This petition was delivered to me by Sally Palmer, who is the chair of the Hamilton Social Work Action Committee. It calls out the failure of the ODSP and OW rates and calls for these rates to be doubled in the province of Ontario so that we do not have legislated poverty in this province.

The agricultural sector contributes $48 billion in economic development to the province of Ontario.

In Waterloo region, 770 acres of prime farmland are being designated for a large industrial site. The people of Wilmot have delivered hundreds, if not thousands, of signatures—and I want to thank them for that—calling on the provincial government to slow down the demise of our farmland in Ontario, and also calling on the regional government to not move forward with the forced expropriation of this prime agricultural land.

I fully support the people of Wilmot and Waterloo region and, in doing so, will affix my signature and give it to page Hosanna.

Some 4,500 people die from suicide in Canada each day. These are preventable deaths, if the resources are there. So this petition is calling on the government to recognize the state of crisis in mental health in Ontario.

It is my pleasure to honour Kaitlyn’s memory, support her family, affix my signature and continue to call on the government for greater mental health resources.

This petition calls on Lydia’s Law to be called to justice committee.

It’s good to hear that the justice committee will be dealing with the IPV issue over the summer.

We all can never accept that 1,326 sexual assault offenders walked out of court and did not have their day in justice.

Lydia’s Law honours the voices of survivors and calls on the government to move forward with the 2019 Auditor General recommendations—that would be greater accountability to the Attorney General, and report back to this House what’s actually happening in our court system. This is a good bill. It’s the first step in moving the justice system forward.

I’m affixing my signature and giving this to Farhan.

I would like to say in the House, and this is probably the first time in almost six years, I am very happy that this government bill has been called to the House. I’m very grateful that the government has moved so quickly on addressing NOSIs. And I particularly would like to thank the government and Minister of Public and Business Service Delivery for taking action on this extremely important issue.

I’d also like to thank, of course, the member from London North Centre and the member from Parkdale–High Park and, of course, the very passionate member on this issue from Humber River–Black Creek. I was pleased to join them as co-sponsors on Bill 169 to address these predatory practices in Ontario.

Some background on this bill—because my parents just tuned in—we have been hearing a lot about notices of security interest, or NOSIs, that are placed on properties, resulting in many senior victims. It’s a relatively common interaction: Typically, an illegitimate company shows up at a homeowner’s door offering to sell or rent HVAC appliances, and there is a debt or a lien placed on the home that must be repaid upon the sale or refinancing. Some of these videos that have been published about this issue are truly, absolutely heartbreaking. Many seniors find themselves victims on this.

A simple unit which costs hundreds of dollars becomes tens of thousands of dollars in many of these cases. Worse yet, homeowners don’t even find out about the NOSIs until they refinance or sell. Homeowners, especially senior homeowners, deserve to be protected.

There has been a considerable uptick in NOSIs registered in Ontario over the past two years, with hundreds of thousands of dollars registered on title. Particularly vulnerable are low-income citizens and those who are socially isolated.

I must tell you that some of the saddest videos that were part of this investigation show seniors who are lonely and they are isolated. In one video that I watched, the lady wanted to get the door-to-door salesmen some coffee, to have him sit down and have some cake, because they were lonely. Essentially what was happening, though, is that these lonely and isolated seniors were literally inviting the wolf into their own home. The connection to organized crime as these NOSI scams evolved is truly frightening. It was certainly a learning experience for me as the finance critic.

I want to just tell you very quickly about one local resident—his name is Ian Craig—in Waterloo region. He has had seven notices of security interest on his property, totalling more than $150,000. All the NOSIs on Craig’s home were put there by scammers without his knowledge. “This is not right, for people who have invested in their homes, that somebody comes along and puts [NOSIs] on it for half of” the house. “The way they can take advantage of people is just disgusting,” he said. “This is why we need protection.” This is why we need Bill 200.

The ties to organized crime became very evident when we reached out to the Waterloo region police, who I definitely want to say thank you very much to for your leadership and your advocacy and for your education on these predatory practices.

Detective Stover of the Waterloo Regional Police Service has been investigating NOSIs since 2010 but the investigation intensified in 2020 when police identified that they were being used criminally. Sometimes this is data that is the personal and financial data of the individual in the home. That data is captured and then sold to various other organizations. It was astounding that this has been going on and accelerating in Ontario for the time being.

“It became a tool used by organized crime to target and revictimize people who had notices of security on title from the years previous,” said Stover. “They really identified an aging population in Ontario that have a lot of equity in their home.”

Last year in Ontario alone 38,000 NOSIs were registered. Imagine that this practice has been allowed to continue for so many years. When this came up under the former Liberal government, it was astounding. They were supposed to outlaw door-to-door sales, but there was no enforcement whatsoever. The lack of oversight—basically just going through the motions—is really a disservice to so many Ontarians, particularly the vulnerable and seniors. It is vital that we protect vulnerable citizens and especially seniors from such scams so that they are not being taken advantage of.

Thank you very much for introducing this important legislation. I hazard to say it, but let’s get it done today—

Interjections.

It’s a pleasure to join the debate today—almost a historic day, really. I’m really pleased that the member from Oshawa has brought forward this motion to the House. It feels very much like a “help us help you” kind of moment here.

It is important, actually, just to understand how we got here. I do think that it’s worth noting that when the Ford government first came into power back in 2018—then they zapped the compulsory garage plugs from all new houses and condos, effective 2019. This felt at the time like an absurd move, I have to tell you, because most of us would agree that people do want to transition away from your traditional automotive fossil fuel car.

EV has a little shininess to it, but there are some structural issues that stand in the way of consumers purchasing those cars.

I also want to make it very clear that there have been some major investments in this province towards the EV sector—$2.5 billion in taxpayer dollars going to Honda in a recent announcement. However, according to a recent CBC article, “The surge in investment comes as the underlying EV industry remains at a crossroads.” So this motion from the member of Oshawa can actually be a motivator, if you will, and an enabler, if the government is serious about the EV sector. “Growth forecasts have plateaued, charging infrastructure has not kept pace and electric vehicle prices have pushed the cars out of reach of many consumers.”

So this is where we are in the province of Ontario—major investments towards the automotive and the factories, but the missing piece to successfully rolling out and becoming a true global leader in the EV sector is the infrastructure piece.

According to the Pembina Institute, “Currently, Ontario’s EV market share is low and charging infrastructure is insufficient—in Ontario, there is approximately one public charger per 25 EVs on the road. Globally there is about one charger per eight EVs on the road.” We have a lot of work to make up for.

“However, EV sales are sagging, in part due to inadequate charging infrastructure”—and this is just from April 2024—“there are about 2,900 charging stations with 8,000 charging ports in Ontario.” This is insufficient.

This is why there is a lot of market interest in building these chargers into the building code. Build it right the first time. Create the market share. Address some of the stigma and the concerns and fears around range anxiety or access to charging, build that market share and demonstrate to companies like Toyota that Ontario really is serious about the EV market.

Other stakeholders—this is Daniel Breton, the head of the industry association Electric Mobility Canada: “The problem ... is people have limited knowledge and understanding of electric vehicle chargers.

“An Electric Mobility Canada survey found 88% of respondents said they would like their next vehicle to be electric but only 13% claimed to have an in-depth understanding of EVs, including the number of public charging stations, government rebates and battery life, among other aspects.”

“The entire industry agrees we are going to get to a place where we are at zero emissions. The only debate is how long it’s going to take.” This quote is from Flavio Volpe, who is head of Canada’s Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association.

“That timeline depends on several key factors. But price and charging infrastructure are among the most important.”

Everybody gets a second chance to correct a mistake, I think, in this House. We just saw a really important moment in this House where we worked together to try to address the predatory practices around NOSIs.

There are three major, key issues at play with the motion today. We want to make sure that going green shouldn’t be prohibitively expensive. When you install a charger in your home at the time of build, it’s approximately $500; later, after the house is built, it’s about $3,000 to $5,000. This is cost-prohibitive for so many Ontarians.

My son is an electrician. I’m very proud of him. He could work 24/7 in this province. We need more electricians to do this work. We will get more electricians moving into the trades if the building code is changed, if we build in this green infrastructure around the EV sector.

The other thing is that good union jobs are on the line. The provincial government has made these investments, but without a reliable consumer market, we have actually already seen the Ford Motor Co. delay their EV production by two years. So this would be a confidence builder, I would say, for the market, and then finally an easy fix to prepare for an electrified future.

This is the direction we should be moving. As the official opposition, with the leadership of the member from Oshawa—the time is now. Join us. Help us help you make the EV sector truly successful in the province of Ontario.