I have two introductions. First, I want to welcome the 2024 cohort of the Ontario Parliamentary Friends of Tibet’s summer student program. We have Nawang Garzey, who is placed with the member from Etobicoke–Lakeshore; Kalsang Tashi, placed with the member from Toronto Centre; Tenzin Phuntsok, placed with the member from Niagara West; and Shedrup Choepel, placed in my office.

Second, I’d also like to welcome Shannon Baker from the Ontario Association of Landscape Architects.

Today, I have the honour of welcoming some youth from my great riding of Newmarket–Aurora: Trifen Marcos, Mahta Gharaei, Maha Ishfiaq Khan, Destiny Som, James Madore, Daniel Goutovets, Nadia Hansen, Daniel Zhang, Novelette Graham-Hart and Blake Koehler. Welcome to your House.

It’s my great honour today to introduce our page captain for the day, Alexander Seo Rose, and his parents are here: Beth Seo and Kevin Rose, up in the gallery.

In the east visitors’ gallery behind us, I’d like to introduce, from my office, Heather Potter, my chief of staff; Leah Mulholland, deputy chief of staff; Nuri Kim, the director of policy; Desiree Godin, deputy director of policy and our auto lead, and all of our team. This is my ministry’s part of the team who have landed Honda, the largest Canadian auto deal in history.

It gives me great pleasure to welcome riding association members from the Brantford–Brant NDP who are coming here to question period today: Lukas Oakley, Ben Pickles, Harvey Bischof, Fatima De Jesus, Chris Powles and Shelagh Finnigan.

I’d also like to welcome and introduce the secretary-treasurer of the Ontario Federation of Labour, who is here with us today: Ahmad Gaied.

I’d like to introduce a constituent from my riding of Ottawa South, who is also here with the association of landscape architects, Cameron Smith.

It is my pleasure to introduce MPP-elect Steve Pinsonneault and MPP-elect Zee Hamid after their historic election victory last week.

It’s my pleasure to introduce members of the Ontario Association of Landscape Architects, whom I had the pleasure of hosting this morning at a breakfast. From the OALA council, we have Stefan Fediuk, Steve Barnhart, Cameron Smith, Justin Whalen, Matthew Campbell and a constituent of mine, Shawn Watters.

From their practice legislation committee, we have Glenn O’Connor, Shannon Baker and Tim Dobson.

From the OALA staff, we have Aina Budrevics, Angie Anselmo and Sherry Bagnato.

I want to welcome Matthew Collier, Jenny Collier, and their children Stella Collier and Alex Collier, who are here with no organization or cause. Welcome to your House.

I want to welcome Teresa Hebb and Colleen Carbert of the Ontario federation of ATVs. They will be holding a reception tonight. I hope to see you there.

And last but certainly not least, I’m pleased to say TOGA is in the House today. In addition to representing the Ontario Greenhouse Alliance—we heard about Jan and James—but I’d also like to welcome Rick Mastronardi, Albert Mastronardi and Richard Lee. We look forward to seeing you in the dining room from 5 to 7 this evening.

And hopefully last: I’d like to take a moment to welcome the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center as well as their chief executive officer, Michael Levitt, to the House, as we are observing Yom ha-Shoah today.

I just have to say welcome to Dr. Sarita Verma and Ray Hunt from the Northern Ontario School of Medicine. She has been fantastic in my community. She is leaving us, but thank you for being here today.

If there are no objections, I’d like to continue with introduction of visitors.

I want to acknowledge that we’re meeting on lands traditionally inhabited by Indigenous peoples. We pay our respects to the many Indigenous nations who gathered here and continue to gather here, including the Mississaugas of the Credit. Meegwetch.

This morning, we have with us in the public gallery the Fairbank Public School choir, from the riding of Toronto–St. Paul’s, to perform O Canada and God Save the King. Please stand and join them in the singing of our national and royal anthems.

Singing of the national anthem / Chant de l’hymne national.

Singing of the royal anthem / Chant de l’hymne royal.

The House observed a moment’s silence.

It’s my pleasure to add my voice of welcome to all those members from the Ontario Association of Landscape Architects, including some allies and friends who have joined us this morning for the reception. This includes Steve Crombie, who is the senior director of public affairs for the Ontario Road Builders’ Association; Andrew Hurd, executive director of the Association of Consulting Engineering Companies of Ontario; Joe Salemi, the executive director of the landscape architects; Lisa Kelly, the business development manager of the Ontario Chamber of Commerce; as well as Susan Wiggins, executive director of the Ontario Professional Planners Institute, and Jane Welsh, who is a friend and former colleague at the city of Toronto. Thank you very much for all of your work.

Yesterday was Yom ha-Shoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. I seek unanimous consent to observe a moment of silence in memory of the six million Jews killed during the Holocaust.

I have the privilege of welcoming a couple of constituents today: Andrew Hendriks from Hendriks Greenhouses and Jan VanZanten, the president of Flowers Canada Growers. Also, Steve Barnhart is here with the Ontario Association of Landscape Architects, and I also understand that Tenzin Phuntsok, who is working in my office for the next few weeks as an intern with the Ontario Parliamentary Friends of Tibet group, is here. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

In fact, let me update the Leader of the Opposition. In fact, the province of Ontario and its partners, the municipalities and our service managers, have actually built 11,000 of the 19,000 units, with five years left to go.

We also had a target, I believe, of 23,000 units that were to be renovated, rehabilitated and brought back into service. Of that target, five years in, we have actually done 123,000 units—almost 400% of the target.

The federal government has unilaterally decided that they want to change the rules and are unilaterally holding back $357 million. The province of Ontario is committed and will continue to fund our portion of the National Housing Strategy. Our service managers and our municipal partners are in full agreement with the province of Ontario. It is only the NDP who feel differently, Mr. Speaker, and that’s why “other” got more votes than they did in the two by-elections.

Now, let’s unpack, colleagues, what the federal government has decided to do. They’ve decided to unilaterally withhold $357 million because they disagreed with us on how we should distribute that money. For weeks, we’ve been saying, “It is distributed through our service managers.” Now, the big, bad federal Minister of Housing is going to punish Ontario. Do you know how? By distributing the money the same way we have done it for the last 35 years: through our service managers.

So I say, thank you very much for listening to the province of Ontario. Thank you for continuing to distribute the money the way we have done it for 35 years. Unfortunately, unilaterally, they decided to hold back $357 million, with the support of the federal NDP, who could have stopped it right away but chose to ignore it.

We’re going to continue to fund those programs that make sense for the people of the province of Ontario. If the big, bad federal government wants to get on board and help us, we welcome that.

We have said for two and a half months that we fund housing through our service managers, through our partners at the municipal level. They have said, “No, no, no”—but then they sent us a wonderful letter just last week that said, “You know what? We’re going to punish you by funding the program the exact same way you’ve done it for the last 35 years.” Well, thank you very much, and I agree with that.

This question is for the Premier. Last week, I met with housing advocates in Peterborough and in Barrie, and I heard how this government’s refusal to spend federal housing money on housing is putting so many projects at risk.

Under its agreement with the federal government, this government promised to build nearly 20,000 new affordable homes over 10 years, but six years later, they’ve built barely 1,000. The province didn’t keep its end of the deal, and now the federal government is taking back $357 million, leaving a giant hole in our housing budget.

My question is, why is this government so opposed to building affordable housing that they’d risk losing $357 million?

My question to the government is why, again, is this government abandoning its responsibility to fund and deliver new affordable homes in this province?

Public funding for luxury spas? No problem. Give $8.3 billion to greenbelt speculators? Sure thing. Fatten the Premier’s office’s budget? Why not? But provincial funding for affordable housing? Nada.

Why does this government hate publicly funded housing so much that it is choosing to give up $357 million in federal funding?

Interjections.