I want to welcome to the House today two members of my riding of Durham, Mr. Doug Ellis and Mr. Timothy Zub, who are here today.

The Homeowner Protection Act, 2024, would, if passed, protect homeowners from harmful practices by banning the registration of consumer notices of security interest—NOSIs—on the land registry system and deeming existing consumer NOSIs to be expired.

The proposed act would protect buyers of new freehold homes by enabling the future implementation of a 10-day cooling-off period for purchases of new freehold homes, where the buyer could cancel the agreement for any reason within that period with no fear of financial penalty. This would help provide buyers with time to confidently make informed purchasing decisions.

The government is also committed to ensuring we continue to conserve Ontario’s heritage. The proposed legislation would, if passed, amend the Ontario Heritage Act to extend the deadline for municipalities to review their legacy-listed properties until January 1, 2027. This would support municipalities by easing administrative pressures and providing more opportunity for proactive designations.

Finally, to provide continued certainty for our building partners on transit-oriented community projects, the proposed legislation would exempt certain transit-oriented community lands from the immunity provisions in the Planning Act related to the making, amending or revoking of minister’s zoning orders.

I would like to thank the deputy minister within my ministry, Renu Kulendran; my chief of staff, Michelle Stock; my deputy chief of staff, Kai Nademi; my director of issues and legislative affairs, Erika Soler; my parliamentary assistant, Brian Riddell; and the MPP from Kitchener–Conestoga right behind me here.

Mrs. McCrimmon moved first reading of the following bill:

Bill 201, An Act to amend the Environmental Protection Act with respect to change of use exemptions / Projet de loi 201, Loi modifiant la Loi sur la protection de l’environnement à l’égard des exemptions en matière de changement d’usage.