I didn’t even know you were here. Not in my backyard—NIMBY. He’s got a new one now. He’s got a new one, and I’ve got to tell you, I’ve been sharing it every day. BANANA: build absolutely nothing anywhere near anyone. That is exactly what is happening.

So when you want to know why there’s a lack of supply, there’s a lack of supply because we’ve got all of this NIMBYism that is happening, all of that activity. I look in my hometown of North Bay, and there’s one project—we had the civic hospital and St. Joseph’s General Hospital. They were both demolished and we built a brand new, billion-dollar hospital in North Bay. On the civic hospital site—now, I was mayor at the time these buildings were demolished. I was mayor from 2003 to 2010. So these buildings were demolished. Since then, there’s nothing built on the civic site. At least on the St. Joseph’s site, there’s a new long-term-care facility that’s under way, but on the civic site it’s just been blocked and blocked. It’s an entire city block. The hospital is gone, but there’s not one thing built on that because it continues to be blocked. For a decade, it has continued to be blocked.

That is exactly the issue. We’ve got that “build absolutely nothing anywhere near anyone.” That is exactly what’s happening. As a result of it, I can drive to the Commanda, which is in the southwest end of my riding, I can drive to Powassan—the little town of Powassan, 3,200 people; their first house to hit $500,000 in Powassan. That’s what’s happening when you can’t build anything, anywhere, near anyone. That’s what’s happening. In Port Loring, they’re having bidding wars for houses. That’s absolutely unheard of north of the French River. That is just absolutely unheard of, and that’s what’s been happening, Speaker. Because there is a lack of supply, it’s driving the prices out of reach of families, and so we, through Bill 39, intend to resolve that.

We look at last year’s 100,000 housing starts. I think that was the highest since 1987, far greater than the 30-year annual average of 67,500. But that was just the start. We need to have this bill in place so that we continue to work hard so that all Ontarians, both newcomers and long-time residents, can actually, for the first time, have the dream of home ownership become a reality.

So we’re taking steps to fix the problem. It’s bureaucracy. It’s the red tape. All of that stands in the way of the much-needed housing.

Speaker, I’ve talked about the fast-increasing demand. I’ve told this Legislature all about the $16-billion investment in the auto sector that’s created tens upon tens of thousands of new jobs. The 2,700 people that went to work in Oshawa this morning for the first time in a long time since that plant was reopened, the 2,500 people who are coming to Windsor after the thousands—it’ll likely be 10,000 people that work in that building there. All of these people need a place to live.

We will continue to make sure that we expand the strong-mayors powers to the municipalities that are shovel-ready, municipalities that are committed to growth and municipalities that are committed to cutting red tape. We want them to look at what we’ve done as a province.

We listened to Sergio Marchionne tell Premier Wynne that you’ve got to become competitive, you’ve got to cut costs, you’ve got to cut red tape, and that’s what will help us. Because I can tell you, Speaker, by the emails and texts that I send the Premier every night, that fast-increasing demand? That’s not going to slow down. That is not slowing down in the province of Ontario.

They look at us. I was in Germany and Austria and Japan and Korea earlier this year; every one of those countries, every business that we visited, said to us, “In this turmoil, in this tumultuous world that we’re facing right now, we look at Ontario as a sea of calm.” They can’t wait to get here, not only to work here but to open companies here.

I’m going to India on Friday, and I will meet with about a dozen companies, and they have all told us the same thing: “We just need to hear from you the facts. We believe Ontario is safe for our workers, safe for our families, safe for our executives. We believe that about Ontario. We want to hear that from you. And we believe that our investments will be secure. Ontario is stable. They promised low costs; they promised low energy rates; they promised to reduce the red tape”—all promises that we’ve kept. They need to hear that from us, every single company in every single country; they’re ready to invest here.

We think there will be great news out of the trip to Germany. We think there will be spectacular news out of the trip to Korea and Japan. We’re looking for really solid results coming out of India as well. We’re there to thank Tata for the 5,000 employees that they’re hiring here. We’re there to thank HCL and Infosys for the 500 employees each of them hired in Mississauga.

These are thousands of people, Speaker. It’s not slowing down. The demand will not slow down in Ontario. Now we need to work on the supply.

All of these investments, by the way, created jobs and have new workers in them. I think of you voting against the expansion of the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corp. dollars—a portion of that $8 million went to J.S. Redpath in North Bay, one of the mining companies that we expect to help us dig the lithium out of the ground in northern Ontario. All of these provided 500,000 workers in the province of Ontario.