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.

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

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.

My question is for the Associate Minister of Small Business.

The Liberal carbon tax is one of the most harmful taxes this country has ever seen. It burdens families and small businesses and hinders economic growth and progress in our province.

Speaker, we know the people of Ontario deserve better. This is why our government has been fighting the carbon tax tooth and nail since day one, but it seems the Liberal members, under the leadership of the carbon tax queen, Bonnie Crombie, want to see this tax increased over time.

They are propping up their federal buddies’ tax-grab agenda at the expense of Ontarians. We are not going to let that happen, Speaker.

Speaker, can the associate minister please explain why Ontario small business owners want to see this tax abolished?

Under the previous Liberal government, businesses in my riding of Richmond Hill saw their electricity prices skyrocket and people couldn’t afford to power their homes. Now, the independent Liberals are supporting their friends in Ottawa as they carry on the mantle of costing Ontarians more.

Speaker, can the associate minister please tell the House how the government delivers and supports entrepreneurs’ needs as they continue to fight the job-killing carbon tax?