going to do with that money. That’s important.

The next schedule on the bill, again, that’s not really doing a lot—it’s a lot of performative—is schedule 6. Schedule 6, we’ve talked about that too. What it’s going to do: It’s going to prohibit tolls on highways, quite frankly, that already have no tolls, and it won’t prohibit tolls on Highway 407. And that’s the highway that needs to be examined. We talked about how congestion is an issue on the 400 series. And right now, we can do something to alleviate that congestion. And I think the minister mentioned about mental stress when you’re in traffic congestion on the 400. That’s absolutely true, but there’s also a safety issue. There are so many accidents that happen on that highway involving congestion and transport trucks.

One of the things the NDP proposed was to alleviate the tolls on transport trucks using the 407. And that is a really good idea, because then you alleviate the imminent traffic congestion that we have today. We’re not going to wait 20 years for you to build your highways before we actually worry about people’s safety. And then, if you’re talking about building Highway 413 to curb the transportation time people have between work and home, well, if you took the transport trucks and put them on the 407 without a toll, you’re going to have better time to get home for everyone, not just people using Highway 413.

So I have to say, with regard to the 407, it’s very important that we note this government really gave the 407 a lottery ticket, $1 billion you waived in fees. What kind of business sense is that when you can collect fees from a 99-year-lease highway that the Conservative government gave away and Ontarians are paying for? Now, they’re able to get a billion dollars back from a business. It’s a business. Do you think that business would waive a toll fee for anybody in this chamber or in this province? No. Quite frankly, it’s a very abusive system. Let’s say you moved and they’re giving you the bills to your home. They keep adding exorbitant amounts of interest to those toll fees. So for us, for this Conservative government to let the 407 off the hook for a billion-dollar price tag, it’s shameful, quite frankly.

And because it’s so underused, you can actually land a plane. A plane actually landed on the Highway 407. So there are ways we can alleviate congestion currently, and if you take off that toll off transport trucks, that’s going to make a huge difference now, until you build your highways that you’re planning to take an undertaking for.

So we talked about schedule 2, schedule 4 and schedule 6. Now, the schedule that is actually very, very crucial in this bill is schedule 1. What schedule 1 does is it amends the Environmental Assessment Act with the effect of confirming that expropriation may proceed prior to the completion of an EA.

During committee, we asked the government to put that back in, because again, you’re creating these policies in such a rush, under the guise of building highways and building homes, and if you make terrible errors, you’re going to have somebody’s highway or somebody’s home built on environmentally sensitive lands that end up, perhaps, with building problems. So we need to make sure that we have environmental assessments put back in. And when we mentioned this at committee, of course that was voted down. The Conservatives didn’t even comment on it.

But one of the things that we have talked about—and the member from Timiskaming–Cochrane touched on it—was Wilmot. That is something that we do have to address because, right now, there is the example of expropriation in that area.

I’m going to read, just quickly, from the news article that was written by the Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario. They wrote an open letter condemning the expropriation threats to Wilmot farmers and the farmland. These are long-time farmers, so they have some credibility when they write letters about issues. They said:

“The magnitude of this proposed development project not only poses a direct threat to the farming community but also raises concerns about the irreversible loss of fertile farmland....

“‘As president of CFFO, I stand in solidarity with the farmers of Wilmot facing expropriation.... It’s shameful that our farmers, stewards of our land, are left vulnerable to such injustice. Our government systems should protect them, not put them at risk....

“‘All levels of government should be ashamed that these farmers are even in this position.... They have been failed by the very system meant to protect them and our farmland.’”

There was an example where, again, this government had to backtrack when they talked about severing farmland. I can’t even say, “to the government’s credit,” because if you talked to the farmers, I’m sure they would’ve told you that’s not a good idea. If you would’ve done your testing on your licence plates—you know, we drive cars at nighttime, snow, rain, at daytime. Who would have designed these plates without the right procedural testing?

The other piece when we talk about plates: There’s such a high number of auto thefts right now. One of the things that I had seen in the paper recently was on a gentleman named Derek Crocker. He bought a truck from a dealership, and he ended up having an accident. They ordered parts for his truck based on the VIN number. When the parts came back, they didn’t fit. And so, what’s happening is vehicles are being stolen and they’re getting re-VINned and nobody knows, not even the dealership.

So what has happened is there is not a Canadian or a US national vehicle registry, and so police agencies are asking and urging the federal and provincial governments to create one. Because if we’re going to have all this work done of preventing crime for auto theft—and it’s becoming quite violent, and we all agree that that should be curbed. No one should be worried about a car they drive and being attacked. But if we’re going to do that, again, look at the policy and look at the results and go a step further so that they don’t just thwart the system.

The fact that we don’t have to register our licence plates is also an opening. It’s a loophole as such for these vehicles to be stolen and then re-registered.

The last schedule of this bill is schedule 3. The new municipal affairs minister, in a quote—there was a big scandal, as we all know. It’s called the greenbelt. When he was asked about the greenbelt, and you guys were reversing all that terrible legislation, the minister said—it was in the Star. He said he was taken aback by the mess he had inherited. He also said that “reviewing how decisions were made regarding official plans, it is ... clear that they failed to meet this test.”

But then, when you look in schedule 3, there are all kinds of changes to municipalities’ official plans. It’s very difficult, actually, to match the numbers in schedule 3, and they list so many of them. There are so many municipalities that are getting their official plans changed. It leads to the question: Who requested these things?

Because the other piece of this is what I find is a lot of legislation that the government creates, there’s an indemnity clause: “You can’t sue me. You can’t sue the consultants. You can’t sue everybody with good intentions.” There isn’t that in here. So I often wonder, if I’m looking at schedule 3, the official plan adjustment, which is basically a work around the greenbelt and the farmland expropriation pieces, who asked for these official plan changes? You have to ask that question because it’s very important that when we have—allowing schedule 3 to go beyond urban boundaries when we don’t need to build housing beyond that. We know that there’s infill. Your own report, your own housing committee, your own housing commission said that. There are ways to build housing inside the urban boundaries.

One of the ways that we want to build more housing in urban boundaries is having multiplex homes. The government has a triplex already; I think it’s in Bill 23. I was out in my riding over the weekend, and we have fourplexes in neighbourhoods with single-family homes. They’re very beautifully designed, quite frankly. They look like they’re semis, and so one half has two units, front and back, and then the other half has another unit, front and back. So I don’t know what the adversity of this government is to not say, “Let’s do triplexes. Let’s add fourplexes to that.”

But when we’re encouraging people to be small landlords, I also encourage this government to make sure they fix the Landlord and Tenant Board, because small landlords really have a difficult time when things go wrong. They cannot subsidize people’s rents when a tenant goes off the wrong path. Then, there are also tenants who are in big corporation apartment buildings, and they are being mistreated. They can’t get to the Landlord and Tenant Board quick enough to stay in their homes.

So there are lots of ways we can clamp down on—people who have homes right now, let them stay there by having rent controls, by eliminating renovictions, by making sure we build non-profit, non-market homes like homes geared to income, like co-operative housing, like inclusionary zoning. We can keep people housed where they are; then, we can build the stock as well. No one is against building homes where people who are hard-working and need affordable homes—that’s not a problem. We agree with that. But there are people who are in precarious housing situations right now, and if they are kicked out of their home, they can’t afford the new rent. They are not in the market to purchase. So we’re going to create another effect of people who are homeless or couch surfing.

I also talked about—we need to make sure that people who are homeless right now have a yearly shelter bed, because there’s not enough transitional housing right now. Just having people who are homeless only having a shelter bed in the winter months, the cold months—that’s not humane. We need to make sure shelter beds are year-round, so that we can actually get people off the streets and in shelters, so they can actually access health care resources, as well, that they need.

Speaker, there are things in this bill, obviously, that the government wants to push, and housing is one of them. We have different philosophies on how to create that housing and how to keep people in their homes right now. So I look forward to the questions.

The Get It Done Act doesn’t get much done. This government has a record of creating legislation and having to backtrack legislation—and that was the wage cap bill, Bill 124; they had that put in and reversed. The dissolution of Peel—that was a colossal failure; and the greenbelt. The “notwithstanding” clause, with the education workers—if you remember that, that had to be reversed. There are so many things. So I hope this government listens to this part of the Legislature and maybe rethinks that this should not be pushed through. Go back and rethink the expropriation and go back and think about schedule 3, where you’re actually expanding urban boundaries beyond the city limits.

Next question.

Before I ask my question, I want to acknowledge the member from Mississauga–Lakeshore. Thank you for your service. You’re doing an incredible job for your residents and the whole of Mississauga.

My question to the member is, we have been extremely focused on building convenient transportation and shrinking commute times for Ontarians so that they can spend more time doing what they love: spending time with the family. Can the member highlight some of the efforts that are proposed in this that will improve the situation and help Ontarians?

I want to thank the member opposite for his speech. He’s always very well researched and he knows his stuff.

He’s talked about removing tolls on the 412 and the 418—great. But there is a portion of the 407 that is still tolled by the province of Ontario. Now, since he is so much against the tolls on highways, I know he must be screaming in caucus meetings, “Why aren’t we taking the tolls off that part of the 407?” So tell us, why isn’t the government, if they’re so against tolls, removing the 407 tolls that are part of the provincially owned portion of that highway?