That is real money. You’re right; that is real money, absolutely.

And this is somebody that doesn’t have that $150,000 to go ahead and pay that back. He would be forced to sell his home that he’s lived in for years to be able to make these payments.

Time is running down here, Madam Speaker. Again, I did want to thank all members of the House here today. I’m looking forward to hearing some comments from members of the opposition. I think we share the same sentiment that NOSIs need to stop and that, going forward, we can’t have these types of loopholes in Ontario law where you’re, quite frankly, able to scam people out of very, very hard-earned money.

So, thank you to the minister, thank you to his team, thank you to my colleagues. And with that, I will cede my time.

It is great to be here and take part in what is truly a historic bill and debate on that today.

First, I want to thank the Minister of Public and Business Service Delivery and his team. Many of them are here listening right now and certainly watching on TV. Thank you for taking this very seriously and moving forward expeditiously, and putting together a bill that really is going to be transformative for many people in Ontario—not just, obviously, the seniors and typically elderly people who are affected by these scams, but also their families. I’m going to touch a little bit on some of that in my time here; I don’t have a lot, only seven minutes, but I did just want to touch on a few points.

Obviously, we’ve heard about what this bill is looking to accomplish: the 10-day cooling-off period for buyers of new freehold homes and, obviously, enhancing protections for condo owners, but I want to talk primarily about notices of security interest today. I think that’s made up the bulk of the speech and it certainly makes up the bulk of the bill.

It’s something that was brought to my attention a little over a year ago—about a year and a half—by David Mullock from Waterloo Regional Police Service. We’ve heard about him being the liaison officer who works with government on a regular basis. I know he’s actually watching right now. He was texting a few of our colleagues. So, thank you, David, for giving me a call last May and inviting me down to police headquarters to hear about the challenges that not only people in Waterloo region were having, but people across the province of Ontario.

It was a very sobering conversation. We had an opportunity to sit down with Detective Adam Stover, whom you’ve also heard talked about here this afternoon, and we walked through this notices-of-security-interest scam that had been going on in the region. We talked a little bit about what it meant, what it has done. You’ve heard that here today so I won’t dive too deep on it, but it was very interesting when you looked at the numbers. I want to provide a few of the numbers today.

When you look at the early 2000s, there were roughly 2,000 registrations per year of NOSIs on properties here in Ontario. That number has ballooned last year to 58,000 notices of security interest. You can really see how the scam has taken hold, how people have seen that it is profitable and that there were enough loopholes in legislation that you were able to go out and perpetrate these on individuals. Like we’ve heard, it’s typically on folks that have maybe some cognitive impairment; folks who are a little bit challenged from a health standpoint; elderly people who, quite frankly, are taken advantage of and always want to believe that people are there to do the right thing, are there to help them, but at the end of the day it’s not always the case.

Right now—and this is sort of the telling piece—there are roughly 350,000 consumer and commercial NOSIs registered against property, against title, in Ontario—350,000. When you total that all up, it translates to roughly $1 billion, which is staggering. You can understand how often organized crime, unscrupulous realtors, lawyers, folks who want to take advantage of Ontarians are out there doing that, because there is so much money in this.

When you look at what this bill accomplishes, obviously banning notices of security interest, or NOSIs, going forward is fantastic, but the real key piece—and I want to thank the minister again and his team for the fulsome consultation that they did with stakeholders through the fall of 2023. It is really the retroactive banning of these practices which is going to make the key difference. It’s great that you stop it going forward, but it’s to be able to go back and say, “No, we are not going to allow these lucrative, unscrupulous contracts to stand, and we are not going to allow you to fleece people out of their homes.”

I did just want to read a couple of articles that I think are quite important. This one in particular comes from—I will just paraphrase from a CTV article. This is about a gentleman—I believe actually he was from Bowmanville; he’s since passed away. The minister had talked a little bit about him earlier. I’m going to quote, and this is Melissa Irons. Her father-in-law was, as I said, Karl Hoffman. I’m just going to read through this:

“Melissa Irons says her elderly father-in-law, Karl Hoffman, would have loved to live long enough to see the government eliminate notices of security interest (NOSIs) after they were used 11 times against him and his Bowmanville, Ont., home.”

Thank you, Melissa, for telling your story. I think it’s very important that we’re able to hear those stories first-hand. I know that Detective Stover has been travelling around the province, working with other municipal police forces and hearing those stories first-hand, investigating and seeing what the impact is to not only the homeowners, the people on title, but also their families. Often, these folks who have been taken advantage of don’t want to tell their family members because they’re embarrassed or they’re afraid of what might happen. It can cause real challenges—real challenges—divide families and, ultimately, see some people lose their homes, their nest eggs, their livelihood, their retirement.

I also did want to talk a little bit about Kitchener resident Ian Craig. He has seven notices of security interest on his property totalling more than $150,000, which, if this bill is passed—I’m hopeful, and I know that all of our colleagues here in the House believe that this is a good bill and that it should be passed—this will eliminate $150,000 of potential payments that he has to make.

Interjection.