Report continued from volume A.

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Private Members’ Public Business

Keeping People Housed Act, 2024 / Loi de 2024 pour que chacun puisse garder son logement

Ms. Clancy moved second reading of the following bill:

Bill 170, An Act to amend the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006, the City of Toronto Act, 2006 and the Municipal Act, 2001 to implement various measures respecting rental accommodation / Projet de loi 170, Loi modifiant la Loi de 2006 sur la location à usage d’habitation, la Loi de 2006 sur la cité de Toronto et la Loi de 2001 sur les municipalités pour mettre en oeuvre diverses mesures relatives aux logements locatifs.

The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bhutila Karpoche): Pursuant to standing order 100, the member has 12 minutes for the presentation.

Ms. Aislinn Clancy: I’m honoured to be here with you today to present my first private member’s bill, called the Keeping People Housed Act. This bill is a product of hundreds and hundreds of conversations across Kitchener and the province. We talked to people with lived experiences of homelessness and housing insecurity. We talked to housing experts, not-for-profit leaders, concerned citizens and many more. And I want to give a deep bow and a thank you to all those who came today to support us in this, and also to the many who contributed to this body of work. It was a work of a community and a province.

I’m here tonight because through my career as a social worker I’ve seen the impact of housing insecurity. As a social worker I saw, when I was trying to get children to go to school, that when they’re worried about where they were going to live, that took priority. Many family members and parents had to struggle to go to work, kids were struggling to learn, and it negatively affected people’s mental health and physical health—not to mention their stress, sleep and overall finances.

So when I became a city councillor and I went to our consultations as a city and as a region to end homelessness, I realized we’re dealing with our broken rental system. We’re cleaning up the mess that has been caused in the last few years of people being displaced. So while municipalities across Ontario spend millions and millions of dollars and we watch our property taxes increase, trying to support folks who have been wrongfully displaced, it’s really up to us as a province to address the gaps in our rental system that we see today.

Just last Thursday, I met with a senior citizen who had worked her whole life and came to us begging for help, because she had been living in her car. She found after disability that she was surviving only on her pension, and she couldn’t afford her rent anymore as rents increased. She had no other alternative but to live in her car in her friend’s driveway. She’s not represented in any of our statistics. So the statistics I share with you today are underrepresenting a really big problem that we are facing in our community. And it shouldn’t be up to just municipalities to clean up this mess or for the federal government to call for a federal renters’ bill of rights. It is really up to our province to address this housing crisis.

But what I found myself thinking again and again, in our city council conversations and our regional council conversation, is that I knew, from my social work experience, that the cheapest, easiest, most humane and compassionate way to end homelessness was to keep people housed. And that’s what this bill will do. It is a policy full of tools that people recommend that we know can be used to help people stay housed.

One of my first memories as a city councillor was a friend who brought to me a letter from a numbered company, because she was being renovicted from her affordable townhome. Soon we realized that all the tenants in her affordable townhome complex—folks on ODSP, newcomers, seniors, people on low incomes—had received these letters. Soon after, their harassment began: phone calls, emails, door visits. A family from Nepal, Madam Speaker, actually signed an NDA without understanding the paper they were signing, agreeing to an N12 where they would leave their home.

I know that this isn’t just happening in Kitchener; it’s happening in Scarborough, it’s happening in London, it’s happening in Toronto, it’s happening in northern Ontario. It’s happening in Stratford, actually, Mr. Rae. Why? Because in the last three years we’ve seen an explosion in the erosion of tenants’ rights, the misuse of the Landlord and Tenant Board: a 300% increase in N13 use and a 70% increase in N12 use, resulting in 20,000 people being impacted from improper displacements. Even if they got to keep their rental properties, that’s years of stress and mental health problems that they face.

Just today, a tenant who came to our press conference said he had heart attack because of the stress caused by his landlord harassing him day in and day out, going into his apartment and ripping out the heating from his bathroom. We know that our Landlord and Tenant Board is failing us, with 53,000 people in the queue, and we know that there have been only 13 fines for N13s, and of those only four have paid an average of $5,000.

But the problem is that it’s not just these folks who are facing this right now, but the generation of young people who are missing out on a brighter future. When I was in my twenties, I had an affordable rental unit, I knew who my landlord was, I knew how much I could budget for my rent, and I had a safe and comfortable place to be. I didn’t always have to think of where I would live. I could save up. I saved up for the first down payment on my home. I feel very privileged because of my age. It was luck just to be born when I was, because everything went to pot afterward. I got to know my landlord.

People in their twenties and generations to come have the same right to be able to think of their future in a bright way. I’m here today because I want my kids and all young people in Ontario, and all people in Ontario, to not only have a place to live, but a liveable planet.

The renovictions are at their highest and because young people are feeling stressed, young people are leaving this province in droves. Please look at the StatsCan graphs that we see today. People in their twenties are leaving this province in droves. While I understand this government is doing the right thing by investing in training and the trades, investing in the health care sector, it’s not worth anything if everybody leaves to go to Alberta. Thank you, you’re welcome and Merry Christmas, Alberta. We’ve trained your people. Now they’re leaving because there is no future in Ontario. Some 50,000 young people left this province. This is the first time in decades that we’ve had a deficit of people leaving this province—50,000 people. Why are they leaving? Because of the high rents and because of the mistreatment of tenants. Just in Toronto alone, between 2021 and 2023rents went up 41% in two years. This isn’t fair.

How do we get people to stay? I think we create an opportunity and protections—most of which in this bill are already law—so that people can know how much they’re going to pay, and that they have a safe and affordable place to live. We shouldn’t leave it up to the municipalities.

In Hamilton they created a renoviction bylaw. This was very brave and bold for them, because they see that in order to end homelessness they need to prevent people from losing their homes. All they’re doing is asking for us to follow the law: Put the paperwork in to prove that you need significant repairs and the person has to move out before going to LTB, before kicking someone out of their home, making the simple consideration of where someone will live while renovations are being done. In Toronto, they’re doing rental replacement. This has saved 4,000 units since the policy came into place.

I will say no to Bill 97 because this will take away those 4,000 units that have been kept in the affordable stock. We know that this affordable stock is very old. It’s precious to us, just as precious as farmland, just as precious as our clean water, and we need to do all that we can to protect it, because we’re staring down the barrel of an even worse housing crisis.

This bill does much to help protect the rights of tenants. First, we aim to reinstate rent control on units built after 2018, because the CMHC—they’re the experts here—sees no significant difference in the housing starts in markets with rent controls versus those with no rent controls. If the argument is that this will stifle supply, the CMHC has proven that that is not the case. Mike Harris got rid of rent control in the 1990s and we didn’t see this magical increase in rental construction starts.

For example, for those that are built after 2018, rents have increased 36% between 2022 and 2023, so we know that by taking away rent controls we’re forcing people to pay up to 30% more in one year. Imagine a family who is trying to do a budget, and all of a sudden you’re spending $300, $400 or $500 more a month. How are you supposed to save? How are you supposed to live and know where your food comes from? And that’s where I think the doubling of the food bank use in my riding in the past year comes from, because people can no longer budget.

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We know it’s not just landlords. Right now, my dad shared with me—he’s a realtor; he’s here with me tonight—let me know that realtors are coaching investor buyers that they could get more if they displaced tenants. So while in the past, we used to be comfortable with 5%, 6% or 7% increases in profits, return in investments, now people expect to get 10% to 15%. Even my own pension bragged about getting 15%; the highest performer in my pension is off the backs of renters in the housing market. This is not okay. This bill isn’t saying no to profits; it’s saying no to gouging, not at the expense of a social and financial cost to society, because our homes can no longer continue to become hotels, and our hotels can no longer continue to become shelters.

In addition to rent control, we hope to bring back vacancy control, because I think that in Ontario, if you break the law and then you do a bad job, you don’t deserve a raise. But that’s what we’ve done; we’ve incentivised bad behaviour. Those landlords know that by scaring seniors—just the other day, I was at 250 Frederick, and a 91-year-old was getting moved out of their apartment to an apartment that they can’t afford. This is not okay. We shouldn’t be incentivizing bad actors to displace seniors in order to make more than 10%. They shouldn’t get a raise. And vacancy control is a way to disincentivize this bad behaviour, because we know that our wait-list for affordable housing in every community is only getting longer. In my city, it’s seven years; and if you have a disability, it’s over 15 years.

In addition to these measures, we ask for a rental registry, because every tenant ought to know who their landlord is, how to reach them and what they’re charging in all the other units. We are also calling for a committee to look into above-guideline increases. Above-guideline increases have also exploded in recent years.

Just recently, Mike and I met with a very big group of seniors, tenants of one building who said they can’t handle one more rent increase. If their landlord increases rent one more time, they will have to leave their apartments to move to somewhere else where they can afford to belong. They’ve lived here for decades, and what they told me was they will call their landlord and say, “The boiler is broken. You have to fix it.” The landlord will not do the necessary repairs to maintain the building as they should, which is the responsibility of a landlord. Instead, they will wait until the building falls into complete disrepair, and then go to the LTB, which every time grants them above-guideline increases, squeezing their profits off the backs of our seniors.

So, today I hope that you will vote yes to this bill, because I believe that it shouldn’t be luck—it should be law—to have a good enough landlord.

The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bhutila Karpoche): Further debate?

Mr. Matthew Rae: It’s a pleasure to rise this evening to speak to Bill 170, Keeping People Housed Act. I want to thank my colleague from Kitchener Centre for bringing her first PMB forward in this place. I know she is a new member as well here, and I know even for those of us who may have been here for a couple of years now, it takes a lot of work to get a PMB to this floor. So I appreciate that, and I appreciate all your supportive fans in the audience this evening. It is a pleasure to rise, as I mentioned, to speak on Bill 170, the PMB from the member from Kitchener Centre.

Just for those who may be watching at home and for my colleagues here this evening, this bill would obviously amend the Residential Tenancies Act by removing exemptions from the rent increase guidelines that currently apply to units first occupied for residential purposes after November 2018, removing the vacancy decontrol by establishing limits on the rent charged to new tenants, depending on when the unit was last rented out and to support the administration of the proposed system of vacancy control, requiring Landlord and Tenant Board—the LTB, as I will refer to it in my remarks—to create and maintain a public registry for all units covered under the RTA and requiring landlords to provide the LTB with specific information, including the rents charged.

In addition, it will require the minister to appoint a 10-member rental task force, comprised mostly of tenants, to publish a report on the findings/recommendations related to the above-guideline rent increases, such as related to the frequency of approval, potential impacts, the alternative approaches; and then, obviously in addition, it would call upon the minster to inform the assembly which recommendations the government would implement 90 days after that report is published.

It would require that notices of termination given to the tenants for the purposes of demolition, conversions and renovation be accompanied by copies of all valid approvals and documentation from a registered engineer stating the vacant possession of the unit is required.

Finally, it would also require a landlord who evicts a tenant for repairs or renovations to provide compensation to the tenant for the entire duration of the displacement, up to a maximum percentage of the current rent, if the landlord is unable to offer the tenant another unit acceptable to them.

I just provide that clarity on Bill 170 to the members here and to those who may be watching at home this evening.

The government believes that the number one cause of rental unaffordability in Ontario is the lack of supply. To improve rental affordability, we need to increase the number of rental units, Speaker. To do this, the government introduced an exemption to the rent increase guidelines for units first occupied after November 15, 2018. Since this policy was introduced, Ontario has seen the highest numbers of purpose-built rental starts ever—the highest ever in our history as a province, Speaker.

At the same time, we’ve held the 2024 rent increase guidelines at 2.5%, well below the inflation rate of 5.9%—that was last year—the lowest in the country, Speaker. I’ll say that again: the lowest in the country, lower than the NDP government in BC, lower than any Liberal government or any other Conservative government in this country that has rental policies such as this. This helps protect the vast majority of tenants from significant rent increases.

Our balanced approach supports the construction of more rental housing, ultimately leading to more affordable rents, while also ensuring the vast majority of rental units remain under rent control.

As the members in this House will know, last fall, in our fall economic statement, it was lovely to see that the federal government finally agreed to our call to remove the HST on purpose-built rentals. This has led to a record start in these purpose-built rentals for a second year in a row. In 2023, we saw the highest level of purpose-built rental housing starts in Ontario’s history, as I mentioned. At nearly 19,000, Speaker, that is topping the record 15,000 last year. I know many in this place look forward to seeing us break that record again this year. This is at the same time, as I mentioned, that we ensure the majority of rental units remain under rent control.

This isn’t the first time, obviously, in Ontario’s history that we have created an exemption for rent control to encourage the construction of more rental units. In fact, it was the last NDP government, under Bob Rae, that introduced the exemption for rent control for all buildings built after 1991.

Speaker, the member from Kitchener Centre mentioned the LTB. In budget 2023, our government invested over $19 million to increase the capacity of the Ontario Land Tribunal and the Landlord and Tenant Board to resolve cases faster, address the significant backlog, support a more efficient dispute resolution, and increase the housing supply and opportunity. The LTB is currently focused on reducing its backlog of cases and modernizing services in order to reduce wait times for both tenants and landlords. Implementing a rental registry would likely delay these important efforts and hinder them in the long term.

Speaker, we understand the need to protect tenants. We have tabled Bill 184, the Protecting Tenants and Strengthening Community Housing Act, and Bill 97, the Helping Homebuyers, Protecting Tenants Act. Through these acts, we’re required landlords to make efforts to negotiate a repayment agreement with a tenant if a tenant has entered in rent arrears before the LTB can issue an eviction order.

We have increased the fines under RTA offences to $100,000 for an individual and half a million dollars for a corporation, the highest level in the country.

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We’re requiring landlords to disclose to the board if they have previously filed for an eviction to move in or for a renovation of the unit. This is to provide knowledge to our adjudicators to look for patterns and identify landlords who may be breaking the law. We are requiring this information already because of the pieces of legislation that we have tabled. We have increased the compensation for bad-faith evictions to allow the LTB to order an additional 12 months’ rent in tenant compensation. We’re also providing tenants with two years instead of the historical one year to apply for a remedy if the landlord evicts to repair or renovate a unit and does not give the tenant an opportunity to move back in.

Speaker, our government understands the need to increase rental housing across Ontario, not just in Toronto, as the member mentioned, but in Stratford and in Kitchener. And we’ll continue to ensure that we put forward proposals that will the increase the rental housing stock in Ontario, and ensure that we have an efficient and effective Landlord and Tenant Board ensuring that our tenants are heard in a timely manner. We will continue to make these investments moving forward.

The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bhutila Karpoche): Further debate?

Ms. Jessica Bell: Thank you to the member for Kitchener Centre for bringing forward this comprehensive bill.

I just want to start off by responding a little bit to the member for Perth–Wellington and the assumption that eliminating rent control on new buildings is the best way to go. The reason why I raise this is because when you look at CMHC data and you go back in time, strong rent controls do not stymie the construction of purpose-build rental. We can have strong rent control and build the homes we need at the same time. Renters are the victims of the housing affordability crisis; they should not be made the sacrificial lambs when we bring about solutions.

It is very tough to be a renter today. I remember when I first got elected to this office. Shortly after I was elected I was approached by an individual, Kwame. He and his four housemates had just been forcibly evicted out of their home by their new landlord. They’d been pushed out into the street, all their belongings had been taken out and pushed out to the street, and his landlord had actually assaulted him. The police came, they charged the landlord with assault, but when it came to getting Kwame and his roommates back into his apartment, the police said, “I’m sorry; we can’t do anything.” They called bylaw officers, they called the Rental Housing Enforcement Unit, they called the Landlord and Tenant Board, they called RentSafe; no one was able to help Kwame and his housemates go back into their home, from which they’d been illegally evicted. In the end, Kwame ended up at a local homelessness shelter. I think that’s a tragedy that should never be happening in Ontario, but it happens all the time.

Recently, I printed out the latest cost of an average available apartment in the biggest cities in Canada. When I look at it, I see that some of the most expensive cities in Canada are right here in Ontario. We are doing really, really badly at keeping rent affordable. When I look at Toronto, I see $2,495 for an available one-bedroom apartment. That is so much money. You can’t escape it. You think, “Maybe I’ll be able to move out of Toronto and I’ll find an affordable place to live.” That is no longer the case anymore: Mississauga, $2,094 for an available one-bedroom apartment; Scarborough, $2,194; Brampton, $2,155; Waterloo, $2,027. That is so much money. If you’re a student, if you earn minimum wage, if you’re an entry-level worker, if you’re a senior—even if you’re on $80,000 a year this is a lot of money. We have made our housing market so expensive for people.

It’s not just the high cost of rent, although that’s one of the worst issues that we face; it’s the relentless above-guideline rent increases that are introduced by some of the most profitable landlords in Canada today. They raise the rent again and again and again because this government lets them do it.

I think about the residents who have contacted me. They talk about how badly maintained their homes are: washrooms that don’t work properly; a leak coming from the apartment above that makes their lives miserable; mould; no heat in the winter—that’s Charles Street; no lights in the common areas. It’s really abysmal. You think they’re one-offs, but they’re not one-offs. It’s business as usual, it’s common, and I really think that is a shame.

Then, the final piece—I mean, there are so many issues with housing today, but the issue that we’re really seeing in Toronto is that interest rates go up and housing prices don’t go down—is that people are being evicted again and again and again. And we know that so many of these evictions are illegal. We know that someone who’s living in a $2-million home is not moving downtown to a one-bedroom apartment to live in Kensington. They’re doing an illegal eviction and they have no intention of living there. They just want to move the rent-controlled tenant out so they can jack up the rent. And when they jack up the rent, a tenant loses their home and an affordable apartment becomes unaffordable. I think it’s a shame.

Now, this government has had—wow, how long? —nearly six years to fix our housing crisis. You’ve done a good song-and-dance. You’ve done so many press conferences, so many announcements, but when I look at the statistics, what I see is that it has never been more expensive to rent or own a home in Ontario. It’s never been more expensive.

When people are thinking about whether this government has solved the housing crisis or not, they think about: Can I find an affordable place to live that works for me? And can I buy my own home? People can’t do it. They can’t do it. You know, there is no surprise as to why. You’ve eliminated rent control on buildings that were built or first occupied after 2018. You’ve cut funding to municipalities, so it’s much harder for them to provide infrastructure for housing. You’ve built—this government has built just 1,187 homes in the last six years—six years. Oh my god, that’s unbelievable. The wait-list for affordable housing and for community housing is nearly 200,000, and you’ve built 1,187.

You can’t bring yourself to approve fourplexes. This government can’t bring themselves to mandate increased density in municipalities. They cannot bring themselves to say yes to increasing density near transit stations. Toronto has been waiting two years—I know you agree with me over there—waiting two years to say yes to increased density near transit stations, and still you say no.

What we’re seeing this government do is talk to a very select group of a few very wealthy developers and say, “What do you want?” These developers have turned around and said, “Do you know what we want? We want to build very expensive McMansion homes on greenbelt land, because we bought that land super, super, super cheap, and we’re going to make a whole lot of money if you secretly rezone it and let us to build a whole lot of single family homes on it. We wont’ even pay for the infrastructure. You make the municipalities pay for the infrastructure. Get rid of development fees. too. So everyone else pays and we just get to make the profit.” But your scam was uncovered. Public opposition was significant and you backed down. Meanwhile, the housing crisis continues. So while you’ve continued on this misguided scheme that hasn’t worked, renters in Ontario are saying. “What about us. What about us?”

I want—we want—an Ontario where renters are treated with respect and they are not second-class citizens; they’re not fodder for investors and developers; they’re not sacrificial lambs. They’re people who can choose to live and work in Ontario.

Students: They leave their homes. They come to big cities. They go to universities. They can find an affordable place. They can stay. They can get that entry-level job. They can think about saving up for a down payment, having kids, having a home. It’s a dream that many people had before, but now when you talk to young people, they’re like, “I think I’m going to be renting for the rest of my life.” And it is a myth—it is a myth—when I hear: “Ah, those people want to rent for the rest of their lives.” No they don’t. They want to buy a home. They want to buy a home.

I think it makes a lot of sense for this government to move forward on practical measures that we know we need to move forward on to make housing affordable for people, to rent and to buy. That means addressing the homelessness crisis and building affordable homes and supportive homes on public land. It means moving forward on vacancy control, a bill we have introduced many times, so that there is a cap on how much the rent can be increased when a tenant moves out and a new tenant moves in.

When people talk to me about how we can address investor-led speculation, I often respond by saying the best thing we can do is stabilize rent prices, because it clamps down on investor-led speculation and it ensures that someone who lives in a home can have the stability of living in that home and contributing to their community, sending their kids to a local school, knowing how much they’re going to pay for rent year in and year out. It stabilizes neighbourhoods. It stabilizes people’s lives. It gives everyone an option of living a good life here, not just for homeowners, but for people who rent as well. It is extremely important; vacancy control is extremely important.

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And while we’re at it, it is also important that when we’re thinking about building new homes, we are not just building 500-square-foot condos. They are important, but we shouldn’t just be focusing on them as well as 2,000-, 3,000- or 4,000-square-foot McMansions on greenbelt land. We need to be thinking about building starter homes, affordable homes, seniors’ homes, student housing. There are a lot things that this government is missing out on when they are so myopically focused on one solution that’s being presented by their developers. My hope is that this government sees the light and starts doing the right thing.

When I think about this bill and what’s in it, there are a lot of things in this bill that make a lot of sense. In fact, many of these pieces in this bill we’ve introduced as motions and bills in this Legislature to say, “Hey, here are some practical solutions and you need to implement them now.”

I look forward to seeing how this government is going to vote on this bill. I hope you do the right thing, because Ontarians and renters have had enough.

The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bhutila Karpoche): Further debate?

Mr. Mike Schreiner: It’s an honour to rise today to speak to Bill 170, the Keeping People Housed Act. I want to congratulate the member for Kitchener Centre for bringing forward this bill, the member’s first private member’s bill.

I can tell you, Speaker, I had the honour of knocking on a lot of doors with the member from Kitchener Centre in the last year, and over and over again her constituents told her that the housing crisis was their number one priority, and that they wanted an independent voice who was going to come to Queen’s Park and bring their concerns and their real lived experience of struggling with finding an affordable place to rent and to own. So, I want to thank the member for honouring those constituents by bringing forward Bill 170.

I want to say to my colleague from Perth–Wellington that not only do we need more housing supply, and I’m going to get to that in the second, but we need housing supply that people can afford. People in our communities are struggling. The affordability crisis that we talk about in this House every day is primarily being driven by the housing crisis. So, no matter how often the government wants to distract from that by talking about bags at the LCBO, the bottom line is, it takes somebody to work two full-time jobs on a minimum wage to be able to afford rent in the city of Toronto. There is no major city in this province—mid-size, large size, small size—where a minimum wage worker can actually afford to rent a one-bedroom apartment.

I can tell you, when I became an MPP one of the first things I started dealing with were these things called N11, N12 or N13s, people coming to my office being pressured—being pressured—to sign legal documents to be forced out of the affordable apartment they were living in at a time when the vacancy rate in my community is almost zero, where the average one-bedroom apartment is $2,200. Can you imagine being somebody on ODSP, trying to survive on $1,300 a month, being pressured to leave the home that you can afford to pay rent in, knowing you’re going to going to go into a rental market where you would have to earn double—earn double—what you do on ODSP, just to afford rent, let alone anything else you need?

So, what do we need to do increase supply? We need the government to actually say yes to things like fourplexes and four-storeys. We need them to say yes to legalizing six- to 11-storey apartment buildings along major transportation corridors, which is in the bill I put forward, but the government seems to be saying no to that. And when they say yes to it, especially those six- to 11-storey apartment buildings, they need to have rent control so that people in those buildings know they’re going to be protected. They need to have vacancy control so when somebody leaves, it remains protected. And we need to have stronger provisions for renovictions.

I mean, the fact that in the first mandate, this government’s first four years in office—and I know some of the members opposite weren’t there at that time, but during that time, during their first mandate, the number of N13s in the province of Ontario, increased 300%—20,541 people being renovicted out of the home they could afford.

And I can tell you, it’s personal stories, Speaker. I had a woman come to my office, a single mom on disability in an accessible apartment on the first floor of her apartment unit. She was first asked to sign an N11, and she refused, which is her legal right. Luckily, we were able to refer her to the legal aid clinic so she could get some legal advice and support. But then, an N13 was hammered on her, and she was renovicted—a mom with a kid, a disability. She had no place where she can find an affordable home in Guelph or almost any other community she would live in.

So I think it’s reasonable. It’s reasonable to have a bill like this bill that just puts some guidelines in, some common sense guidelines to protect people, to tell people that this province cares about them, that we care about renters and that they have an affordable place to live. That’s why I’ll be voting in favour of this bill.

The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bhutila Karpoche): Further debate?

The member has two minutes to reply.

Ms. Aislinn Clancy: I’m here today, because I made a promise during my seven-month campaign to the residents of Kitchener Centre that I would prevent people from being wrongfully renovicted and displaced from their homes. And I make this commitment to the constituents from today onward, because housing is the number one complaint that comes to my office. I think we all see this at our offices that housing is the number one complaint that comes to our constituency offices.

I want to just respond to the member from Perth–Wellington. The Landlord and Tenant Board is being inundated by bad actors. Just today, the tenant who joined me in the press gallery said every six months he counts on getting paperwork that brings him to the LTB. He has been many times. He has said, “Now, I’m used to it.” So he feels for young people just getting started on their LTB carousel ride. Why? You only need to be $6 behind in your rent to get taken to the Landlord and Tenant Board. If the tenant wins, the landlord can come and give the newest piece of paper, and we’re back on the merry-go-round again.

That’s why today the wait times are 427 days and up to two years for tenants—because it is a two-tiered system: six to nine months for landlords, two years for tenants—and we have 53,000 people on the wait-list.

So please, I beg of you, talk to these tenants. Talk to the lawyers. They have the answers. They can tell you what’s going on, and that will go far to cleaning up the LTB.

I also want to respond to the supply myth, because you don’t go to the grocery store and just get potatoes. There’s not one kind of supply. Just like my friend from Guelph stated, we need all kinds of supply: affordable, mid-range, luxury and what have you. And there’s negative supply like Airbnb. People are being displaced, and we know that for every 1% increase in Airbnb use, rents go up by 2.5%. We know, at least in my community, there’s a 0% vacancy rate of affordable housing. So let’s talk about all the kinds of supply.

Finally, thank you for the HST rebate. That’s wonderful.

And finally, I want to thank Stacey Danckert, who is the backbone of our team. Thank you for all your hard work on this.

The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bhutila Karpoche): The time provided for private members’ public business has expired.

Ms. Clancy has moved second reading of Bill 170, An Act to amend the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006, the City of Toronto Act, 2006 and the Municipal Act, 2001 to implement various measures respecting rental accommodation. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? I heard a no.

All those in favour of the motion will please say “aye.”

All those opposed to the motion will please say “nay.”

In my opinion, the ayes have it.

A recorded vote being required, it will be deferred until the next instance of deferred votes.

Second reading vote deferred.

The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bhutila Karpoche): Pursuant to standing order 36, the question that this House do now adjourn is deemed to have been made.

1840

Adjournment Debate

Office of the Premier

The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bhutila Karpoche): The member for Ottawa South has given notice of dissatisfaction with the answer to a question given by the Premier. The member has five minutes to debate the matter, and a minister or parliamentary assistant may reply for up to five minutes.

I recognize the member from Ottawa South.

Mr. John Fraser: It’s a pleasure to have a chance to do a late show tonight. I want to thank everyone at the table; you, Speaker; my colleagues who are here; my colleagues over here, who are staying a little bit later, just so I can express my total dissatisfaction with the answer to my question with regard to the Premier’s office budget.

I’m just going to reiterate the question so it’s clear: All of us in this chamber know that there are many families, more and more each day, in our ridings that are struggling to pay their bills, to pay their rent, their mortgage, put food on the table. Some are having to take out their credit card instead of their OHIP card just to get basic medical attention for their son or daughter or themselves. So, by any measure, life is more difficult for most Ontarians.

So, my question was, why did the Premier think it was appropriate to more than double the budget of his office to $6.9 million and more than double the staff in his office—this is from 2019—from 20 to 48? That’s more than double. That’s incredible. That’s not the number of actual people in his office; there are actually 80. It’s just that 48 of them are on the sunshine list. Instead of 20, there are now 48 on the sunshine list. So, 48 people in the Premier’s office make more than the median family income in Ontario. Let me repeat that: the median family income—and not just a bit more; some of them double, some of them triple, some of them quadruple, at a time when Ontario families are struggling. They need a little bit of help.

The Premier thinks this is a good idea. It’s not that it’s just unfair or that it’s just wrong; it’s actually almost obscene when you think about it, when you think about people who are on ODSP trying to afford their grocery bills. How does this square with what the Premier is saying in terms of helping people out with affordability?

I know that the Premier’s office budget in the $214-billion budget is just not even a rounding error. But you know, leadership starts at the top. And by any measure, this office is bloated, and it’s not reflective of the kind of government that Ontario families expect, especially during an affordability crisis.

The Premier needs to show leadership. You know, when he railed on and said, “You need to stop the gravy train,” I didn’t think he meant he had to stop so he could put a station in his office. It’s incredible.

Mr. Graham McGregor: Boo.

Mr. John Fraser: Thank you. Was that a “toot” or a “boo”? Or it was “toot-toot”?

Mr. Graham McGregor: It was a “boo.”

Mr. John Fraser: Okay. I was just checking. You’re not on the train, though.

It’s just not acceptable, the current state of affairs in the Premier’s office, especially when so many Ontarians are suffering.

And we’ve got to put a stop to the gravy train. The Premier has got to stand up to the gravy train. Now, I’m not sure that’s going to happen. The Premier likes to rail about the gravy train. I have a picture of him in 2018, taking out the sunshine list and raving on about fat cats and insiders and how government spending was out of control. And now, we have a Premier who’s—well, actually, if you want to go back 10 years, there were 16 people in the Premier’s office that were on the sunshine list, 16—16. There are now 48. That’s triple.

All I simply wanted the Premier to do was to say, “Here’s why I am doing that. Here’s a good reason. This is why it makes sense. This is how it’s helping Ontario families,” but I don’t think anybody over there, including the Premier, can justify it. That’s why he got so mad. I was mad too, the other day in the question, so it’s nice to have the opportunity to discuss this in a way that’s a little quieter and maybe more thoughtful, and I really do look forward to my colleague’s response.

The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bhutila Karpoche): Response?

Mr. Lorne Coe: We’ll take no lessons from the Liberals when it comes to the use of taxpayer dollars: the Liberal government that went $304 million over budget for the Pan Am Games, the Liberal government that gave $163 million to their largest corporate donor, the Liberal government that awarded lucrative green energy contracts to companies who donated a combined $1.3 million to the Ontario Liberal party.

Speaker, I’m proud to be part of a government that has many accomplishments. Under the leadership of Premier Ford, we’ve never raised a tax. The Liberal record, on the other hand? They raised the price of gasoline by 4.3 cents per litre. They raised beer and wine taxes. They raised taxes on small businesses. They raised taxes on middle-class families across the province. They hiked drivers’ licence and licence plate sticker fees.

Speaker, they took every opportunity to raise a tax on hard-working families in our province. In contrast, we remain focused on getting it done for the people of Ontario and keeping costs down. We cut income tax for over one million low-income workers, saving the average person $300 every year. We eliminated fees for licence plate stickers, saving vehicle owners $120 a year per car or truck. We took the tolls off Highways 412 and 418 in the region of Durham. We cut the gas tax, saving households an average of $320 since 2022.

This year, we implemented One Fare to save daily transit riders $1,600 a year. Now, we’re permanently freezing the fees for drivers’ licences and photo cards, saving residents $66 million over the next five years.

Speaker, since day one—since day one—our government has been focused on rebuilding the province of Ontario, which was left a mess by the previous Liberal government.

The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bhutila Karpoche): There being no further matters to debate, pursuant to standing order 36(c), I deem the motion to adjourn to be carried.

This House stands adjourned until 9 a.m. tomorrow.

The House adjourned at 1848.