It’s my pleasure to rise this afternoon to speak on my colleague from Oshawa’s motion before this House. I also obviously want to wish my colleague a happy birthday. I know we work well together on the procedure and house affairs committee and the important work we’re doing there.

I was listening to the debate intently this afternoon, colleagues, and hearing about the important investments our government is making in Ontario—increasing the power capacity, historic amounts of auto investments that Minister Fedeli and Premier Ford are attracting to this province. Our provincial government understands the opportunities this presents, and we’re going to unleash the next stage of the electrical vehicle revolution.

That’s why our government is implementing, as this House knows, our Powering Ontario’s Growth plan, with shovels in the ground today on new energy generation and storage that will power the switch of Ontario-made electric vehicles as well as new economic investment and new homes. That includes Canada’s first small modular nuclear reactor; the largest procurement of clean energy storage in the country’s history; and new transmissions that are going to connect every region of our province.

At the same time, we’re ensuring that our grid is ready for families and businesses to decide to make the switch. We also know this revolution brings with it unparalleled opportunities for our province’s economy.

Over the last four years, Ontario has attracted over $43 billion in transformative auto investments by global automakers and suppliers of EV batteries and battery materials.

Interjections.

Interjection.

My apologies, Speaker.

Ontario’s auto supply chain is comprised of over 70 parts firms, over 50 tool-and-die and mould makers and over 40 companies working on connected, autonomous, electric and mobile technologies. It employs approximately 120,000 people in the province of Ontario—as well as hundreds of thousands of indirect jobs, many in my own riding of Perth–Wellington. These are historic investments for our province.

It’s disappointing though, colleagues, that the members opposite, most recently in the investments we’re making in our budget around auto investment, giving our municipalities the tools to attract this investment—they voted against that, colleagues. And they voted against my motion, in particular, around our clean, green nuclear fleet. They voted against those good union jobs at Bruce Power, Darlington, and those historic investments we’re making to refurbish those facilities to continue to produce the electricity we will need to power those made-in-Ontario electric vehicles. It is disappointing that they voted against those investments.

But it’s thanks to our government’s actions that we are now a global leader when it comes to the manufacturing of electric vehicles. We know that in order to take full advantage of this coming change, we need to be ready. That’s why we’re increasing the number of public EV chargers, especially in underserved areas, including exploring reduced electricity rates for those chargers. As we heard, the member from Kitchener Centre appreciates our government’s action on lowering the overnight rate to charge her electric vehicle.

We’re building thousands of new EV chargers through the EV charge Ontario program, a $91-million investment to support public EV charger installations outside of Ontario’s large urban centres, including at community hubs, Ontario’s highway rest areas, the ONroutes, carpool lots, parking lots, Ontario parks, an arena down the road from my house in my riding. We are installing new EV fast chargers across all of Ontario’s ONroute stations along the 400- and 401-series highways with local utilities. They’re some of the biggest supporters of these programs—like Hydro One and OPG’s Ivy Charging Network.

When it comes to ensuring our homes are ready, last year the Ontario Energy Board issued new guidance to all local utility providers that makes clear that utilities should be providing all new residential customers with the capacity to accommodate 208-amp service, enough to power an EV vehicle that is currently available on the market.

Let’s talk about new homes. It’s no secret, colleagues, that Ontario is in a housing supply crisis. Recently, as members of the standing committee on infrastructure, cultural policy and heritage, we heard from a former Liberal cabinet minister, Steven Del Duca, now the mayor of Vaughan—we know the leading cause of this crisis was the inaction of the previous Liberal government, who for years failed to act to take any steps to address the lack of affordable housing in Ontario. While our government has taken historic steps to undo this damage—today we voted on Bill 185, another important step forward in that goal of building more homes across Ontario—one of the main obstacles facing home builders across the province of Ontario is the cost of housing. As we heard recently at committee from stakeholders, high interest rates—it was great to see the Bank of Canada finally begin to cut interest rates, as our Premier has been calling them, and many Premiers in Canada have been calling on that. High interest rates, high inflationary rates, high tax policies of the federal government—yes, including the federal Liberal carbon tax—are driving the costs up for our home builders across Ontario. These are the higher costs that are ultimately passed on to those potential homebuyers. Those new Ontarians, those new Canadians, those young people, and those seniors looking to downsize are the ones footing that bill.

Unfortunately, the proposal from my colleague, as presented today, would be another additional cost that would make it more unaffordable for families to purchase a new home. The NDP wants every homeowner to have to pay up front, whether they would use the service or not. Those of us on this side of the House believe in a free market approach. And they laugh, colleagues, but I will fight every election in my entire life on the free market, because I’m a believer in the free market and I will stand for that.

Any homeowner can make this choice, and I have friends who have made the choice to purchase an EV and install that, as well. I have friends who have purchased a home that may have it, as well. It’s their choice. We’ll continue to stand with the people of Ontario to allow them to make those choices, as well.

That is why our government is recommending that we do not support the opposition motion.

They’re happy about losing homes, everyone.

When we finally changed governments, this party still did everything they could do to partner with the Liberals to make sure Ontarians lost even more jobs, businesses and homes. And by 2018, Ontarians saw through it all. Look at how many of them are sitting here today, Speaker. Ontarians have said enough is enough. They don’t need the government to give them handouts; they just need a government that believes in them, that believes in their ability to start a family, work in a rewarding job and to start a business.

Speaker, we’re not in the business of taking power away from the people; we’re for the people on this side of the House. And I’m proud that our leader and our Premier has made a point of emphasizing that principle over and over, at every step of his years of service.

And I appreciate that the NDP is finally showing their true colours. They don’t like free enterprise. They don’t like new businesses in Ontario. They don’t like new hospitals or new long-term-care beds. They don’t like new homes. Speaker, they didn’t even like those things under Bob Rae. They didn’t like them when they propped up the Liberal government, and they’re making it crystal clear now, by voting against each and every one of our own government’s initiatives, that they don’t like them now. Speaker—

Interjections.

The NDP wants to take over the business of housing in Ontario. They want to ensure 30% of all new housing—

Interjections.

Or in other words, they want to encroach on free enterprise in this province, one of the most cherished freedoms that we have in this country, to destroy the integrity of the free market and fundamentally to instead replace it with a province where property is publicly owned. Speaker, they’re advocating for the elimination of private property in this province, and do you know what Webster dictionary defines that as? Communism. And the NDP values—he got up and mentioned NDP values. It’s socialism, right here in this House. He just said it in his speech.

The NDP thinks that not only do we need to shut down the free market, but they also say they will just take $15 billion—just $15 billion—of Ontario taxpayers’ money. Housing experts say it is going to cost $100 billion to build 250,000 homes. Who are they going to tax to get that, Speaker? Are they going to tax the hard-working family that puts gas in their car? I know they support the carbon tax federally. Are they going to tax small businesses to meet that?

Speaker, I’d ask the member from London North Centre how many constituents he has who themselves or their families chose to immigrate to Canada because of restrictive socialist policies in countries like the former Soviet Union, Venezuela or China or a number of other countries who have experimented with this disastrous policy throughout recent history. I would also ask those constituents—and, frankly, I’d ask any Ontarian whose family has fled their nation of origin for this very reason—what they think of this bill.

Under the Liberals and NDP, who starved Ontario’s economy for 15 years, thousands of jobs left this province and thousands of people left with them. They came after the auto sector, they came after the energy sector, and now they’re coming after the housing sector. What industry do they want to kill next? Who else do they want to lay off? Thankfully, Ontarians see right through the NDP’s socialist agenda. They’ve seen it before, and many of them even escaped it to come here, Speaker. We won’t let them go through the pain and hurt of that again.

Our government knows that the main reason behind the housing crisis is critically low housing supply, with more than 95% of the homes being built in Ontario by Ontarians employed in the private sector. Many of these private companies build non-profit housing. They work with great housing providers like Habitat for Humanity and build non-profit housing. They take time out of their day to build that, Speaker. They don’t need bureaucrats in downtown Toronto telling them what they need in their community.

Our government increased the Homelessness Prevention Program by an additional $20 million. We now provide $700 million to our service providers for homelessness prevention programs across the province. I know that, locally, my housing service providers appreciated that because they know what is best for their communities. They don’t need bureaucrats. Speaker, we have great bureaucrats that work for us in the civil service, but I don’t know one that builds housing. None of them build housing. Bureaucrats do not build housing. The non-profit sector and the private sector build housing in this province.

Unlike the NDP, our government knows there’s only one taxpayer in Ontario, and at a time when Ontarians are already struggling with the rising cost of living, we will never support increased fees or costly policies that would put more financial strain on hard-working families. We’re fully committed to working with the private sector and the non-profit sector to incentivize getting shovels in the ground faster and allowing families and individuals right across this province to live in the home of their dreams.

Speaker, I am pleased to say that from January to August 2023, this year, we have seen a 3% increase in housing starts from 2022—which was a record in 30 years. This year again, the same months, January to August 2023, we’ve seen a 49% increase in the number of purpose-built rental starts—a 49% increase from the historic increase last year.

We need people to build these homes, Speaker. Apprentice registrations this year have increased by 24%. Our Minister of Education’s making reforms to ensure that young people who want to enter the skilled trades can enter more quickly, because we know that in the construction sector alone, 72,000 new workers are needed by 2027. These are the individuals who will build the homes for our growing population.

The member across the way talked about seniors, whether it’s downsizing or having a home to call their own or staying in the community that they helped build. I have a very good example from my own riding.

There was a development proposed down the street from where I live in the riding for seniors’ retirement living—designed for seniors so they could stay in the community they helped build, move out of their bigger houses, so those houses can go on the market and new families can move into them. Speaker, do you know what happened? NIMBYs prevented that development. They sent it to the Ontario Land Tribunal—one appeal, which held it up for years. It cost the home builder an extra $1 million in costs. The development still hasn’t started because of the extra cost. So these units aren’t on the market for people to stay in their own community, stay where they were, stay where their family is and stay where their grandchildren are.

I was proud to be part of a government that changed that. Our government reformed the Ontario Land Tribunal and the appeals process around that.

Interjections.

Speaker—

Interjections.

In the same spirit, we’ll stop at nothing, on this side of the House, to protect the hard-working people of Ontario who get up in the morning to help build this great province. We’ll continue to work for the hard-working people of Ontario that the NDP socialists don’t want to see rewarded—their job-killing agenda, their killing of the free enterprise that has contributed so much to this great province.

I know members on this side of the House and the majority over there will continue to stand for free enterprise and will continue to work—

Interjections.