Good morning, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to introduce my guest, Paul Marchildon, who is here from Simcoe North. I’m glad we were finally able to schedule time for you to be here. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

I’m very proud to welcome to Queen’s Park my incredible constituency assistant, Alida Troini and her dear mother, Febbronia Troini, today. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

This is actually why history matters, because the former member from Parkdale–High Park worked on stabilizing rentals. The reason we have any sort of inclusionary zoning is because of the former member, who fought for that. We, of course, always supported the co-op and not-for-profit sector. We could not get the Liberals to move on these things because they had a majority. It would be like us trying to get you guys to actually care about child care, for instance, right?

So history matters in this place. And for what it’s worth, though, the Liberal leader has talked very positively about the carbon tax, but this government refuses to own their own carbon tax that they have created in this province with the industrial compliance fee and the fact that you cancelled cap-and-trade. You guys want to keep talking about this? That’s fine. It doesn’t help with the housing crisis—nor does Bill 185, for that matter.

Also, it’s interesting to talk about the high costs. This is the government that froze the minimum wage in 2018. They actually put their hands in the pockets of minimum-wage workers and took out $7,000 over the course of the pandemic for full-time workers and $3,200 for part-time workers during a health care crisis. If that doesn’t speak privilege and elitism, I don’t know what does.

Let’s talk about affordability around housing. This is something that you refuse to acknowledge—that renters have rights too. Renters are families; renters are grandparents; renters are students—but no, not to you. This is the party that puts their developer friends first—anybody who can buy access to you. You actually got legislation written because of a price. So everything is for sale in Ontario, except for a little dignity on the housing file.