Yes, they’re doing okay. You know who’s not? The people who are looking for housing, particularly affordable housing, and the people who are getting energy bills. And you’re going to increase their energy bills. Why would this government go down this road, Madam Speaker?

So we question the decision-making. Honestly, the OEB’s decision was based on research by experts. The evidence is clear that the government’s direction around expanding natural gas was not in the best interests of Ontarians. And yet, now we have a piece of legislation, ironically called “keeping your energy bill down,” or something like that—something ridiculous. I don’t know who writes the titles of these bills.

And then you know what? Even when we do come to this House and we propose some solutions, the government is not willing at all to even contemplate them. I’m thinking particularly of our oppo day motion from this week. We came to this House with our oppo day motion to remove the tolls for truckers on the 407. For us, this was a very creative solution; perhaps a stopgap for other highways or other infrastructure projects, but really, an immediate solution to address painful gridlock on the 407.

This would also address the productivity of Ontarians, because people spend too much time on the parking lot called the 401. And this would address the economic development call and potentially save $8 billion by not having to build another highway directly parallel to the 407. And also, quite honestly, there would be significant environmental benefits from ensuring that we make better use of the 407. There was, of course, the forgiveness of the $1 billion in non-compliance fees that were forgiven by this government. So there’s definitely a need to sit down and have this conversation.

I don’t know why they’re so soft on tolls because, ironically, they brought forward a piece of legislation saying that they’re going to take the tolls off roads where there are no tolls, but they refuse to take the tolls or even address or reduce the tolls where there is a toll, on the one highway in Ontario that has a toll, which is the 407 ETR.

Just to give you some sense as to how this would play out, the potential—and this is a report that I will quote in a second. This would move trucks to the 407 and “12,000 to 21,000 trucks a day off Highway 401, reducing daily traffic for passenger vehicle drivers” on that highway. Moving trucks to the 407 “will improve journey times for truckers by approx. 80 minutes”—time is money, Madam Speaker—“which would be less than half the length of time than the equivalent trip on Highway 401.”

Subsidizing the 407 will “cost $6 billion less than constructing” another proposed highway. And that highway isn’t even going to be built for another decade. People who are stuck in traffic and gridlock on the 401 right now, they cannot wait another decade for some kind of relief.

This report from Environmental Defence says this confirms—if they had even been willing to have a conversation, right? “Their findings confirm that the alternative approach of subsidizing the toll for trucks on the 407 would address the key aim of reducing congestion on the 401 while eliminating the risk of negative environmental impacts.”

Was this government willing to have this conversation with us? No, they were not. In fact, for some reason, the Minister of Transportation didn’t even want to talk about the 407. I know why they don’t want to talk about the 407. They don’t want to talk about the 407 because this was the worst deal in the history of the province, and our debate really revealed a lot of issues that are ongoing.

This goes back to contract law. For some reason, the 407 ETR contract with the province of Ontario heavily favours the 407, not the people of this province. Some of the highest tolls in the country—I think “the universe” may have been quoted the other day—but definitely the highest tolls, on the 407, in Ontario, than any other province in this great country.

Going back to that $1 billion: Let’s remember that during the pandemic, obviously, ridership was down on the 407, and the 407 ETR wanted some COVID-related relief. They got relief. They got $1 billion worth of relief.

According to documents obtained through the provincial freedom-of-information act, the government “didn’t pursue ‘potential congestion penalty payments in the order of $1 billion’ for 2020 and could decide not to do so again”—which they did.

This comes at a time when the government was planning to build a parallel highway to the 407. It’s really about priorities.

Even if you go back to the pocket issue, this government is actively choosing to provide relief to the 407 ETR and not to the people of this province, who, in better times, are back on the 407, paying the highest tolls in the country.

Let’s remember that the 407 ETR received that $1 billion in relief even in the year when they made $147.1 million worth of profit. So, yes, they still posted a profit, and yet they still received very, very generous—I would say $1 billion is very generous. This is a very profitable highway. When you’re charging the kind of tolls that they are, of course they’re going to generate a lot of money.

What’s really important to think about, when a government is making choices or setting priorities—this is what actually happened. The highway, during this time, had the option of reducing tolls to encourage more drivers to use the highway, possibly preventing the congestion clause from being triggered, but they opted not to do so. Do you know why they opted not to do so? Because they were like, “It’s okay. This PC government will take care of us.” They knew where the interests and the priorities of this government fell. It fell with the 407, not with the people who pay the highest tolls.

It goes on to say in the contract—“‘407 ETR is required to use commercially reasonable efforts to minimize the effect and duration of the force majeure,’ ministry officials noted in their April 3 memo. ‘This could include, amongst other things, reducing tolls to encourage traffic.’” It’s right there in the contract. The government has never even tried to pressure or push the 407 corporation to meet their contractual obligations. This meant that the 407 ETR was failing to meet its contractual obligations—I just said that.

CEO Sacristan explained to the ministry and wrote a letter, and in that letter they quoted—“407 ETR has initiated discussions with ministry staff and is seeking comfort that the government will exclude the pandemic period from any congestion penalty payment calculations. Corporate reporting requirements to shareholders, investors, debt holders and public auditing and disclosure requirements are driving the urgency of this matter....”

And the government met them at that urgent place. They met them in that moment in time. Meanwhile, minimum wage workers are actively having the government remove money from their pockets, but the pockets of the shareholders, they’re fine; they’re doing okay.

The Ministry of Transportation, ironically, does not make its traffic data public, despite the open-government legislation. The language that we hear around here around “the historic investments” and “this never happened in the history of the province of Ontario”—I have never heard a government use the word “historic” to such historic measures. I mean, it’s quite something. This is a very clear example of a government showing us who they really are, right? At the end of the day, there were a few ministry staff who really tried to push back a little bit, but not on the political side, I have to say. They said, and this is the quote from one of the FOI documents, “We believe that the congestion relief mechanisms have been rendered inoperative by the lack of congestion.” And then: “Mindful that the 407 managers could reduce tolls to encourage higher traffic levels and avoid billion-dollar penalties, however, the assistant deputy minister, operations division”—at the time, Eric Doidge—“at the Ontario Ministry of Transportation, took issue with the company’s characterization of traffic levels.”

There were people, I’m sure, who were advising the Minister of Transportation at the time that we didn’t have to be so compliant with their request to seek comfort. That is not the job of the government, to comfort corporations. It is the job to put the interests of the people of this great province ahead of those corporations. And the ministry disagreed “with the 407 ETR’s statements regarding the existence or non-existence of congestion in the” GTA. The only reason that we know some of this stuff is really through FOIs—and several people, though, who have been following this debacle of the 407, beginning with the worst deal in the history of Ontario by selling it after we’d already paid for it.

“The government could have pressed them to drop the tolls” after viewing these documents. “They don’t seem to have put any pressure on the operator. They lost that opportunity.” So this government chose the interests of this corporation over the interests of the people that we serve. I have to say, we continue to really just be the people that paid for the original highway and pay the highest tolls. They continue to pay the highest price for a really messy policy decision.

I’m just going to move on a little bit, because the government is not indicating at all that they’re even interested in alleviating congestion on the 401 with a creative option, even though it’s well within their rights, particularly on the provincially owned 407. There’s literally nothing stopping this government from removing tolls on that part, but they do have a piece of legislation that says “get it done”—is it just “get it done”?

My question is for the Premier. In Kitchener-Waterloo, one in 10 households struggle to afford to put food on the table—last year, it was one in 14; two years ago, it was 1 in 20. Things are not getting better in the province of Ontario—58,000 individuals in need; 4,629 households accessed a food assistance program for the first time, a 45% increase over the same quarter in 2020.

Yesterday, we received the 2023 Feed Ontario hunger report, and it was titled Why Ontarians Can’t Get Ahead. Well, isn’t that a good question, Mr. Speaker?

We all know the food bank model was fundamentally designed to respond to an emergency need, but emergencies are supposed to end. In Ontario, and KW, it is only getting worse. When will the government acknowledge this and respond to this emergency?

The people who are living in tents are not concerned about the carbon tax. They’re not concerned about the gas tax. They’re concerned about surviving in this province. Last year’s food bank use was double the increase seen in the 2008 recession—double since the last recession. This is not the future we want for our children, who now make up one in every four recipients, and families. People in Kitchener-Waterloo and across Ontario deserve so much more.

Feed Ontario has presented some really good suggestions on housing, on food insecurity, on employment. Will this government listen to the lived experiences of Ontarians and actually get back on track to working for the people we’re elected to serve?

Just like Ford.

Affordability is the number one issue right now that we are all facing in Ontario. There’s no doubt about it. I think the one good thing that I did say earlier about the fall economic statement—perhaps it was last Thursday—was the removal of the HST for the purpose-built rentals.

That said, the government of the day understands that you’re not in the business of building affordable housing. The housing that is being built right now across this province is unaffordable housing. So we have proposed a program to build non-market housing. The government of the day must get back into the business of funding truly attainable and affordable—and I know you don’t want to do it, but there’s no way that the developers out there on the greenbelt are going to do it for you.

Oh, no, Queen’s Park—I’m talking, really, about the Ford government. I was just heckled, and I’d like to clarify. You guys are on the ropes. Let’s change the channel together. Let’s do something good. Let’s restore some trust by calling the Till Death Do Us Part act. And I have to—

Just to my friends across the aisle and the new Minister of Long-Term Care, when this bill goes to committee, we will be fully embraced and fully engaged in trying to make it a piece of legislation that actually protects consumers. Do you agree, my friends?

It is interesting to hear—because people are pretty sensitive around here these days. But it’s worth noting that for a number of years experts have been calling for regulation on new home sales and their warranties. I just want to thank members of our caucus. MPP Rakocevic has been stellar on this file. He knows it inside and out. He’s been solid.

This bill puts in new provisions for NOSIs—NOSIs are notices of security interest—but does not include any provisions on putting in rental hot water heaters in contracts for new homes. Why does this matter? It matters because this is a situation where people will sign the biggest purchase of their life—their entire life—and then once they’ve moved in, once they have start receiving those bills, they realize then that they’ve signed up for something that they didn’t necessarily know they were agreeing to. This is a huge concern. It’s a huge concern, and it’s a gap in the legislation, and considering that we are in a cost-of-living crisis in Ontario, these shady dealings—because this is predatory. This needs to be addressed. It needs to be addressed in the legislation, and it needs to be addressed in the regulations, because you can write the best legislation, but if there’s no oversight or if the regs don’t guide the behaviour or change the behaviour, then you have a weak piece of legislation, and that’s what I would suggest we have before us.

Our office in Waterloo has been supporting a growing number of seniors who have been victims of these types of scams. As I mentioned, right now they’re primarily elderly women. The feeling when they come into the office is complete desperation. They are filled with anxiety. They have panic attacks. They’re wondering how this could happen in the province of Ontario.

In the middle of an affordability crisis, it’s all the more reason to bring in a piece of legislation which does protect the finances of seniors, which are often fixed incomes. Why not make sure that they are protected? It’s actually in the best interests of all of us to make sure that these predatory practices are gone from the province, or at least discouraged—or at least send a clear signal that Ontario knows what’s going on and wants to deal with it.

These scams began years ago when illegitimate HVAC companies went door to door selling products to homeowners, typically targeting seniors. Sales of home appliances like air conditioners and furnaces eventually resulted in companies placing notices of security interest, NOSIs, on the properties without the homeowners knowing. Lawyers claim that these scams have resulted in homeowners losing tens of thousands of dollars.

My colleague from London was mentioning the affordability crisis in Ontario, and I too just met with the Food Bank of Waterloo Region. I hope some of my other colleagues also had the time to meet with them. But this is how bad it is in Waterloo, which is why you need to protect the very limited resources that seniors have at their disposal today: Numbers are higher for food bank use than they were in 2008, in the recession. That’s how bad it is. If you remember that time, that was a time of panic, that recession. The peak of the pandemic were also very bad in this regard, but in the riding of Waterloo, 5,201 people used the food bank last year—this was 15% more than 2021—making 58,684 visits, or 7% over 2021 as well.

There is an impact for inaction. This is a core understanding that we certainly have. I know our member from Kiiwetinoong has also tried to draw the connection to the social determinants of health, the impact on the economy, the impact on the health care system, the impact on education. That’s what the Food Bank of Waterloo Region really drove home today, along with Feed Ontario, is that there is a cost to not addressing the risk factors around affordability.

When people have paid their higher rent, their rent that goes up now—obviously in new builds—by 3%, 5%, 10% or 24%, a senior cannot absorb a 24% increase in their rent. It’s just not possible, and so they have a choice: They either pay their rent and stay housed or they go to the food bank. It’s a huge issue for a senior to go to a food bank after their entire lives. You can’t underestimate that.

And yet, the piece of legislation that is before us is very permissive, actually embedding some loopholes whereby people can still practise these predatory practices of ripping off seniors.

Actually, I just met with the Canadian Bankers Association, as well. They have identified that this is now a priority for the Canadian banking sector, to train their tellers to look for fraud—I was going to say “corruption;” it just comes so naturally—and for predatory practices. Their tellers are specifically trained to watch for those vulnerabilities, because they’re happening so often.

So the private sector, the Canadian Bankers Association—I had a great meeting with them. We talked about some common areas that we can move forward on, but certainly consumer protection was an issue where we found common ground. I feel that they may be actually submitting a delegation to this particular piece of legislation, as well.

So I just wanted to give a shout-out to the Food Bank of Waterloo Region, Feed Ontario and the Canadian Bankers Association. It’s so good to see a not-for-profit that understands the affordability issues in Ontario also connect the need for labour laws, for housing, and for the social assistance reform that is needed.

We can do so much better for the most vulnerable in our society. I don’t know who in this House could possibly live on $730 a month; it’s just not doable, on Ontario Works.

I think there’s a level of malaise, if you will, with this government—to bring forward a piece of legislation, understanding where the gaps are in society, understanding that those safeguards do not exist, and claiming to understand how vulnerable seniors are, in particular, and then leaving these loopholes in the legislation.

I reached out to the Waterloo region police, as well, and they say that scams like these persist due to loopholes in provincial legislation, under the Consumer Protection Act, that make it possible for the notices of security interest to be placed without the homeowners knowing. We’re in a housing crisis, everybody agrees; it’s one of the very few things that we can agree on in this House. Why make that very precarious purchase even riskier by not addressing these loopholes? Homeowners, especially senior homeowners, deserve to be protected, and this bill, this government is failing to do that.

It always leads me to wonder, if you had the power to fix this, if you had the privilege to be in a position of power to address a piece of legislation and to get it right, why wouldn’t you? This goes back full circle to the whole trust issue. Who’s driving the agenda for this Ford government? We’ve seen multiple examples now of decisions not being driven or not even being motivated by the people of this province. Therefore, you have the Auditor General calling the greenbelt issue indefensible. You have the Integrity Commissioner calling into question the lack of oversight and accountability and lack of transparency of the Minister of Municipal Affairs.

When you get to this point, when trust is so broken, this is an opportunity for the government to say, “This legislation is going to be strong. It’s not going to be weak. It’s not going to be flaccid. It’s not going to be passive. It is going to be a strong piece of legislation,” to demonstrate that the government actually understands what the people of this province are experiencing, that lived experience of Ontarians.

If you go back—and you have to go a little bit way back—we don’t actually see the actions that will address the situation where consumers are exploited by unethical HVAC companies. It’s not here in the legislation.

Back with the Liberal government, we saw that there was a ban on door-to-door sales, and that was a good thing. It did take them a monumental amount of time to actually bring in this ban, after multiple cases that were brought to their attention here on the floor of the Legislature. It was near the end of 2018, and let’s be honest, people were getting a little desperate to do something good, so the ban on door-to-door sales happened. That was a start, sure. It was another half measure. However, as I mentioned, that legislation had no teeth, so there really wasn’t much by way of enforcement.

This government has heard for numerous years about the exploitive actions of many of these companies. I just want to say that some of these companies are fully aware of where those loopholes are. They have pushed the envelope. They’ve never got caught. There were no consequences—almost like the Landlord and Tenant Board, when we saw that only 11 landlords over the last five years actually faced punitive measures for being negligent, for being predatory landlords in Ontario—only 11 in that time. We have 11 open cases right now in Waterloo, in my office, of landlords who are looking to renovict or demovict or just evict, just testing the system. That’s the power imbalance with regard to consumers and with regard to some of those predatory businesses.

As I said, many in the private sector have recognized that trust is important in building those relationships and ensuring that the most vulnerable are kept safe and secure. And then you have a government that doesn’t necessarily understand that when that trust is broken, you should use every opportunity—every opportunity—to rebuild that trust.

Obviously, this piece of legislation is going to move through the House. It is going to go to committee. When it gets to committee, we, as Ontario’s official opposition—and certainly as the finance critic for the province of Ontario and Treasury Board critic, I’m going to be following the money on this because there is a cost to the economy and to our communities when a piece of legislation is so weak and flaccid.

Once again, Madam Speaker, what a pleasure to stand in my place and address this piece of legislation.

Just like Ford.

I just want to say: When the Minister of Municipal Affairs says, “I think we can all agree that the housing file is going well,” it would be laughable if it were not so serious.

By your own admission, the fall economic statement has downgraded housing starts from 2023 through to 2027. The government has changed the definition of affordable housing, raising the benchmark well past what most Ontarians can afford. The tenant advocacy group reported a shocking drop in affordable private market rentals from 2016 to 2021. The number of rentals costing $1,000 a month or more dropped by 36%, whereas luxury rentals costing $3,000 a month went up by 87%.

Bill 39 goes further than mayoral vetoes and we all know this. It would allow a mayor to propose and pass bills with only one-third-plus-one of the vote. Will the government admit that this is not about housing; it’s about control and legislating minority rule in Ontario?