Let me state, just at the beginning, that I will be sharing my time with the Associate Minister of Housing, the member for Perth–Wellington and the member for Etobicoke–Lakeshore.

Of course, it is always a distinct honour to be able to rise in the chamber and speak on various issues. This one in particular is a very important one.

Since 2018, of course, the government has been focused on rebuilding the province of Ontario. There can be no doubt that when we were successful in winning government, back in 2018, Ontario was faced with a number of challenges and obstacles, whether it was infrastructure on transit and transportation, whether it was our education system, the finances of the province, a manufacturing sector that was significantly hollowed out, a lack of confidence on investors’ part to make critical investments in Ontario. We were losing employment. Our energy costs were rising. There were a lot of challenges that we faced. Of course, all of these challenges also helped lead to a housing crisis across the province of Ontario, a crisis that has been expedited by certain policies enacted largely with the federal government. But, predominately, we’ve been working since 2018 to begin to remove obstacles so that we could get more shovels in the ground, understanding how important it is that all Ontarians have the same dream that many of us have already been able to have ourselves—that is, to be able to buy your first home, rent your first apartment.

This bill here, in particular, is a bill that really looks at where we are today in the province of Ontario. Now, of course, over the last three years preceding this bill, we had seen housing starts at some of the highest levels in over three decades across the province of Ontario. In fact, purpose-built rental construction was at the highest level that we have ever had in the province of Ontario. That is all really good news, but there can be no doubt, Mr. Speaker, that when interest rates increased at the speed at which they did, it precipitated a new and a more targeted approach to helping get homes built faster. And what did we hear when that started to happen? Of course, high inflation was gripping the country—high inflation, which was a hallmark of some of the policies of the federal government, which led to the fastest increase in interest rates in Canada’s history in the shortest amount of time; at the same time, policies of the previous government which restricted availability of land for construction, which made it harder to get shovels in the ground, all led us to a very challenging situation.

So when interest rates spiked the way they did, we knew that we had to regroup and we knew that we had to listen to what the home builders were telling us, what our municipal partners were telling us. And what we heard over and over and over again was that infrastructure and the cost of infrastructure were becoming a massive challenge in terms of getting shovels in the ground for new homes across the province of Ontario.

So we spoke with our municipal partners, we spoke with our home builders and said, “What can we do?” By and large we heard from them that the measures that we had previously taken had led us to some of these really incredible housing starts in the previous three years, but they wanted us to take a more targeted approach—an approach that would allow us to get infrastructure in the ground, that would unleash not hundreds of homes, not thousands of homes but millions of homes across the province, and that is exactly what we did in this bill.

As we said, it is a very targeted approach. It’s an approach to remove red tape; it’s an approach to get infrastructure built; it’s an approach that supports the needs within the province of Ontario. So when you look at this bill, Mr. Speaker, we have heard consistently—I know members from all sides have been hearing about the need to use the existing infrastructure to get more homes built. That is why one of the most important parts of this bill is what we call the use-it-or-lose-it provisions in the bill. Now what that does, of course, is just as it is: You must use the infrastructure that you have been given or it will be reallocated to another builder who is ready to put a shovel in the ground. We have heard from our municipal partners time and time and time again that they needed a provision like this in order to get shovels in the ground faster and in order to maximize existing infrastructure, especially at a time when interest rates were pricing home builders out of the market and were making it more difficult for our municipal partners to use the funding that is needed to get shovels in the ground.

So the use-it-or-lose-it provision is something we worked on with our friends in the municipal sector, with AMO, but at the same time we worked with the home builders to let them know this was an important provision, that a lot of the other measures we were going to be putting forward in the bill would help to spur on more home building, but this was very important to us. I know that members on all sides were very supportive of this measure, and I think it will make a significant difference in reallocating.

Look, in ridings such as mine we have allocations of sewer and water that have held up development for over 10 to—in one case—over 15 years. It stops another developer who is ready to go from building homes. This bill will help us reallocate that, and I think that is a very important step.

We also heard that we needed to take action with respect to the Ontario Land Tribunal and how we can make it better, more responsive to the needs of our community, how we would make it fairer for not only our municipal partners, for home builders, but for the communities and partners within the communities. So the bill has taken a step in the right direction by limiting third-party appeals, while at the same time amendments were brought in that allow us to preserve the rights of landowners to appeal amendments that may be made that disadvantage them, Mr. Speaker. This is something that we heard from individual landowners, and we made that move in committee to address that challenge.

The move of limiting third-party appeals, in and of itself, will unleash some 67,000 applications that are stalled before the board right now, and that will make a huge difference in helping us get shovels in the ground faster.

Let’s be clear. That is the goal of this bill: removing red tape using a targeted approach—an approach that underlines the fact that we are in a housing crisis, a crisis that is spurred on in part by the fact that interest rates have climbed to such an extent in such a short period of time that it is pricing individuals, it is pricing home builders and pricing communities out of the housing market. The bill addresses the tribunal. It addresses use-it-or-lose-it provisions. I think they are two very, very important steps.

The other part of the bill that I think is extraordinarily important—and I know colleagues on both sides of the House, if I’m not mistaken, are in agreement on—is the provision that allows us to expedite the construction of student housing on our university campuses across the province of Ontario. This is a provision that our colleges have had for many, many years. This will help us expedite that construction as well.

We have had instances at U of T, right here in the city of Toronto, waiting over 10 years for approvals to construct a student residence. This policy will expedite that construction at the same time because as we know, when we build student housing on campus, it also opens up additional housing within communities. It makes apartments that were otherwise taken up by students available to members in the community, so I think that is also a very, very important—again, very targeted—approach to getting housing built faster.

At the same time as we were doing that, we introduced the provincial planning statement, which, in itself, is a very, very important document. It helps guide our efforts at building homes faster. It helps unleash housing along major transit areas. It helps revitalize those types of areas that, in many of our communities where you have old plazas—for instance, on major corridors—it allows us to rehabilitate those, to put higher density on those plazas while still preserving the commercial or retail that is available on the main floor.

We’ve all had them. There are many in Toronto. You can look at Brimley and Eglinton in Toronto, what’s called the Knob Hill Plaza. It is a block and a half of stores on the bottom, two apartments on the top. It may be a couple of kilometres away from the Kennedy GO train station. That is a prime type of example of what the provincial planning statement allows us to rehabilitate quicker, and I think that is also going to be utilized by municipalities across the province and by home builders who want to do more in those communities.

The other part that I think is really important—and, again, I thank all members because I’m under the impression that all members on all sides are supportive of the measure to eliminate parking minimums along major transit station areas. This will help significantly reduce the cost of housing in those areas, and I think it is also another measure that will help expedite construction of homes in a time when interest rates are where they are at.

The other part of this, of course, are a number of red tape measures which were brought forward, again, just as that, to eliminate red tape, whether it’s the Line Fences Act; whether it’s some of the changes we’re making to update the boards of some of our universities at their requests; whether it is the siting of pipelines so that we can have shovels in the ground faster. That is also a major part of this red tape bill.

But it’s not just in isolation. When we say that we’re bringing a bill forward to unleash construction, when we said that it’s targeted, that it’s about removing red tape, there is more to it than that. Also, simultaneously, we brought in, of course, the Building Faster Fund, which is helping to incentivize those communities which can get shovels in the ground faster. It’s helping support them in their efforts to do so. At the same time, we have brought forward in the budget a multi-billion-dollar infrastructure plan that will help to get not only sewer and water in the ground but help support the roads and bridges in those communities that will be building homes.

At the same time, the Minister of Education has brought forward the largest investment in schools in the province’s history, upgrading some of those older schools that needed to be upgraded at the same time, all in areas where we are building more homes, because it’s about building communities and the infrastructure that is required to support those communities. At the same time, of course, we have updated the MZO, ministerial zoning order process across the province of Ontario. We’ve unified it. We’ve made it more accountable and more open. As you know, Speaker, the new process, of course, is that any MZO request must be posted on the ERO for a minimum of 30 days so that everybody can make their comments—so people can see the who, what, where and why of a particular proposal.

So I know others will speak more thoroughly on some of the issues in it, but overall, this bill really reflected an important need. We were able to move quickly to bring forward a bill that was focused specifically on reducing red tape, a bill that was targeted to the circumstances that we find ourselves in today—targeted because we heard from municipalities, we heard from home builders that high interest rates were pricing them out of the market. They couldn’t get shovels in the ground for a home builder. People who wanted to buy their first home could not afford to buy their first home because of high interest rates, and our municipal partners were having trouble with infrastructure, because the high interest rates and the speed at which that happened were making it more challenging for them to get that job done as well. So this bill is reflective of that, Speaker. It is nimble and quick and targeted. It will not be the last step in our goal of meeting that challenge of building 1.5 million homes. It’s an important step, it is a targeted step, and it is, as I said, reflective of the times that we find ourselves in today.

With that, I will yield my time to the Associate Minister of Housing.

Good morning. Let us pray.

Prayers.

Mr. Calandra moved third reading of the following bill:

Bill 185, An Act to amend various Acts / Projet de loi 185, Loi modifiant diverses lois.

It’s a great honour to be here this morning and speak to this great bill, Cutting Red Tape to Build More Homes Act. As the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing and the Minister of Red Tape Reduction has already stated, there’s a strong need to cut more red tape for both people and businesses across this province and the minister has explained how the proposed initiative in Bill 185 would precisely meet this need. I’m going to take a targeted approach this morning to my remarks with respect to how we can get more homes built faster. As the Associate Minister of Housing, I naturally want to focus on initiatives in this bill that, if passed, would support building more homes in communities across our great province and build them faster.

Since day one, housing has been one of the top priorities of this government. We inherited a housing supply crisis—I emphasize the word “supply” here. We’ve taken action to get more homes built faster. I’m mentioning this to provide context to the bill we are discussing today. As such, this requires giving a brief overview of the successful work our government has accomplished to date on creating an environment that encourages home building throughout Ontario.

Speaker, I’ll start with what we’ve done to support our municipal partners, a key relationship in getting more homes built faster. Our government’s partnership with Ontario’s municipal governments is a crucial part of how we are getting more homes built faster. In this year’s budget, we are investing in helping municipalities across Ontario get shovels in the ground on new housing projects—I personally call the 2024 financial budget for Ontario an infrastructure budget, and I think I’ll explain why in the coming minutes. We did this through a historic investment of more than $1.8 billion of investment in infrastructure. This was to help our municipalities pay for this infrastructure, such as water and waste water lines and new roads—investments that enable more homes to be built in communities across Ontario. We refer to this as housing-enabling infrastructure.

Speaker, I want to go through in more detail about the $1.8 billion announced in the budget. That $1.8 billion includes the $1-billion Municipal Housing Infrastructure Program for roads and water infrastructure, and the $825 million, the Housing-Enabling Water Systems Fund, which is an application-based program for municipal water infrastructure projects that will enable new housing.

But our investments do not stop there, Speaker. Recently, we have been presenting financial funding to municipalities across the province that have made significant progress towards their housing targets. These funding awards were part of the $1.2-billion Building Faster Fund, as the minister just explained, which provides incentives to get shovels in the ground for new housing. Speaker, our three-year Building Faster Fund rewards the municipalities that meet 80% or more of the provincially assigned housing target year over year. These awards went to municipalities across Ontario, from Thunder Bay to St. Catharines. They went to large cities like Toronto and Ottawa. They also went to smaller communities like Sarnia and Chatham-Kent, and I had the pleasure of participating in handing out those cheques.

We know that building housing-enabling infrastructure is something all communities, both large and small, urban and rural, require to grow housing needs. That’s why the Building Faster Fund reserves $120 million for our small, rural and northern communities to access this funding, and access it they will. This is designed to meet their unique needs in these important communities in Ontario, and we’ve just completed the announcements of the Building Faster Fund distribution in the 2023 calendar year.

And the numbers for last year, Speaker, are terrific. In 2023, Ontario reached 99% of its target of 110,000 new homes, which includes housing starts, new long-term-care beds and additional residential units built on existing properties, including laneway homes and basement suites.

In my personal travels, I can say, Speaker, in talking to our municipal partners, this is very important funding. Let me give you a quick example. In part of my riding of Elgin–Middlesex–London, the community of Dutton Dunwich, in 2019, were going to expand their waste water treatment facility at a cost of about $3.3 million. They didn’t do it. They didn’t do it because they felt, at the time, that they couldn’t afford it. So they waited. A new council just got the funding—was given the final bid on what it would cost them to raise this infrastructure now: $13.5 million. So infrastructure is crucial for these communities. The prices have gone up, as we know, so we need to continue to help these folks get shovels in the ground faster, to get infrastructure in the ground so we can get these homes built.

The number would actually be 104% last year, Speaker, but the former mayor of Mississauga and current leader of the provincial Liberals failed to get the job done and had one of the worst housing records in Ontario. Bonnie Crombie claimed that she would meet her housing target of 8,800 homes. Did Bonnie Crombie come close to that housing target? Absolutely not. She missed the target by over 5,000 homes, failing to get even halfway to her promise. Mississauga’s housing target requires them to build 120,000 homes over 10 years. If the next mayor is to succeed in this task—and it is an important task—I would encourage them to abandon this plan of anti-housing policies which saw fewer than 25,000 housing starts in Mississauga over the last 10 years. I’ll say it again: less than 25,000 housing starts in 10 years in one of the largest cities in Ontario—not a good record at all.

Ontario broke ground on almost 19,000 rental starts in 2023. That’s the highest number of rental starts on record. It breaks the old record, which was set in 2022, by 27%. Under this government, in less than six years, Ontario has already had more housing starts on rental units than it did in 15 years under the previous Liberal government. We saw nearly 10,000 new and upgraded long-term-care beds and on top of that, the province saw nearly 10,000 additional residential units, ARUs, created in 2023. While these are not counted as housing starts, these property conversions allow for the creation of new housing on existing lots. That includes changing single-family homes into multi-unit residences or converting commercial office space into residential use, an important tactic and strategy to get more homes built faster.

What these results show, Speaker, is that our government’s housing initiatives are working. And with our new and ongoing supports to municipalities for housing-enabling infrastructure, Ontario will continue to see more homes built. Historic investments in infrastructure and legislative and regulatory reforms are giving municipalities the tools they need to give more Ontario families a place they can call home.

Our government is also helping homebuyers. We’ve worked to prevent speculators from driving up home prices by expanding the non-resident speculation tax province-wide and increasing it to 25%. And we’ve worked to better protect buyers of new homes by setting new standards for builders and increasing the fines for unethical behaviour.

We’re also supporting the building of more homes in other ways, which the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing will be discussing a little bit later.

Our government is also working to support people who rent their homes. We’ve set a 2.5% limit on rent increases in 2023-24 for rent-controlled residential units, and we are setting the groundwork for building more rental housing. Again, our plans are working. Rental housing starts hit the highest level on record in 2023. By lowering development charges and removing the provincial portion of the HST on new purpose-built rental construction, we’ve seen Ontario build new residential units at an unprecedented rate.

I want to make sure this point hits home: Our government’s work paved the way for the most rental housing starts in one year ever recorded in Ontario. Ontario has made more rental housing starts under this government than it did under the previous government. In five and a half years of this government, we’ve surpassed what the Liberals took 15 years to accomplish. The evidence is in: Our government’s actions are working when it comes to building more market housing right across Ontario.

Our government is proud of the foundation we’ve laid to help partners build more homes faster. This proposed legislation, if passed, will further that trend.

First, let’s look at student housing, an important part of the housing continuum. When someone’s daughter or son leaves home to attend an institute of higher learning, they still need a place to live. However, due to the limited amount of student housing, they are often competing with families for housing. That’s why our proposed legislation would remove publicly assisted universities from the Planning Act, including when building student housing. It would reduce timelines and increase the number of housing units allowed to be built in a student housing development. This proposed change would make sure that these universities get the same treatment already given to publicly assisted colleges. It could save years in approvals for student housing. It would avoid planning and application fees. And it would remove barriers to higher-density student residences.

What’s more—although not part of this bill—we would also require all colleges and universities in Ontario to publish student housing policies. We want to make sure that students have access to and are aware of the student housing options that are available to them that are safe, affordable and within a realistic commute to their campus.

Another very important benefit is that building more student housing frees up more housing for individuals and families in their communities.

To further help get more housing built quickly, our government is proposing to create a regulation-making authority that would exempt standardized housing designs from certain planning provisions. This is key for speed. Standardized designs are housing design options would be readily available to Ontarians and home builders for different types of housing projects and would range from single-family homes to low-rise and mid-rise apartment buildings.

We envision exempting standardized designs from sections of the Planning Act and the City of Toronto Act such as those dealing with zoning. If passed, we would make regulations that would speed up approvals for standardized designs that would get more homes built faster without compromising safety. That’s because these designs would have already gone through the relevant approval processes.

Going one step further, we see Ontario potentially partnering with other jurisdictions—and potentially with the federal government—to create a catalogue of standardized housing designs. We would then leverage these standardized designs to build housing faster by using modular or factory-built construction. Making it easier to use factory-built homes will create more housing options and potentially provide more opportunities for manufacturers of these factory-made homes. They could allow companies to become more efficient and pass the savings down to homeowners and/or renters.

There would be multiple benefits from standardized and factory-built designs across all jurisdictions. We would have greater speed in construction and economies of scale from a wider market.

These innovative initiatives I just outlined could be complemented and bolstered by Ontario’s new building code, which our government recently released. Not only that, but we also plan to soon amend the new building code to enable the use of encapsulated mass timber in buildings up to 18 storeys in height—a great addition. The use of mass timber provides a great opportunity to build more homes, and it could be a great boost to our northern communities, supporting good-paying jobs in forestry, and growing our economic base. Encapsulated mass timber construction offers an environmental solution for quieter, less disruptive and faster construction. It’s another option to get more homes built faster. I want to emphasize this: Even though buildings use wood, they have the same fire and structural protection as other building methods. It will be a tool for the future.

Speaker, the updated building code also reduces red tape and increases harmonization with the national construction codes. In fact, the next edition reduces red tape in Ontario by harmonizing with the national construction codes on over 1,730 technical provisions. Doing so allows for greater consistency, reduces interprovincial trade barriers and helps streamline manufacturing.

Speaker, these are the types of changes, both small and large, that our government is proposing to help tackle the housing supply crisis and to ensure more homes are available to the people of Ontario. Increased housing supply of all types will improve housing affordability for Ontario families, and it will support homegrown industries—this is key—supporting our homegrown industries and businesses that provide quality jobs. In fact, I was just up in the Minister of Agriculture’s riding of Huron–Bruce a couple of weeks ago and saw three wonderful examples of how this will help our economic base in southwestern Ontario.

Our government is committed to making it simpler to build new homes. We want to end needless delays. That’s why Bill 185 is focused on cutting red tape, to get shovels in the ground now so we can get more homes built and built faster.

The housing market is experiencing some headwinds, as we all know. Interest rates are punitive. They need to change. But we have created an environment—an even better environment—to support community home builders and municipalities through the benefits of this great Bill 185. Getting the job done is priority number one.

Speaker, I want to thank you and turn it over to the parliamentary assistant to municipal affairs and housing.

Next, we’ll have the Associate Minister of Housing.

The member for Perth–Wellington.

It’s an honour today to rise in the House to speak to the contents of Bill 185 and share some of the work that our government is doing to cut red tape and build more homes faster across the province.

As I go through some of the targeted measures—as the minister mentioned in his remarks, we’re taking targeted measures—in the proposed Cutting Red Tape to Build More Homes Act, you’ll notice that promoting a culture of partnership rather than a culture of delays is a thread woven throughout this piece of legislation. We’re working to ensure that our municipal and other housing sector partners have the tools that they need to get shovels in the ground to build more housing across the province.

To begin, I would like to highlight the aspects of this bill that address our goal of improving consultation and providing municipalities and builders with greater certainty to get homes built faster. Our government is proposing a change through Bill 185 that would, in some cases, reduce project delays by up to 18 months. Our proposed changes to the Planning Act would streamline certain third-party appeals to the Ontario Land Tribunal. This is a change that could help the housing projects in communities receive planning approvals quicker. As the minister mentioned, we would maintain the rights to appeal for groups such as First Nations, aeronautic governing bodies—airports, in the common tongue—and public bodies.

All too often, we’re seeing housing proposals get tied up in lengthy approvals processes. Of course, this is frustrating for all types of projects, but it’s especially frustrating when the proposal could have a positive impact in a growing neighbourhood—a neighbourhood with existing amenities like grocery stores or hospitals or one that is close to transit.

Speaker, approximately 67,000 housing units were subject to third-party appeals of official plans and rezoning between 2021 and 2023. Our proposed change could mean getting shovels in the ground a full year and a half earlier, which could then allow more families to move into new housing faster.

We have another proposal that we believe is needed in order to change with the times. We’re proposing a regulatory change to enhance public engagement on new planning applications and other Planning Act and development charge matters. We would do this by modernizing the public notice requirements to enable municipalities to give notice on their website if there is no local newspaper available. As we all know, the media landscape in Canada, and especially in our rural communities, is changing. Many now do not have weekly newspapers, unfortunately, and many are now virtual or websites online. This change will allow those consultations that are required to continue in the 21st century. It’s part of broader changes the government is making to improve accountability and transparency and part of the changes we’re making to ensure municipalities have the tools they need to grow their communities.

We would also work with our municipal partners to develop best practices for modernized public engagement and consultation. This could include expanding our reach to include notices in multiple languages to support culturally diverse communities so that more people can have their say when notices go up that affect where they live.

As the minister mentioned, we’ve also made changes around parking requirements. These changes could speed up getting shovels in the ground on housing faster. Through Bill 185, we’re proposing to lower the cost to build by removing the requirements to have a minimum number of parking spaces for developments in certain areas near most major transit stations. This proposed change to the Planning Act would apply to the lands, buildings or structures that are located within certain areas near transit called protected major transit station areas. It would also apply to other areas where municipalities plan to accommodate more housing and jobs around subways, rail and bus rapid transit stations.

Instead of mandating minimum parking requirements, our proposal would let homebuyers and home builders decide the number of parking spaces for new residential development near transit based on market needs. This is something we heard often from our municipal partners. I’m thinking of the mayor of Guelph, who has advocated strongly for the reduction in parking minimums. We’ve also heard it from our builders as well, which will help reduce their costs.

This form of decision-making exists in Toronto already. Our proposal would allow homebuyers and home builders across the province to weigh in, ensuring that these parking minimums do not hinder the development of new housing. If this Legislative Assembly chooses to pass this bill, this proposal could remove construction costs for a building between $2,000 to $100,000 per parking space per project, helping to make more projects viable in these challenging economic times. Under existing requirements in some municipalities, this could reduce costs by up to $50 million for a 500-unit development, making it cheaper to build and purchase new homes near transit. It will also make transit more accessible to more people across Ontario.

While we aim to cut red tape, in the process, our proposals aim to make building homes less expensive. We’re proposing changes to the Planning Act that, if passed, would enable future regulations that could help eliminate municipal barriers to building additional residential units. As those in this place know, we did make three as of right across the province under past legislation, and this legislation builds upon those important steps—buildings like garden suites, laneway homes and basement apartments, which are becoming very common across Ontario, whether it’s our urban centres or our rural communities.

By providing the government with the regulation-making authority related to additional residential units, we would be able to reduce the barriers created by the maximum lot coverage or rules around setbacks to preserve angular planes—in other words, the distance between buildings to allow light to pass through—and the rules around limits on the number of bedrooms allowed per lot, in turn supporting the number of additional residential units that can be built.

I’ll add that our policies are already delivering historic results in our beautiful province. Last year, Ontario achieved 99% of its province-wide housing target of 110,000 units. This number incudes the number of additional residential units, which are an important type of housing that helps increase the density in existing neighbourhoods.

I know I’ve had an opportunity to tour a couple of these new residential units in my own riding in the city of Stratford and in the town of St. Marys, seeing even our rural communities jump on this opportunity. It is through our legislation that we have passed that they are able to do this, streamlined in a quicker manner, and to offer those rental apartments to young people or seniors who are looking to downsize in our communities.

The Cutting Red Tape to Build More Homes Act also includes proposed measures that prioritize infrastructure for ready-to-go housing projects, with new use-it-or-lose-it tools. We’ve heard from our municipal partners that one barrier to meeting the provincial housing targets can be unused service capacity such as water and sewer servicing. A large factor in this is stalled developments. In fact, we heard from seven municipalities that 70,000 housing units with planning approval had remained inactive for at least two years.

The new use-it-or-lose-it tools aim to prioritize infrastructure for housing projects that are ready to go. The tools will help address those stalled developments and support the allocation of housing-enabling infrastructure such as water and sewer servicing in a more efficient fashion.

If passed, our proposed changes to the Planning Act, the Municipal Act of 2001 and the City of Toronto Act would explicitly enable municipalities to adopt policies setting out how sewage and waste water servicing capacity can be allocated or reallocated to developments that are ready to proceed. The result would be fewer barriers in delays prior to construction.

I know we heard about the use-it-or-lose-it policy often at the Standing Committee on Heritage, Infrastructure and Cultural Policy in our consultations that we have had earlier this year and continue to have around regional governance and other hearings we’ve had. I know our municipal partners have asked for this, and we are happy to work with them again, Speaker—the partnerships that we are forming with our municipal partners to get more homes built.

We’re not only prioritizing building infrastructure for housing; we’re also prioritizing building more types of homes for more people. To get there, we need to look at what is working and what isn’t. As we know, a new development may require many municipal planning approvals before construction begins. Under the Planning Act, municipalities can make decisions through their planning approval processes that determine the future of their communities. Municipalities make decisions around official plans, zoning bylaw changes and site plan control. This is one of the major reasons why we have listened to the needs and concerns of our municipal partners.

While navigating through the planning approvals process, some of Ontario’s priority projects—projects that are essential to building communities—have encountered delays. To solve this, we’ll be consulting on a new expedited approval process for community service facilities. We’ll be starting with kindergarten-to-grade-12 public schools and potentially extending the consultation in phases to long-term-care facilities and hospitals.

I know I had the pleasure of hosting Minister Lecce this Friday in my riding of Perth–Wellington to announce over $17 million for a brand new school in Mapleton township.

Interjections.

It’s great to join in here. Thank you, PA Rae, Minister Calandra and Associate Minister Flack. I also want to say a shout-out to Minister Calandra for having me as his parliamentary assistant. This has been an amazing opportunity, and I’ve only just begun, so thank you for that.

I also want to mention that Etobicoke–Lakeshore families are also getting a new public school. I appreciate that investment from Minister Lecce. It’s 825 new student spaces in the public school system, which also includes 88 child care spaces. Let’s get shovels in the ground, let’s hope those permits from the city get moving so we can have another new school in our growing community of Etobicoke–Lakeshore.

On this bill, I’d like to elaborate on some of the non-housing items in our spring red tape package and how these will make a real impact on the lives of people and businesses across Ontario.

First, I’d like to start with a quick reminder of why this work is so important. We know for a fact that red tape causes frustration, expenses, needless delays and complications for everyone, from individuals and businesses to not-for-profit organizations and, obviously, the broader public sector. These regulatory burdens are a barrier to the province’s productivity, innovation, economic competitiveness and development. The costs are just high, too high for everybody. We want more businesses to grow here in Ontario.

That’s why, for six years, it has been our government’s mission to make life better for everyone by eliminating red tape to save them time, to save them money and to improve government services. We know that more common-sense changes are needed and that they are needed now. That’s why we’re focusing on reducing red tape and creating the conditions to help people and businesses in Ontario thrive. We’re doing this while maintaining and strengthening the important rules and regulations that are keeping people safe and healthy and are also protecting our environment.

When we formed government in 2018, Ontario had long been known as the most heavily regulated province in this country. That’s a shame. Businesses were closing or leaving the province because of 15 years of Liberal waste, mismanagement and overregulation. While this has had an impact on everyone, this has had a disproportionate impact on small businesses, which make up the backbone of Ontario’s economy.

In my riding of Etobicoke–Lakeshore, we have amazing small businesses. To hear how happy they are about some of the initiatives our ministers have brought in—that’s why they’re staying here in our province. We need to continue to attract more business to our communities.

According to a survey by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, nearly 40% of small business owners may not have gone into business if they knew about the burden of government regulation. Businesses felt like they were being attacked rather than supported. As a result, we lost good-paying jobs in communities right across this province. We knew that that had to change, and we’re getting it done.

To date, this government has taken more than 500 actions to reduce unnecessary rules and regulations while protecting health and safety and the environment. These actions have reduced the number of regulatory compliance requirements affecting businesses and other regulated entities by approximately 6%, and they’ve eliminated more than 14,600 individual regulatory compliance requirements.

We’ve also pledged to introduce two high-impact red tape reduction packages every year, one each spring and the other in the fall, and we have delivered on that commitment. Since 2018, we have passed 11 high-impact pieces of red tape reduction legislation. Today, we’re here debating the 12th.

Our work has not gone unnoticed. At the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs, we heard first-hand that our efforts are making a difference. Julie Kwiecinski, director of Ontario provincial affairs for the CFIB, said:

“The government has come a long way on red tape reduction since 2018, starting with the much-needed recount of the regulatory burden in legislation, regulations, policies and forms across government” to measure progress. This “and other measures, like bringing in two red tape reduction packages every year, publishing an annual burden reduction report and offsetting 125% of direct compliance costs within 24 months, have elevated Ontario’s Red Tape Report Card grade to the current A-, one of the country’s top scores.” I just want to say that that is one of the country’s top scores, so congratulations to the ministers and those who were before me who had this role.

It is clear that our government is getting things done. We are making remarkable progress in cutting bureaucratic red tape to save people and businesses money and time. With our latest red tape reduction package, we are taking action to ease regulatory burden and make life more affordable. This comprehensive bill aims to slash compliance costs to create more affordable homes, ensuring that the hard-working people of this province have more money in their pockets and a greater opportunity for a prosperous future. What else can you ask for?

Our red tape reduction measures have now saved them more than $1.2 billion and 1.5 million hours in compliance costs every year. That’s really important to a small business owner. Time is money, so saving that time is really impressive. That time and money can go back into their families, it can go back into their business, and it can go back to volunteering in their communities, where it should be.

This bill we’re debating today, the Cutting Red Tape to Build More Homes Act, 2024, should save the businesses and the people of Ontario even more time and money once fully implemented and focuses on red tape cutting where it is needed most: building our homes.

Speaker, we’ve come a long way, and we’re proud of the work we’ve accomplished so far. We are grateful for the ideas shared by stakeholders, people across the province and our ministry partners who have worked diligently to streamline processes and modernized outdated practices across government.

In fact, my colleagues and I wouldn’t be standing here today with this bill in our hands without the assistance of our partner ministries who work closely with us to put reducing red tape at the centre of everything we do. To everyone who has played an important part in making the latest red tape reduction package possible, thank you.

Our latest package, which includes the proposed Cutting Red Tape to Build More Homes Act, 2024, has proposals for initiatives that improve all aspects of life and business. And I know that you’ve heard some today already this morning, but I’m going to share a little bit more.

We’re providing Ontarians with better access to health care by making it faster and easier for internationally educated health professionals to start working in Ontario. This is great news. We’re automatically validating vehicle permits for owners in good standing to save them time and money, and they should be spending that time with their families. We’re reducing delays and costs for utility relocation projects to build roads and faster transit. We’re reducing delays and costs for utility relocation projects, and we are attracting municipal investments by streamlining incentives to enable future investments by large-scale investors and create jobs. And we’re setting service standards for permits and licence services delivery to businesses while creating a single window for businesses and entrepreneurs to track the status of their applications. Think how much time that will save each individual.

Today, businesses can track the status of sign permits, encroachment permits, entrance permits, and building and land use permits online at their convenience, with just a permit number and an access code. Many more permits will be added to the tracker soon so that businesses can focus on running their business rather than sitting on hold with a government official, which, we all know, is really annoying sometimes, when you’re passed along from one to another to another when you just want to get your business done.

Speaker, when I talk about burden reduction, know that our government acknowledges the importance of having robust rules and regulations in place. They help protect public health, safety and the environment. They keep our children safe when they’re at school. They protect workers so they can come home to their families every day. And they ensure our environmental protections remain strong—one of the best, strongest in the world.

Our goal with the burden reduction initiatives we’re putting forward today is to ensure that we no longer rely on the rules and regulations that are burdensome, inefficient or outdated and that the ones we do rely on are current, enforced properly, predictable and consistent.

Speaker, we will never stop working to improve government services and reduce unnecessary burdens on people and businesses. That is why every time the Ministry of Red Tape Reduction considers a new idea for a red tape reduction package, we draw on the seven guiding principles that consistently direct our efforts to reduce red tape as enshrined in the Modernizing Ontario for People and Businesses Act.

The first principle is aligning with national or international standards when possible because it reduces time and cost required to adhere to certain regulations.

The second principle is that small businesses would have less onerous compliance requirements when compared to larger businesses.

The third principle is that any entity subject to regulations should be provided accessible digital service wherever possible.

The fourth principle is that regulated entities, like businesses, services and the broader public sector organizations, that demonstrate excellent compliance should be recognized.

The fifth principle is that unnecessary reporting should be reduced and steps should be taken to avoid requiring regulated entities to provide the same information to government repeatedly.

The sixth principle is that instruments should focus on the user by using clear communication, setting reasonable response times and establishing a single point of contact.

And finally, the seventh principle, Speaker: This is that the instrument should specifically design results that regulated entities must meet rather than specific methods used to obtain the result.

Speaker, what I have spoken about today are just a few examples of the initiatives in the proposed Cutting Red Tape to Build More Homes Act, 2024, and in our broader spring 2024 red tape reduction package. These proposed changes would help open doors to economic opportunities and reduce unnecessary burdens for individuals and small businesses.

I want to again thank everyone who has contributed to this latest red tape reduction package. To develop a package like this, we have to work collaboratively across government and with our ministry partners, and we also need to consult with a range of stakeholders and people across the province to build an inventory of ideas. And I thank them.

The best ideas to reduce red tape come from those who experience it each and every day. We are grateful for their feedback, and we want to continue the engagement, which helps guide our work to create a modernized regulatory enforcement that works for everyone. The bill and package before us today are proof that feedback we receive from our stakeholders and general public is helping to streamline processes and modernize outdated practices across multiple areas of government.

In addition to the direct engagement we do with people, businesses, not-for-profits and the broader public sector across Ontario, we also have a dedicated online portal at ontario.ca/redtape. I’ll just repeat that in case somebody wants to jot that down: It’s a portal. It’s at ontario.ca/redtape. So you can go online if you have some ideas on how we can cut red tape and make businesses and life more affordable and efficient for you and your family. We’ve so far received hundreds of submissions through that portal, and we look forward to hearing and seeing hundreds more.

Building on the previous red tape reduction bills and packages, the impact of these proposed measures would streamline processes and modernize outdated practices across multiple areas of government and multiple sectors of Ontario’s economy.

Madam Speaker, I look forward to hearing further debate on this bill, and I urge the members opposite to vote in favour of these important changes, as we heard at committee over the last couple of weeks.

I also look forward to continuing our province’s effort to reduce burden through further action around red tape reduction packages.

On this, I just want to say, it has been an absolute pleasure sitting at committee, listening to people. And if anybody, again, has any ideas they want to share with us, we’re open all summer to hear your feedback—because life is short, so let’s make it easier for us to run a business and have the opportunity to participate in our communities with our local members. If anybody wants to have a round table, please invite me to come along. I’m happy to listen to the concerns of our small business owners.

And on that note, I just want to thank the Speaker and everyone for their time this morning.

Thank you, colleagues.

This is a generational investment in rural Ontario, and it’s because of this Minister of Education and our Premier that we’re making these investments. What I was really pleased to hear and learn from our local school board, working—again, partnerships across our provincial, municipal and with our school boards in relation to getting schools built. This school is slated to be opened in September 2026. I know the municipality will work hard to open it even sooner, but it’s working with our municipal partners to streamline these builds, ensure that we have complete communities, whether it’s a hospital, long-term-care facility or a school. We’re going to continue to listen with our municipal partners to look at more ways to speed up the municipal approvals process so that growing communities can benefit from the high quality of life that Ontario is known for.

Speaker, there are other ways we are responding to municipal feedback regarding stalled development. Our proposed changes eliminate the mandatory five-year phase-in of development charge rates. This would apply to development charge bylaws passed on or after January 1, 2022. The development charges are fees that municipalities can apply on a new development or redevelopment to help pay for the capital costs of infrastructure, such as water and waste water plants, and to support new homes and other development in their communities. And for municipalities that have to amend their development charge bylaws to remove the phase-in, we are proposing that they would be able to do so using a streamlined approach.

What’s more, I am pleased to share with the Legislative Assembly that we brought into force the discounts and exemptions on municipal development-related charges for affordable residential units on June 1, so just last week. To support this implementation, we have published a website with the data that sets out the market-based and income-based thresholds for affordable ownership and residential units listed by local municipality. We believe this will incentivize the construction of new affordable housing across this province.

Throughout my remarks today I’ve shown how our government has listened to our municipal and other partners and responded to their needs through the proposed bill. I also wanted to talk about how we plan to keep the conversation with our partners going by improving consultation tools and the way we communicate with the housing sector.

As part of this package, we consulted on land use planning approvals through an update to the proposed provincial planning statement, or PPS. At the close of consultations, on May 12 of this year, we received over 175 submissions outlining feedback to our proposals. While municipalities are the decision-makers through the planning approvals process and are best able to speak about how their communities are developed when it comes to housing and services, evolving from A Place to Grow and the provincial policy statement, the proposed provincial planning statement would set the overall rules for land use planning in Ontario. It would be the guide for protecting our environment and our public health and safety. It would lay out the policies for using and managing our province’s natural resources and it would set out our government policies for managing growth.

We held consultations last year and received stakeholder feedback on our previous proposals for the PPS. After receiving this feedback, one of our key proposals is to make a change to the proposed provincial planning statement that includes increased housing intensification in existing urban areas that are near transit.

Our proposed changes also include promoting a range of housing options, including student housing and, importantly, seniors’ housing; making it faster and easier to make land available for residential development; and supporting better coordination between municipalities and school boards.

Another key change we are proposing would support the redevelopment of shopping malls in underused plazas.

We are currently going through the feedback we received on these proposals right now in the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

Speaker, through these measures and proposals I’ve spoken to today, our government wants to ensure that our municipal and housing sectors have the tools they need to support more housing in communities across the province. By extension, we believe our proposed Cutting Red Tape to Build More Homes Act would give Ontarians more access to homes that meet their needs and budgets.

I know our government continues to work with our municipal partners to get more homes built across Ontario, as I mentioned, not just in downtown Toronto but in northern Ontario and rural Ontario. We’ll continue to put forward targeted measures, working with our municipal partners, to get homes built and to get shovels in the ground because we all know we want to ensure that Ontario remains a great place to live, work, play and raise a family.

The member for Etobicoke–Lakeshore.

I really appreciate the representatives from the government talking about the red tape reduction bill. It’s quite extraordinary: Since our government came to power in 2018, this is, as I understand, the 13th red tape reduction package. It’s really an amazing achievement.

This stuff is, perhaps like me, not very glamorous—

Interjections.

Maybe I could ask either the associate minister or the parliamentary assistant just to summarize the impact that this particular bill will have on getting housing built and our targets. Whether it’s in infrastructure or otherwise, it’s just very, very helpful to get a sense of how it will impact our housing goals.

We’ll now go to questions.

Interjections.

Thank you to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, the associate minister and the PA for the wonderful presentation.

I would say this bill, Bill 185, Cutting Red Tape to Build More Homes Act, 2024, is revolutionizing the zoning and rezoning process in Ontario. Thank you to the minister’s leadership and his team. I was a former municipal councillor. I could see the process. The minister always talks about two things: Why are the housing prices so high and people couldn’t afford it? Number one is infrastructure; number two is the process.

Cutting red tape is talking about the process. I’ve seen through my eyes study upon study and consultation after consultation to get zoning processes moving, to build the homes faster. This bill is expediting the process to build more apartments, more affordable housing for students, seniors and low-income families, and this is a wonderful bill.

My question to the minister, then: Could you explain more and share about how we are expecting more housing through this bill and changing the zoning process?

Thank you to my colleague from Markham–Thornhill for this very important question. One of those ways—as we mentioned, I believe, in all of our remarks today—was student housing. We’re exempting that from the Planning Act for our universities.

I think of the University of Guelph, who have lots of students. It’s a great university in Guelph there, but they need student housing. But as the minister mentioned, those students now are in the community, taking rentals out of that stock from the local community. If we build student housing, they can then move into student housing and there is more rental stock for many workers—and because of the investments we’re attracting through our auto manufacturing, I know there are many in Guelph.

Look, I know the member has raised this often, and it is something that the opposition raise consistently when it comes to housing policy. Frankly, Madam Speaker, half the province, our most populated communities, already have as-of-right four, and it has not generated a significant amount of housing. That is why, in this bill, we have removed obstacles so that the as-of-right three can actually provide us the housing that we want.

We don’t stand in the way of any community that wants to provide as-of-right four. In fact, we encourage them to do so. There is no law in the province of Ontario that forbids a community from mandating as-of-right four. The city of Toronto has done that. I think they had somewhat less than 80 applications for that. So there are obstacles that have to be removed out of the way. That’s why this bill takes a direct line of sight on as-of-right three, making sure that it works, and we’ll move forward with that.

My question is to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. In committee, we heard time and time again from stakeholders—from the Ontario Home Builders’ Association to environmental groups to farming associations—saying that we need a whole mix of homes in Ontario, and those homes should include the opportunity to build fourplexes as of right in towns and cities across Ontario.

Can this government move forward with permitting fourplexes as of right in towns and cities across Ontario?

My question is about what I heard in committee when it came to the issue of building low-density housing on farmland and green space. We had organizations from the National Farmers Union to the Ontario Federation of Agriculture say very, very clearly that they’re very concerned about this bill and how it will make it easier for municipalities to say yes to sprawl, with no real justification, and also make it easier for developers to contest a municipal decision to say no to sprawl, even though we know that there is more than enough land available to meet our housing targets.

Why continue down the path of unsustainable sprawl when we know we have better options?

Thank you for the question. I guess I’m not sure I agree with the premise of her question, but I would say that when I look across Ontario—and the Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs will agree, I know, that we are feeding more Ontarians today than we ever have. We produce more food. We export more food than we consume. Yields and production continue to grow.

We’ve doubled the size of our population since I was in high school, a long time ago. So we are growing, yes, as a population but we’re also looking at infill and density, and we’re doing it well, and we can do even better. But people need roofs over their head. And all land isn’t created equal; remember that: The classes of land are different. So we are focused, focused desperately, on making sure we continue to support our rural communities, our farmers, our agribusinesses, but most importantly, we have to get roofs over people’s heads. It’s a balance, and we’re going to continue to make it work.

We’ve created thousands of new jobs. These people need homes, and I would suggest to the member opposite that they are not just going to be in big cities. They’re coming to rural towns and villages. We’re going to get homes. We’re going to get roofs over people’s heads.

Sorry to the associate minister there.

I have to say, the big part of this we have to remember is we’re saving people, we’re saving businesses $1.2 billion and 1.5 million hours in red tape. That is huge.

I’d like to talk a little bit about the panel that I’ve been chairing over the last couple of weeks. We’ve had experts from municipalities come in; people from northern Ontario, Peel, Hamilton, York; experts in the field; small developers; large developers; architects—people who are experts—and we’ve had such amazing discussions of how we can streamline some processes. And that’s it: What need to do with municipalities is streamline the processes. It should not take seven years to build a school.

In my riding, we have a school. We want to get shovels in the ground. We want to get these kids in a new classroom. It should not take seven years. Why is it taking so long to get shovels in the ground? Why is it so long to get permits from the school? Why is a process of a functional building taking so long? So we’re gathering experts around the table, and we’ve had numerous meetings to find out some solutions. How do we get municipalities and developers to work together? How do we get municipalities and community members to work together?

We’re getting it done. We’ll continue to work on this path because what we can do for people who want to build hospitals and schools and homes is make sure the process is straightforward and clear and understandable so we’re not wasting all this time. It should not take seven years to build a school.

Just to point out and respond to the comments that the associate minister said: Unfortunately, in the provincial planning statement, now municipalities don’t need to demonstrate that prime agricultural farmland is at risk before they approve a development, so we’re very concerned about the potential loss of prime agricultural land and the government’s decisions to do that.

I want to speak about third-party appeals. This government did some last-minute dealing where they’ve banned third-party appeals to the lands tribunal except for a few key players, including developers, major industry and companies near a site. Why bias the lands tribunal in that fashion?

One of my favourite things this time of year is to get out and support all the worthwhile charity runs, hikes and walks that take place in Oakville North–Burlington and across our community. To highlight just a few, I recently participated in the Run4Lighthouse, which raised over $250,000. Now in their 25th year, Lighthouse, in Oakville, offers grieving children, youth and their families a place to receive grief support and to connect with others following the death of a loved one.

Just this past weekend, I joined the Carpenter Hospice hike. Carpenter Hospice, located in the heart of Burlington, opened their doors over 20 years ago. Today, this 11-bedroom hospice has welcomed over 3,000 people as they go through their end-of-life journey.

Coming up on June 15, I will be joining hundreds of people for the Heartache2Hope 5K Walk2Remember, along Bronte Heritage Waterfront Park. Heartache2Hope provides healing support to children, teens and adults who’ve experienced a death of a loved one by suicide.

Speaker, these are just a few of the many charity runs that take place over the summer in our community. Each play a vital role, and the staff and volunteers deserve to be recognized for the compassionate care they provide. Thank you for fostering a spirit of community while raising valuable funds for these worthwhile causes.

My answer to my colleague across the way is, we continue to consult with our home builders to get homes built across Ontario.

It’s telling, colleagues, that my colleague across the way does not trust our municipal colleagues to make sound planning decisions.