I look forward to speaking on Bill 97, the Helping Homebuyers, Protecting Tenants Act, 2023.

Speaker, of course, it is no surprise that our government is absolutely committed to making life easier and more affordable for people across the province of Ontario. A big reason why is to reverse the decades of inaction of previous governments and to address the mountains of red tape that previous governments had amassed. This latest piece of legislation and the three previous housing supply action plan pieces—through those, we’re continuing to increase Ontario’s housing supply so more families can find a home they can afford. But we’re not just working to meet the goal of building 1.5 million homes, we’re also supporting renters and increasing protection for new homebuyers.

As I mentioned earlier, this is now our government’s fourth housing supply action plan. I think the real reason why we need to talk about supporting 1.5 million homes is just to look around, Speaker, and see all of the development that has happened here in the province of Ontario and the huge demand for homes that will continue.

Speaker, I can tell you that we are extremely pleased with the latest economic development venture that is going to bring thousands of new jobs in Ontario and create smaller communities turning into larger communities, and that is of course landing Volkswagen to the province of Ontario. They’ve announced that they’re coming here to build a gigafactory. This is going to be a massive facility in St. Thomas. We will be hearing from them very shortly as they return to Ontario to talk to us about the details, but if we think about the fact that it’s going to be a multi-billion-dollar facility that is being built, it will require thousands of employees, which will, in itself, create thousands of spinoff employees.

All of these families will need a place to live. There will be a tremendous amount of new homes built in Ontario just to satisfy this one sliver, this one sector, the auto sector of Ontario and the growth. We have talked many times in the past about the fact that, under the previous government, they had made the declaration that Ontario would be getting out of the manufacturing sector and settling into the service sector. That was going to be our lot here in Ontario. Thankfully, in the previous Liberal government’s—what turned out to be their final—economic statement, when they made that declaration—we declared the opposite, that we’re not throwing in the towel on the manufacturing sector; that we believe deeply in the people of Ontario and the expertise that they have created. We have turned that around and saved the 100,000 auto sector jobs, but also have opened the door now for tens of thousands more jobs being created in this electric vehicle revolution. Because of that, it is going to put an even larger demand on housing. The 1.5 million homes that will be built in the province of Ontario are going to be absolutely critical to the people of Ontario.

These changes that we’ve made—you heard me in question period earlier today talk about the fact that they came with no help from the NDP or the Liberal members of Parliament. They voted against, and I went down the line and started talking about the various things that they voted against. It all was to help these families and all to help build these 1.5 million homes in Ontario. You can’t do that if you don’t have—and I pointed at the Minister of Labour—the skilled workers that are being trained. They voted against all of the programs to bring in skilled workers in Ontario and to help train them.

I talked about the fact that you can’t have those companies come here, you can’t have 1.5 million homes if you don’t have—and I pointed at the Minister of Transportation—the roads and the bridges and the highways to get you to those homes and to get you to those businesses. I pointed to the finance minister and the Treasury Board president. This opposition has voted against every single tax break that we have offered to families, to seniors, to kids in school—all of these things they voted against, each and every one of those items, as well, again hurting families, slowing down the growth, doing everything they can to delay progress and to stop the building of 1.5 million homes.

I pointed at the Minister of Energy and talked about the huge energy reduction programs that have come from this government that the opposition has voted against. All of those are critical in building 1.5 million homes. I can tell you, Speaker, I could have pointed, had I had more time, to each and every other department, each and every other ministry. I could have talked about the Ministry of Colleges and Universities and the programs that we have that are helping to bring in our auto workers. We have 24 colleges and universities that have programs for those auto workers.

When I sat with Volkswagen and when the Premier sat with Volkswagen—for myself, many times; the Premier four times in his office, with the executives from Volkswagen—they always talked about the talent that is found here in Ontario. They’ve asked us, “How are you going to get these people into St. Thomas? Where are they going to live?” These are the kinds of questions that we talk about on a daily basis to make sure that we have the right people, the right talent, the right training, the right ways to get there, the right electricity sources for all of these groups who are coming here. That’s why we’ve seen these record housing starts. Just last year, rental housing starts in the province set their own record as well.

That is a result, absolutely, of our government’s policies, and that’s why we’re continuing to build on that work, to build houses at a record pace. It’s really critical that we have support for our housing bills, because that’s the support that we need as we travel to other countries and other companies to visit and talk to them about why they need to be here in Ontario.

This bill is important because it has a lot of other changes that help protect renters. It supports landlords. It’s a really wonderful mix. It clarifies, it enhances the tenants’ rights, for instance, to do something as simple as install an air conditioner. It further strengthens protections against evictions due to renovations or demolitions or conversions. These are all things that are very important. We want people to come to Ontario. We want people to build in Ontario. We want people to build rental properties. We want people to rent properties. But all of these things need us to help them along, and so we’ve done things like protecting homebuyers with a cooling-off or a cancellation period. Those are really important items to have when you’re buying a new home.

We also want to make sure that deposit insurance for first-home savings accounts will be expanded to credit unions. These are the kinds of things we’re doing. You can see, Speaker, that every little nuance, every little thing that we’re doing, is to help those families, help people get into a home, help people get into their first home, help people rent with confidence. All of these things are all critical.

We’re reducing the cost of building housing. We’re putting 74 provincial fees that are going to be frozen at their current rate. That’s going to help keep prices where they are. All of the things that we’re doing is because we have tens of thousands.

The Premier said it earlier today: Governments don’t create jobs, but we can create the environment for job creators to create jobs here. And as a result of all the policies the Premier has talked about today and all the policies that we talk about in this Legislature, over and over and over from the economic development side—we’ve seen the results, Speaker: Over 600,000 men and women went to work today in a job that they did not have, that was not in existence when we got elected; 600,000 new jobs since we got elected. That is almost unprecedented in our history, and we’re only beginning.

We have great companies who are making announcements here in Ontario. All of those people, all of those companies will have employees that will need a place to live. So we’re giving them this confidence that we’re doing when we’re protecting renters and we’re supporting landlords and we’re freezing fees so that house prices can stay where they are.

Speaker, we’re going to invest $6.5 million to appoint 40 additional adjudicators and five staff to the Landlord and Tenant Board, and that more than doubles the number of LTB full-time adjudicators. We understand that that’s a critical part of the housing structure. We’re going to seek continued input on a proposed land use planning policy document. That’s going to streamline Ontario’s land use rules, and that’s going to encourage more housing. You see, Speaker, everything we’ve talked about is about encouraging more housing because of this huge demand.

I talked a few minutes ago about the fact that, when we first took office, the previous Liberal government had said, “We’re out of the manufacturing business in Ontario; that’s not where we want to go.” It’s printed in their document that we are moving from the manufacturing to the service sector. They threw the towel in and settled for a different prize. Some 300,000 manufacturing jobs fled the province.

We took office, understood the problem in a businesslike way, and immediately were able to reduce the cost of doing business by $7 billion annually, or in the new budget now, it’s $8 billion annually of lower costs for business. I have heard the opposition say, “Oh, my gosh, $8 billion less revenue for you. How are you going to survive?” We understand that lowering taxes, lowering costs, all of that means higher revenue. That’s exactly what has happened here in the province of Ontario.

When we first got elected, our revenue in the province was $154 billion. We reduced all the costs of doing business by $8 billion, reduced our own revenue temporarily and watched it bounce now to $204 billion annually. Our revenue is $50 billion a year higher than it was. Why? Because we reduced the cost of doing business and businesses came. Some 85,000 businesses opened in Ontario last year; they hired 600,000 people in the last four and a half years. They need a place to live. That’s why we have this bill, Helping Homebuyers, Protecting Tenants Act, 2023. It’s because all of these companies that are coming here need a place for their employees to live. That is the bottom line of every bit of it.

When we talk to these companies around the world, they say a couple of things that are consistent. No matter which country this year, no matter which company, they talk about the fact that the world is in a turmoil. Coming off a pandemic, we’re not yet settled. We have Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine causing a lot of turmoil. We have this elephant in the room of China that we don’t quite know what to do with. There’s a lot of turmoil going on, and they all look at Ontario and they point to Ontario as a sea of calm. Country after country after country have said those exact words to us this year: Ontario is a sea of calm. It’s stable. It’s reliable. It’s predictable. We know what we’re going to get in Ontario—and it all happens to be lower cost, by the way. Lower-cost jurisdiction, low taxes: That’s what they see in Ontario. It’s a stable environment.

The other thing they say to us is that Ontario is safe. It’s a safe place for our employees, it’s safe for our families, and it’s safe for our executives to go overseas. They found Ontario to be stable and safe. That’s why these companies are coming here, because we provide that stability and that safety. Those employees are going to need places to live. The thousands and thousands and thousands of jobs that are being created, the hundreds of thousands of jobs that are being created from all these investments are going to require many, many more homes for their workers to live in.

That means we need to have more homes built, not just in the GTA, but in places like St. Thomas and Loyalist and in Thunder Bay when we see them becoming a big part of the electric vehicle revolution, as we, hopefully, will have lithium coming out of the ground in the Far North and in northwestern Ontario, and a lithium hydroxide facility somewhere in northwestern Ontario—maybe even two of them. Those are billion-dollar facilities, each going to employ hundreds and, ultimately, thousands of people. They’re all going to need a place to live. That’s why, with this legislation and our housing supply action plan, our government is ensuring that there are enough homes for everyone, including those who will be employed all across Ontario’s world-class auto manufacturing ecosystem.

Speaker, I said it earlier: Sadly, the opposition continues to push back and vote against anything that helps Ontario’s housing supply. We’ve seen that. They voted repeatedly against the housing supply action plans 1, 2 and 3. They keep supporting the red tape. Everything they’ve done has attempted to slow down the building of more homes. They voted against the Strong Mayors, Building Homes Act. They voted against the More Homes Built Faster Act. They voted against the Better Municipal Governance Act. It’s quite clear now, Speaker, that the opposition is not actually interested in increasing Ontario’s housing supply, and that’s why they continue to put these roadblocks in our efforts to do exactly that.

I mentioned red tape earlier, and I have to say that the legislation that we have, the red tape legislation—this is another one of the nine red tape reduction bills that we’ve passed. In this bill, you will see how we’re looking at reducing red tape, keeping costs down. We know that we’ve taken about 400 individual actions to reduce red tape so far. And in housing, our government has cut red tape to make it easier to build the right types of housing in the right places. That’s our goal. That’s what we have done. We’ve cut red tape to reduce the timelines for development and to address local barriers to build more homes. That was our goal. That’s what we’re doing.

Now, by proposing to streamline Ontario’s land use planning rules, we’re once again cutting red tape to encourage even more housing. We know that by lowering taxes, cutting red tape, reducing energy rates—all of these things have brought the success to Ontario that we’re seeing today.