I received a letter this month from Bart Coleman, pastor of St. Matthew’s Lutheran in Welland and First Lutheran in Port Colborne, highlighting the staggering number of people using food banks in Niagara. They wanted to know what the government was doing to address this crisis. I had no answer for them. Food banks receive very little government support. They depend on charity and are barely hanging on these days.

Jon Braithwaite, CEO of the Hope Centre in Welland, will tell you they continue to see a steady increase in clients. He also noted 2,364 Wellanders used their food bank for the very first time last year. They struggle to ensure they have enough food on the shelves and cannot keep up with the demand.

With social assistance rates remaining well below the poverty line, this government continues to legislate poverty in Niagara and across Ontario. Christine Clark Lafleur is the CEO of Port Cares in Port Colborne. She says that food banks like Port Cares are seeing families that used to donate food now have become clients.

While food banks are on the brink of collapse and cannot keep pace with the growing need in our communities, this government is handing over a billion dollars to corporations in order to put beer in corner stores one year earlier than it was already scheduled to happen. What a cruel and twisted sense of priorities. What a slap in the face to those who are on social assistance as well as those who work every day to help feed hungry families in our communities.

Let’s hope this government rethinks its priorities. How can you trust a government that puts early access to beer in corner stores ahead of access to food and shelter for its poorest citizens?

I thank the members very much for their remarks. Both of them touched on the practical elements of this bill. In fact, I’m also glad that the member from Niagara West touched on the acreage issue because this is one where numbers are thrown out. I think that they’re—yes, let’s get some updated numbers. I thank the member for doing that.

I also appreciate the member’s perspective on the length of time it has taken housing to be developed in our province. I can only imagine how young this young member would have been when some of these projects first started, but I think it’s all the more relevant for, as he noted, the young folks in the gallery. This bill is intended to support young homeowners—again, unlike myself. But I want to understand the member’s perspective and what the key drivers are to enhancing home building that are contained in this bill.

I’d like to thank the members from Niagara West and Essex for their presentation. As I’m sure they both know, representing rural ridings, Ontario is losing 319 acres of prime farmland per day, which represents 5% of the province’s entire farmland that will be lost in just five years. Bill 185 will make that loss even quicker. It will happen even faster.

Now, developers, airports, big manufacturers and cities are being provided the opportunity to appeal the Ontario Land Tribunal rulings that restrict building on farmland, wetland and environmentally sensitive areas, but this bill also takes away the ability for third parties. It takes away the ability of third parties to appeal these decisions. Is this yet another example of this Conservative government disrespecting rural Ontario and farmers?

The member from Niagara West started off by referencing some of the young people that had been in the chamber earlier today. In a recent round table—and some of those voices actually came to the committee—they actually were just begging the government to stabilize the rental sector. This is all that they have at their disposal right now. So my question to you, the member from Niagara West, is what does your government have against renters? And why do you not recognize that stabilizing the housing sector is one of the key pieces to actually ensuring that we address the housing crisis in this province?

It is a pleasure, of course, to bring some of the concerns of the people from Waterloo region to Bill 185. We were in committee for a few days. We did clause-by-clause. It was a painful, painful exercise, I will tell you, because even when the ideas are good, the government is not interested in listening. In fact, the government isn’t even interested in listening to their own Housing Affordability Task Force, which actually had a few good ideas as well.

I do want to thank our critic on Bill 185. She brought forward, with the help of our research team, which always punches above their weight, some really thoughtful amendments to this bill. Because we came into the process quite earnestly in thinking that the government might embrace the idea that what they’ve been doing, which has not been working because our housing starts are down—and so there was room for improvement, right?

So here we are. I think this is the 12th or 13th red tape bill that the government has brought forward, ironically, in some cases, creating more red tape in the entire process. And it’s becoming really frustrating because the government is clearly spinning their wheels on housing. They’ve created some chaos, particularly with Bill 23, which preceded these bills, which really destabilized the relationship that this government has with municipalities and, of course, broke trust with the people of this province with the $8.3-billion greenbelt scandal which the RCMP is currently still investigating—the criminal investigation into this government.

So it was with that mindset that we went into this process and quite honestly said, “Well, maybe they’re at a point right now that they’re ready to work collaboratively.”

The housing crisis is a serious issue. Everybody understands that housing is an economic stabilizer for people. It’s hard to go to school, it’s hard to raise a family, it’s hard to get a job without housing. Housing is pretty much it, right?

We also learned at pre-budget committee that housing is also health care. This is why the university hospital just down the way is actually entering a new capital campaign to attach housing to their hospital because, otherwise, people just continue to cycle through the emergency room at great cost—way greater cost than providing a roof and warmth, or cooling in the summer. So, really, innovation down University Avenue—I commend that hospital and those doctors for leading the way. I would like to see the same leadership from the government, quite honestly.

And people are starting to take notice. I’ll just tell you before I get into the substance of the bill that I had my Leading Women, Building Communities awards on the constituency week. I did give this award to the Mount Zion church for their Black history advocacy—just really strong women. It was so refreshing to be in a room filled with good people who really care about their community and are looking for solutions to help and to fill the gap.

A lady came up to me, and she said, “Catherine, I want to give you a Band-Aid.” I was like, “Oh, well, that’s nice. Why are you giving me a Band-Aid?” She goes, “I think you should put it on your forehead.” Quite honestly, I didn’t know where this was going to go, because these conversations, as we all know, can go in very different direction. She says, “No, I think you should put this Band-Aid on your forehead because you must be in so much pain from banging your head against the wall.”

This is what it felt like at committee, quite honestly, because the committee members on finance, they don’t really have the ability to move away from the government’s agenda, which is unfortunate because the government’s agenda is not working on housing. Even some of the very, very good ideas that have come from home builders in Ontario, for instance—who are not against building fourplexes, right? Fourplexes are actually embedded in the government’s own Housing Affordability Task Force. They are part of the solution. Are they the everything? Of course not, Madam Speaker, not at all. But for the government to draw the line in the sand—triplexes are okay; fourplexes, not so much—is ridiculous.

It is also ridiculous to hear the Premier of Ontario stand in his place and talk about eight-storey fourplexes. It is absolutely ridiculous. Or that fourplexes compromise the integrity of the neighbourhood—you know what the Premier is actually defining? It is the very definition of NIMBYism.

After all of those days and months and it feels like years of the whole greenbelt thing, where they were calling us NIMBYists for actually advocating for greater transparency and intensification in the very neighbourhoods that are already established—because the infrastructure is there; the schools are there; the hospitals are there; the community is there. We were advocating for that intensification because it makes sense and because, unlike the very strange sentiments from the member from Niagara West that we aren’t really losing 319 acres a day of farmland in Ontario—I have never heard this story before, I have to say. It was a head-shaker, wasn’t it? But the member from Niagara West basically said, essentially, that climate change is making the north warmer, so now we can have more farmland up there. So he’s no longer a climate change denier; he’s a climate change promoter.

Oh, the north. I don’t know if you’ve spent some time up there. Hydroponics? Absolutely. There’s some innovation happening on farming. It’s beautiful; it’s great to see. But this is a common theme that a lot of Conservatives espouse, that there’s this land exchange: “We’ll pave over those wetlands over there, but we’ll create another one over here.” It is a ridiculous concept.

I have to say, the member from Niagara West, that is astounding. I think it’s worth noting because it’s the first time that this new narrative around climate change has actually been introduced in the House. It’s something to be watched because I think that if we’ve learned anything after six painful years of this government—they can spin anything, and then they can use your tax dollars at home to actually promote their agenda.

The Auditor General has already confirmed 75% of those “It’s All Happening Here” would be deemed partisan advertising under the original rules that the Liberals agreed to bring in and then changed for their own political interest.

Who can forget that one commercial? Do you remember the commercial when the Liberals were really on the ropes? I want to say 2015 and 2016, whatever. It’s this lady who’s jumping over this valley to get to her pension. We paid for those commercials, and of course, there was a fictional pension plan, quite honestly—the concept. I remember knocking on a door—and this is why it’s so important. This is why truthful advertising, particularly from a government to the citizens we are elected to serve—that trust can be broken very quickly. When I knocked on the door, this elderly lady who had never worked says, “No, I want my pension.” Yes, she believed the commercial is what I’m saying to you. To add insult to injury, her tax dollars went to pay for that commercial.

We got to some of that through the public accounts committee. Public accounts wasn’t as frustrating, I think, as SCOFEA was because the government could not provide really any rationale for what they were doing, especially when they brought in this new, suddenly urgent amendment on Bill 185 to allow airports, large manufacturers and cities now to have exclusive—they’re going to be able to go to the land tribunal’s planning committee, but citizens and people who care about the environment are not. Now, you’re not even hiding it anymore, that the environment is not your priority, right? When you’re intentionally excluding these voices about their own community—this is a fundamental undemocratic move that the government is making, to exclude the voices of Ontarians in their own communities.

So, to put it mildly, it was a tough sort of week in SCOFEA, because we care deeply about our communities. Environmental change and climate change is real, and it is having an impact on how we should be planning more sustainable communities and housing within those communities, full stop.

There was some good news, though, last week—just to mix it up a little bit here—Donald Trump was found guilty on 34 charges. It was a beautiful, beautiful moment, quite honestly. It kind of restored hope a little bit more in the justice system—not in Ontario’s justice system, of course, because we have some long-standing issues in that regard, but that was a good moment.

Now, our critic talked about some of the amendments that were brought forward. One was to the City of Toronto Act to protect and compensate tenants who are being renovicted or demovicted. Is this government concerned about those people? Not at all. They totally shut that conversation down, not interested in displaced seniors from their precarious housing. The fact that the government introduced this amendment near the end there—which was very concerning, actually, because we have seen how this government establishes legislation: It’s who has access, who’s got the money, who goes to the fundraiser, who goes to the party. This is a direct ask of these communities.

Now, I understand that the government has looked at airports a little bit differently, because they did award an MZO to a skyscraper close to an airport, which we can all agree is not a good idea, right?

I thank the member for Niagara Falls for the question.

Who we’re helping? I’ll summarize what I said.

We’re helping students with access to homes on or near campuses—on university campuses, on college campuses, even in Niagara region.

We’re helping farmers develop reasonable, remote, on-farm housing that’s close to the farm, where they want to be. It’s safe.

Innovation means the food systems that feed all of us, and those acres of farmland that may be used to produce a certain number of kilograms per metre squared of agriculture now produce 16 times that much in controlled environment agriculture greenhouses, and they can be built anywhere.

This bill is all about options. It’s all about building a strong relationship between municipalities—444 of them—in the province of Ontario. It’s about investing in infrastructure that can actually build homes. It can build on-campus housing that’s happening right now in the member’s nearby riding at the University of Windsor, our alma mater. So it’s about options—it’s about respecting people, and a wide range of different housing types and different housing needs.

The types of housing we’re seeing now with controlled-environment agriculture, or greenhouses—it’s state-of-the-art. It’s inspired by on-campus housing at universities like Carleton, Ottawa, University of Windsor. It’s safe. It’s clean. It’s secure. By allowing planning to have more infrastructure, to have the waste water, water resources and all the services go to the farm where the housing is located—on-farm campus, where all the supports and resources are there. You have modern, state-of-the-art farms that have housing complexes that don’t resemble anything you’ve ever seen, other than a modern, safe, clean, enjoyable university dorm—separate living quarters, good air exchange, separate eating facilities, washroom facilities.

These valuable workers will live on their farm campus like they would at a university campus—safe, clean, healthy and secure.

I was happy to visit the University of Windsor recently. They have a beautiful hall called Alumni Hall—highly coveted, sought after. Right next to it is its twin hall, stalled in different various stages of construction. That construction and all those planning processes can be released, and 20,000 spaces for new college students and university students can be released with the passage of this bill, because it releases the burden from universities and colleges to go through this myriad of different planning processes and appeals to actually allow this to support families of students everywhere in Ontario.

I pride myself on knowing a whole bunch of stuff about a very little amount of experience—so what I did is, I asked the experts. I asked home builders. I asked a full range of home builders—the niche home builders to the great big guys with the big projects and skyscrapers and multi-family residences. I said, what are the pressures? What do we need to install that wide range of housing options? They said our pressures are coming from three areas: high interest rates—once the interest rates go down, that pent-up need, that pent-up ambition to move on to the next level is released. Two, planning processes—planning processes and delays—and third-party, fourth-removed complaints about someone 50 kilometres away that can stall a critical housing development that can offer a wide range of housing options for a wide range of different people in different markets. That’s what’s happening—interest rates, supply and planning processes. I am very proud to say that this bill remedies a big portion of that.

Thank you for your time, Speaker.

Report continues in volume B.