Legislative Assembly of Ontario

Report continued from volume A.

1640

Cutting Red Tape to Build More Homes Act, 2024 / Loi de 2024 pour réduire les formalités administratives afin de construire plus de logements

Continuation of debate on the motion for third reading of the following bill:

Bill 185, An Act to amend various Acts / Projet de loi 185, Loi modifiant diverses lois.

The Acting Speaker (M^me Lucille Collard): Further debate?

Mr. Joel Harden: It’s a pleasure to be speaking to Bill 185 at third reading on behalf of the good people of Ottawa Centre, who have, like everywhere, a lot of serious concerns about our housing affordability crisis, about the homelessness crisis.

I would like to focus my remarks. I’ll begin, Speaker, with a metaphor from my childhood. I remember very well a guy on my block, Speaker—I grew up in rural eastern Ontario, a small town called Vankleek Hill. Every year when the season would come around and it was time to cut the grass, this neighbour of mine, who was a lovely guy—but my brother and I used to watch from the bay window after school and we used to see the gentleman pull a lawn mower out of his shed that we knew hadn’t been maintained. It was rusty. It wasn’t functioning. But he really believed, this neighbour, that he could just make the lawn mower work because he was a strong man. He worked in an outdoor occupation. He just believed he could will this thing to life by reefing on the cord. My brother and I used to bet, how many times does the cord have to be pulled for the engine to turn over? My brother, Adam, would say, “It will be 20 times,” and I would say, “It will be 25.” And we’d see this guy—and I almost wonder if it was his version of exercise because he was a bit of a gym rat, if memory recalls. But the lawn mower just would never turn over. But he’d be out there persistently in his yard trying to get this thing to turn.

I think that’s a very useful metaphor for the housing crisis, Speaker, because I think we’re a little bit like that guy here in Ontario, in Canada. We have believed that we could pull the proverbial lawn mower out of the shed—our approach to building housing, which has been to say the private sector is going to solve this problem magically. In Ontario, we got out of the non-market housing business in a serious way in the mid-1990s and we have thought since that the market is going to create affordable housing for people, but it hasn’t. It hasn’t. We are in a situation—and I mentioned this earlier in questions to other members in debate, Speaker—in my city where a two-bedroom in the city of Ottawa to rent: In 2018, the cost was $1,300; today, in 2024, that cost is $2,488. The price of a home from the time the government was elected in 2018 has almost doubled relative to today.

Now, you can’t just saddle this one government with this problem. That would be unfair. However, there was blind faith put in the market on the rental side, Speaker, as I’ve been standing in this place and debating, when this government decided to remove all rent controls from buildings built after 2018. And we’ve seen them. We’ve seen them pop up in Ottawa. We’ve seen renovations of buildings that have qualified for the abdication of rent control, and the cranes are beautiful and the new paint looks nice, but when you knock on the doors, as I know all of us do—but when I knock on those doors in the last two provincial elections, the most recent one in particular, and I talk to neighbours of what they’re paying for rent, it’s an astounding number that you hear back, Speaker. People are paying 35%, 40%, 45%—I’ve heard 50%—of their disposable income in rent. And I think that actually can be traced back to our province acting like that guy in the front lawn with the rusty lawn mower. We just think, if we let the market continue to pull—and there’s creative people who are involved in housing and financial products with respect to housing—that somehow that’s going to figure it out. But I think the evidence, increasingly, is showing us, Speaker, that we’re getting deeper and deeper and deeper into a hole, where people cannot afford a place to rent and they cannot afford a place to buy.

And what’s happening as we wait is that the number of eviction notices are mounting, because we have let the market—we have assumed the market is going to solve this.

There are people in the housing market who run organizations called real estate investment trusts that will buy up old housing rental stock that’s come into disrepair and evict the tenants. They’re called N13s, Speaker. And the amount of N13s filed in the city of Ottawa, Speaker, between 2021 and 2022 tripled; it increased by 545%. And what that is—if you listen to Professor Steve Pomeroy at Carleton University—is the market doing what the market does: trying to find a margin to increase profitability to your company and to the shareholders investing in your company.

But what is happening, increasingly—we heard it with the case in Mississauga with the Chartwell eviction; I’ve heard it with building after building in the greater city of Ottawa. What’s happening is that we are losing affordable rental stock in the private market, certainly in the city of Ottawa. So, that is, I think, an example where we have to reckon with the fact that we are that guy with the rusty lawn mower. We are watching somebody from our proverbial bay window mess up, and we’re not doing something about it.

So I think we have to take a step back, as I said at second reading of this bill, and we have to, as the member from—what is it?

Ms. Sandy Shaw: Chatham-Kent–Leamington.

Mr. Joel Harden: Chatham-Kent–Leamington. As he rightly said, we have to listen to the experts. One of those experts, for me, Speaker—it’s not just Professor Pomeroy; it’s Carolyn Whitzman, who I mentioned during debate already. Professor Whitzman has given policy-makers like us three priorities we should be looking into.

First, we should be trying to end homelessness, and I’ll explain why in the time I have. I’ve done it before. Homelessness is expensive, and we end up wasting a lot of public resources when people are chronically unhoused and unwell from being unhoused. Second, we have to introduce prudent measures to protect renters and rental stock that’s affordable in our communities. And third, we have to scale up the right kind of housing—the kind of housing we desperately need because we have watched the guy in the rusty lawn mower refuse to start up the housing market effectively.

So let’s talk about ending homelessness. I know, when people hear me say those words, it seems unrealistic. When my teacher and friend Jack Layton used to say this, people thought Jack was unrealistic. But the fact of the matter is, Speaker, it doesn’t matter what angle you come at homelessness from. It makes no sense for the individual who—I’m sure, on our walk here today or walk in our communities, we’ve seen folks who are struggling with homelessness. It’s undignified for them, but it’s also vastly expensive.

I looked at the numbers that the city of Ottawa staff did up for councillors back home when they were debating the housing allowance that the city has for people who come in and out of our shelter system. People who come in and out of our shelter system qualify for a housing allowance that amounts to $6,000 a year, and I had colleagues who—you know, everyone can have their opinion on a policy matter before any level of government. They were saying, in that particular debate, “That’s way too much money. Municipal taxpayers can’t afford that. We shouldn’t be doing it.” But the staff produced the evidence, Speaker, that showed that if people are chronically unhoused, each individual costs the city of Ottawa $53,000 per year. Because they were adding up the interactions with paramedics and police, and we can fold in the provincial angle of emergency rooms or jails.

So homelessness is an expensive problem that we continue to let fester, and it’s hard to imagine ending it, given tent cities popping up everywhere, given the suffering that we’re seeing.

But there is a country in the world—it’s a Nordic country, just like ours, Finland—that has literally ended homelessness with a systematic strategy from 1987 called “housing first.” They had bought up apartment units. And the philosophy of the program is that if someone has a home that is safe, it is much easier to help that person—with their consent, because the consent is critical—deal with whatever else is bedevilling their life; housing first.

1650

In Finland, they have ended homelessness. We had visitors from the city of Helsinki to Ottawa recently, and they have produced the evidence to the city. There were municipal workers in those intervening two decades that would walk around a city like Helsinki with a large circle of keys on their belt, like a caretaker in a building you could think of, and every one of these keys unlocked an apartment.

Finland is a very cold climate, just like here. The thought of being homeless in a country like that is a very dangerous thing for someone’s health. But it’s worked. It’s gradually worked. They had to have the arguments there that my colleagues at the municipal level did around the housing allowance. They had to convince people that it was the right investment and, ultimately, it would be better for the human beings who were suffering, and it would be better for the country’s finances.

So, it is possible, I still believe, to end homelessness, and the member for Parkdale–High Park is producing her own initiative to study this and to follow these best practices. I encourage us all to watch the member as that work unfolds because it’s worthy. It’s important.

On the issue of protecting renters, I look at the fact that countries like Denmark which have a long and established record of producing non-market housing—the co-op market in Denmark is 30% of the housing stock. But even there, they had to worry about large real estate investment trusts coming into their housing market, buying up large amounts of their private rental stock and gentrifying it—throwing out the tenants, jacking up the rent, causing chaos.

Denmark literally passed a law that was colloquially called the “Blackstone law,” because Blackstone, the large real estate investment trust, came into that country and started snapping up properties very quickly, jacking up the rent, throwing the tenants out, dramatically increasing the cost of housing. So the Danish government passed a law that forbade any rent increases for five years if you were buying multiple properties. It all of a sudden made that initiative not profitable, so the vultures leave.

What are we doing? Last year, Blackstone made a $2.6-billion play in the city of Toronto—bought up big amounts of property. We’re that guy with the rusty lawn mower watching from the bay window, watching them do this. We can’t be that. We can’t be bystanders. We get voted into this place, I believe, Speaker, to make consequential decisions that will make people’s lives better. We can disagree on how to get there, but we can’t just watch it happen.

We have to protect renters. For as long as I’ve been privileged to come into this place, I’ve enjoyed working with colleagues who believe in rent control that is robust, and real rent control that follows from tenant to tenant, so if one tenant leaves, the new person coming in doesn’t have a dramatically different rent because they don’t happen to know what the previous tenant was paying and because the law allows it. So, on this side of the House, we have been asking for tenant-to-tenant rent control. That is a real rent protection that could truly help people.

If a landlord does substantial renovations to a property, they can still apply for some lenience with respect to costs to recoup those costs, but I don’t see a reason why we wouldn’t want to protect renters in the housing affordability crisis we have. I don’t know why we would watch a two-bedroom unit in my city become a $2,500 average investment per month. It’s crushingly unaffordable for people.

We also need, thirdly, as I said, to scale up the kind of housing that we need. The kind of housing we need emphatically is non-market housing. There was a time in the province of Ontario—Conservative friends have mentioned it many times—that we had an NDP government. And the person who had this seat then, her name is Evelyn Gigantes—she still lives in Ottawa Centre; a good friend. We chat every now and again. If you’re watching, Evelyn, hello.

Evelyn tells me that her proudest achievement in elected life is that, over the course of that time as a member of that government, non-market housing increased by a factor of 60%. Many of the co-operatives and community housing buildings that were built then still exist, but boy, they need some help. They need some TLC on the retrofit. They need some love.

But those buildings were built. Let’s look at some of the numbers. We had, literally, progressive financing from the federal level, and from 1989 to 1995—so if I’m being fair, that predates the NDP government—more than 14,000 co-operative homes were developed in the province of Ontario.

But then, when Premier Harris came to office in 1995, he made the decision as the leader of the province to end that initiative. There were over 17,000 proposed non-profit, co-op and community housing units scheduled to be built, given the trajectory we were on. Abruptly, that ended.

And it ended, if you look at Hansard—and I invite us all to do so—because the government of the day believed that you didn’t need the government to build housing for people. The market was going to solve this problem. Well, here we are roughly 30 years later, reckoning with the fact that that rusty lawn mower has not started. That has not happened.

So what are we prepared to do? Well, as we wait, Speaker, let’s just go over some of the affordability numbers. As we wait, according to Professor Whitzman, 1.5 million Canadians, right now, are in core housing need. What that means is they’re one to two paycheques away from homelessness, being evicted. According to her, for my city in Ottawa, the greater city of Ottawa, that’s about 45,000 households that close from being evicted.

So what is Professor Whitzman’s solution beyond building homes that—let’s be honest, you can’t generate new homes overnight. Her other solution, which the province of British Columbia has embraced, is a housing acquisition fund: a $500-million housing acquisition fund.

So when those older rental stock buildings in the downtown where I serve or anywhere else come up for sale, it’s not the Blackstones and it’s not the vultures of the world that come and snap them up, jack the rent, throw out the historic tenants and increase the cost of housing; it’s the acquisition fund in British Columbia that can play a role in buying up that housing stock, keeping the rents where they are, fixing up the buildings, making sure that those tenants have a voice.

They’re also called community land trusts in other parts of Canada and around the world. We have the Ottawa Community Land Trust.

And I want to acknowledge, just by way of being fair, the government has made some investments in this. On May 22, there were two important investments in deeply affordable housing in Ottawa Centre, one of them very close to my heart: the Cornerstone women’s shelter at 44 Eccles Street, $4.2 million for 46 studio apartments, with staffed help in that building. People coming into Cornerstone are fleeing violent homes. They’re dealing with significant trauma. That’s a worthy investment. That’s going to help somebody remake their life.

The folks at the Ottawa Mission, one of our big shelters, run a rooming house on Florence Street. The government has invested, same announcement, $700,000 to refurbish eight units for people experiencing homelessness, so they can get access to those funds.

But these two initiatives are part of a fund of $700 million for the whole province, the homelessness prevention fund. But I want you to contrast that to some of the other big capital investments the government is making, like $600 million for a parking garage for an Austrian wellness conglomerate at Ontario Place, or $250 million or whatever the number people are comfortable with to get out of a Beer Store contract early that was going to expire anyway.

And you start adding up these numbers or—don’t even get me started on the escalating costs of transit. Don’t even get me started. Money being spent hand over fist. Consultants making their dividends at every single turn.

Miss Monique Taylor: Lawyers getting very rich.

Mr. Joel Harden: Lawyers getting very rich—the member from Hamilton Mountain is right.

But these small experiments, which are really important, could be much bigger. You have partners in the city of Ottawa, the Ottawa Community Land Trust; my landlord for our community office, the Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corp.; and Ottawa Community Housing.

Ottawa Community Housing introduced Mosaïq Ottawa, which is their enterprise, their initiative, to move into the era of community housing that other countries have done, where you don’t just have very-low-income people living in a building together and clamouring to get on a wait-list to live in that building; you have people of different incomes living in the same building together, the children getting to know each other. That’s what the Mosaïq Ottawa building will be: 273 units of affordable housing at 820 Gladstone—every single unit snapped up right away. More developments coming afterwards is good, but it could be much bigger, is my point—absolutely bigger.

1700

I’ll end on this, Speaker: Everything I’m talking about will be anathema for someone who believes we have to let the market work, but a good friend of mine died recently, Ed Broadbent. Ed was someone who believed in having an industrial policy as a country, having an industrial policy as a province, having a plan, not hoping that the rusty lawn mower will one day start because we will it to be so. If we turned around as a Legislature and we increased that $700-million number to a $10-billion or $12-billion number, I bet you there are going to be partners in Niagara Falls, Windsor, Mushkegowuk–James Bay, London, Hamilton. You’re going to find all kinds of people ready to build non-market homes.

But the private sector is not going to be keen on it, because that’s not what they do. That is not what they do. But we can lubricate the machine, we can make it work on the first pull and we can do it together, because the expertise already exists. We could end homelessness, we could protect renters, we could scale up the right kind of housing, and we could do it not just because it’s the right thing to do ethically; we could do it because it makes sense for the province’s finances too.

The Acting Speaker (Ms. Patrice Barnes): Questions?

Mr. Rick Byers: I thank the member for his comments. I was thinking, as he was referring to the lawn mower throughout his remarks, that I cut the grass on my property over the weekend, so it hit home. There are a number of parallels there, because in thinking about a rusty lawn mower, rust builds up over time and, in fact, rust has a little bit of a red colour—you know, like the previous government.

And then, things in a lawn mower have got to work together. You’ve got the fuel, which could be the federal government; the spark plug, which might be the municipal government; and the pull cord, the provincial government. All these things have got to work together when you’re running a lawn mower.

And finally, there’s persistence. He talked about how he was looking at the fellow pulling the cord 20 times. Well, we’ve got 13 red tape bills, so ultimately it sounds like the grass did get cut. So aren’t there some parallels here, that the member could vote for the bill and get the job done, get the grass cut for housing?

Mr. Joel Harden: I want to thank the member for sharing in some humour with me. My brother and I would have a joke after pull 20, and it was that we should buy the guy a goat, because at least the goat ran on renewable energy and would cost him less. We have good friends, the Skotidakises, who make fantastic products from goats if you’re ever out in eastern Ontario. I make no commission for telling you that.

Look, at the end of the day, I think we can all admit that the status quo isn’t working, so we do need to think creatively. The good thing about, I think, every single community in Ontario is that people are adamant about needing to create affordable housing. The member has a financial services background; that’s a whole other dimension of where we find the capital to make sure these projects can be built and paid for.

The Acting Speaker (Ms. Patrice Barnes): Question?

Mrs. Lisa Gretzky: Thank you to my colleague from Ottawa. I like that you talked about—because I say this all the time—how when you invest in people in the front end, there’s a huge savings on the back end. Not only is it the right thing to do, but there’s a huge savings. When you invest in people on the front end and you ensure that they have safe, stable housing that they can afford; when they can go to the grocery store and purchase food; when they’re not worrying about having to try to juggle all the bills and put clothes on their children, there’s a savings to the education system, the health care system and the justice system.

Feed Ontario put out the Ontario Hunger Report, and there’s a lot outlined in it, and I encourage the government members to actually read it, including the recommendations. But the heart of the report was that the people in this province, over the last seven years, have indicated that they are much worse off than they were prior to that. Six of those years have been under this Conservative government, and one of the key drivers of income insecurity and housing precarity is the cost of housing and the lack of truly affordable housing and rent control that we see from this government.

So I’m wondering if you can tell me if there’s anything in this bill that’s going to address any of those core issues when we’re talking about income insecurity and people being precariously, or in many cases—because homelessness has also increased under this government. Is there anything to actually address that in the bill before us?

Mr. Joel Harden: The government would probably respond by saying that expediting approval processes for projects will help, and we’ve been hearing that for a while. That has been a refrain—that if we just get even more out of the private sector’s way, things will be better. But I am a little skeptical; I’ll be honest.

I think, really, the philosophical difference we’re talking about here is, we have a disagreement in this House about what constitutes core needs.

We don’t necessarily allow the financial services sector to run around with water meters and price how much money that comes out of your tap. We believe water is a human right. We believe primary and secondary education is a right. We say the words, “Housing is a right,” but we don’t mean it, because if we meant it, everybody would get access to a decent, stable home. We don’t say food is a right either, because if we meant it, we wouldn’t let Galen Weston and all of the big monopolies in the food sector gouge us. So I think that’s really a bigger question that I’m hearing from what you’re raising—we have to be asking ourselves, if these things are a right, what are we doing here to help people get access?

The Acting Speaker (Ms. Patrice Barnes): Further questions?

Mr. Trevor Jones: I thank you, to my friend opposite, for the whirlwind adventure. He’s definitely a professor by trade, because he has those articulate skills to take you on an adventure. It starts at a lawn mower and takes you to Finland and to British Columbia. My English teacher in high school used to say, “Fiction can be fun.”

I want to ask the member opposite an important question, because this resonates with the community members in Chatham-Kent–Leamington and throughout rural ridings across Ontario. Bill 185 modernizes a little piece of legislation: the Line Fences Act. It’s outdated provisions; it’s problems that I was dispatched to as a police officer to resolve between neighbours—line fences. Could you share what the modernization of one little piece of legislation like this can do to resolve monumental problems across the province with line fences—the Line Fences Act?

Mr. Joel Harden: Thank you for that question. It takes me back to my childhood, when I’d hear about those disputes and my father attempting, as a neighbour, to intervene before other people had to be called.

These are powers we do need to think about enhancing, because otherwise, we ask first responders to deal with this, and that’s not their job. I want first responders available to respond to critical, lethal incidents at the drop of a hat, which is what they signed up to do. That’s what I want them to do.

Every single first responder I know in the city of Ottawa—paramedics, fire, police—says the same thing about homelessness calls: “Joel, I talked to the same guy five times today. He’s no more housed than the first time I met him this morning. What can we do to make sure that there are good services to help that person?” The good news is, in our city, we have an alternative 911 response coming on stream this summer. The police are working with our community health centres. I think that’s going to help in a similar way to the fencing issue. That’s going to put the first responders where they need to be.

The Acting Speaker (Ms. Patrice Barnes): Question?

Mr. Wayne Gates: Thank you for my colleague’s presentation.

It’s very interesting; I met today with the Ontario Real Estate Association, and the conversation we had is something that I have in my office all the time—how do young people afford to buy a house in the province of Ontario?

I have four staff. They’re all young, they’re good, they’re competent and very, very talented. But when we talk about being able to afford to buy a house—none of them own a house, because they can’t afford it.

I asked the real estate association today, so they showed me a stat—in listening to the government. The average household income in Niagara, where I live and represent, is $73,000; the price of a house, as of April this year, is $664,594.

So my question to you, as young people aren’t buying a home and are living in our basements—how do you believe a young family will be able to buy a house when the government says affordability is 80% of market value?

Mr. Joel Harden: Thanks for that question.

The definition of housing affordability, as I said in debate earlier, is 30% of income; it used to be, after the Second World War, 20% of income, when the veterans came back and we were trying to line them up with homes after the sacrifices they made—but I believe in 30% of income being the right number.

And I certainly don’t like where the federal government has been sliding around with this new word, “attainability.” Come on.

At the end of the day, we work for a living; we bring money home to ourselves and our families; we use that money to buy things. Housing is one of the most critical things. For your community, those are quite staggering numbers.

1710

But the good news is, we don’t have to just watch this accident happen. We can do something. We can change it.

The Acting Speaker (Ms. Patrice Barnes): Further questions?

Ms. Christine Hogarth: My other interest here—I want to talk a little bit about some red tape cutting in this legislation. I have a lot of film industry in my riding of Etobicoke–Lakeshore. Arts and culture are very important to our community.

I just want to ask the member opposite about a filming fee. With the arts and filming in Ontario, Bill 185 proposes that Ontario no longer charge fees to third-party vendors to film at the Archives of Ontario. Previously, vendors had to pay a daily fee to film there. I’m just wondering what you think. And how will this help creators who are considering the archives as a site for their work?

Mr. Joel Harden: That’s a great idea. I love that spot, and I must admit that as I was prepping for this bill, that was something I’d overlooked. Anything we can do to make sure that the creative people of this planet—because people come to Ontario from all over the planet to film here. We need to bring them here. There are so many spinoff jobs involved from that, so many good things that happen to our economy, so many opportunities created for young people.

I was at an event over the weekend that the Ontario Arts Council showed up to that was all about this: linking kids from communities that are struggling to performers in the arts. It was called MASC, the MASC community. If that will get more people to the archives to film, I’m down, absolutely.

The Acting Speaker (Ms. Patrice Barnes): Further debate?

Mr. Mike Schreiner: It’s always a pleasure to rise in this House, today to debate third reading of Bill 185, the government’s latest housing bill—though only about half of it actually deals with housing, which is kind of surprising when you consider that the biggest crisis facing the people of Ontario is the housing crisis.

When we talk about the affordability crisis people are facing, it is being driven by the fact that they simply can’t afford to pay the rent or to own a home. But you wouldn’t know it from this bill. This bill, like many of the government’s recent housing bills, spends as much time undoing the mistakes the previous housing minister has done than it does actually advancing real solutions to addressing the housing crisis.

This bill kind of reminds me of a firefighter dealing with a raging forest fire and being given a garden hose or a bucket to try to put it out. That’s the extent to which this bill actually addresses the housing affordability crisis, and it’s unacceptable. It’s unacceptable to a whole generation of young people wondering if they’ll ever be able to afford to own a home, let alone pay the rent.

Over the last 10 years, average house prices—and I recognize that the Liberals and the Conservatives can share responsibility for this—in the province of Ontario have climbed 180%. Do you know how much income has gone up? By 38%. No wonder so many people can’t afford to own a home in the province of Ontario. No wonder so many young families are leaving Ontario for other provinces where they can actually find an affordable home.

The cost of rent in this province is getting out of control. As a matter of fact, a minimum wage worker in the province of Ontario, just to be able to afford a one-bedroom apartment, would need to earn $25.96 an hour. Our minimum wage isn’t even close to that, let alone if you think about people living on social assistance. There is no city in Ontario where a minimum wage worker can afford a one-bedroom apartment. As a matter of fact, in the city of Toronto, it would take a couple, two people both earning the minimum wage—their combined income couldn’t even afford a one-bedroom apartment at 30% of their income. On average, it takes a young person 22 years to be able to save up for a down payment to be able to buy the average home in Ontario. That’s even worse if you live in the greater Toronto area, where it takes 27 years to save up.

And yet, the Premier says no to legalizing housing. No wonder 16,000 people in Ontario on any given night are homeless in this province. And it’s getting worse, not better, Speaker. Housing starts in April in Ontario were down a whopping 37% from the same month last year. According to CMHC, “Over the rest of the year, we expect [housing starts] to continue to trend down in the province and particularly in the GTA.”

Speaker, I know the members opposite will say, “Oh, it’s because of interest rates and labour shortages,” but that’s not affecting housing starts in other provinces like Alberta, where they’re up, or British Columbia, where they’re having housing starts on a per capita basis that’s 2.5 times higher than in Ontario. It is in Ontario, along with a couple of other provinces, where you see the biggest drop in housing starts. The government is not even close to being on track to even meet their own housing target, which many experts are saying won’t be sufficient at 1.5 million homes.

And yet, the Premier’s response to that has been to be the most powerful NIMBY in Ontario, saying no to fourplexes and four storeys as of right province-wide, saying no to legalizing six-to-11-storey buildings along major transit and transportation corridors—two of the key recommendations from the government’s own Housing Affordability Task Force.

But, Speaker, don’t take my word for it. Let’s hear what some stakeholders have to say. The Ontario Real Estate Association, led by the former Conservative leader, in response to Bill 185:

“We are disappointed that the two key recommendations by the province’s own Housing Affordability Task Force (HTAF)—strongly supported by Ontario realtors—have not been included in today’s bill. We need to build more homes on existing properties and allow upzoning along major transit corridors if we are going to address the housing affordability and supply crisis in” Ontario. Bill 185 says no to that. The Premier has clearly said no to that.

But don’t just take OREA’s word for it; let’s see what More Neighbours, one of the most vocal housing advocates in the province saying, “Yes, in my backyard”—and I endorse, “Yes, in my backyard,” Speaker. I quote More Neighbours:

“The unwillingness of @fordnation”—this was on social media—“to embrace a generational consensus moment on the biggest issue facing the country is hugely problematic!

“And while most changes proposed” in this bill “are good, they amount to trying to staunch a forest fire by filling up buckets of water from a kitchen tap.

“Fairly obvious for weeks now that the Ontario government has totally given up on housing ... cutting red tape should mean ... implementing provincial zoning standards.”

Do you know what those changes are, Speaker? Legalizing fourplexes and four storeys; six-to-11 upzones along major transit and transportation corridors. But the government said no to the fastest, cheapest way we can quickly increase housing supply where we already have infrastructure built. That’s the cheapest and fastest way to do it, and the government says no.

Speaker, I like to be somebody who works across party lines. I will concede there are some good things in this bill. I’ve been advocating for advanced timber buildings up to 18 storeys. I support the changes to standardized designs to reduce the delays in modular and panelized housing—though I will say, Speaker, that if you talk to most of the people who want those standardized designs, they want them for fourplexes, because that’s where they can quickly increase housing supply in the most affordable way.

I think it’s great that this bill is making it easier for universities to build housing. It’s unfortunate that the government is underfunding colleges and universities to such an extent that it’s going to be hard for them to find the money to actually build the housing.

1720

So let’s see what these changes amount to: tinkering around the edges. And let’s see what a journalist—probably the journalist who works the most on housing issues—has to say, John Michael McGrath from TVO:

“None of those items from the government’s plan is bad”—I agree with him; none of them are bad. “They’re just not sufficient. In the face of a housing crisis that is, every year, driving thousands of Ontario residents to more affordable communities in other provinces, the Ford government is fiddling with the dials of housing policy, seemingly unsure of what it’s doing or even what it’s trying to do. Every new announcement is at least half composed of reversals of announcements from six, 12, or 18 months ago, and the genuinely novel and important bits—like this plan’s focus on water and sewer infrastructure—will require a commitment to long-term consistency that this government will have a hard time providing. The rest is simply ... half-measures.”

As a matter of fact, if you talk to municipal planning staff, they will tell you that one of the biggest things delaying housing right now is the fact that they don’t even know what the rules are anymore, because the government keeps changing them every few months, and the cost and time and expense and wasted energy of trying to deal with all the flip-flops are actually delaying housing.

Now, the government may be—I think they are, actually—pouring fuel on the fire of the crisis by their changes in this bill and to the provincial policy statement that would effectively wipe out protective settlement area boundaries in the municipal comprehensive plan reviews—essentially, regional planning. They’re doing that in order to—just like they did with the greenbelt scandal—incentivize, prioritize and impose costly sprawl on to municipalities. Why is this so negative? For one, it costs 2.5 times more for a municipality to service low-density sprawl than to service homes that are built in existing urban boundaries, where we already have the infrastructure for sewer and water in place.

As a matter of fact, there are changes, ironically, in this bill—one schedule of the bill repeals their breakup of Peel region, and then another section of the bill changes regional planning to the extent that you go from having 11 upper-tier governments doing planning to 89 lower-tiers, which is going to complicate and delay building even more homes. And their push of sprawl will not only be more expensive, it threatens our farmland. We’re losing 319 acres a day. It forces people into expensive commutes. It will make the climate crisis worse and the housing crisis worse.

Speaker, we have solutions to the housing crisis. We need to legalize homes so people can build homes in the communities they know and love, where we already have infrastructure built, not impose costly sprawl on them.

The Acting Speaker (Ms. Patrice Barnes): Questions?

Mr. Anthony Leardi: I have a question that’s very important for rural Ontario residents and farmers, especially residents in the riding of Essex and farmers in the riding of Essex. We have an act that exists right now, it’s called the Line Fences Act, and presently, under the existing legislation, there is no particular allowance for electronic notice, nor are people who are non-owners of the land that they are farming automatically allowed to get notice when an application is made under the Line Fences Act.

What this proposed legislation does is it cures those two things. This proposed legislation allows for electronic communication to be made under the act and, in addition to that, requires that the landowner and the occupier be notified when a line fence application is made. I think those are two very important things, especially for rural residents and farmers, because it’s often the occupier farmer who pays the cost of the line fence and not the actual owner of the property.

So my question to the member is this: Does he support those two changes, and will he vote for them?

Mr. Mike Schreiner: I appreciate the member from Essex’s question. His question just really highlights my criticism of this bill.

First of all, yes, anything that will reduce costs and disputes around how we adjudicate disputes around line fences, especially for farmers, is a good thing. So, as I said in my remarks, Speaker, there are some positive elements to this bill.

But what the question misses and what this schedule of the bill misses is that we are in the biggest housing crisis this province has ever faced. It’s getting worse. Housing starts are going down. People’s ability to pay the rent is going—it’s unaffordable. A whole generation of young people are wondering if they’ll ever be able to afford to own a home.

And while this bill has some positive elements, like changes to the Line Fences Act, it is wholly insufficient to even come close to addressing the scale of the housing crisis we’re facing. It’s as if the government is waving the white flag and saying, “We give up on fixing the housing crisis.”

Well, Speaker, I want young people to know I’m not giving up. Greens aren’t giving up on fixing the housing crisis, and I will continue to come into this House each and every day to fight for real solutions, so everyone in this province can afford to own a home and pay the rent.

The Acting Speaker (Ms. Patrice Barnes): Further questions?

Mr. Guy Bourgouin: We see the housing crisis is all over, and northern Ontario is no better. We see a lot of people who want to move into—I call them “des maisons de transition,” so that they could sell their house, put their house on the market and maybe move into a small apartment, yet we don’t have that.

We have a small university that can’t even give some housing for students, because there’s no affordable housing available, or “des dortoirs”—what do you call them, “les dortoirs” so that the students can live on campus? That doesn’t exist. There are a couple of rooms; that’s it.

But affordable housing, sustainable housing, supportive housing—it’s max waiting times for two or three years.

My question: Do you believe this bill, this red tape reduction, will fix that situation—not only for northern Ontario, but we hear in the south over and over that it’s across Ontario. Do you think that will fix this issue, or help fix this issue?

Mr. Mike Schreiner: I appreciate the member’s question. The short answer is, no, it’s not going to fix the housing crisis.

I want to give you two quick responses to that. The first is, I’ve talked a lot in my remarks and in debate here about how we can change the market conditions to build more market housing that people can afford in the communities they know and love, but I also know it’s true that until the provincial and federal governments get back into providing the financial support to build non-profit, co-op and supportive housing, we will not solve the housing affordability crisis. We need market and non-market solutions.

And when it comes to the market solutions, legalizing fourplexes is critically important not only in urban areas, but in rural areas. I can’t tell you—when I was doing my winter tour of rural parts of the province, including in the north, people told me, especially seniors, that they want to be able to downsize into a fourplex in the community they know and love, and not be forced to move away from where they grew up or where they raised their family.

The Acting Speaker (Ms. Patrice Barnes): Further questions?

Mr. Mike Harris: It’s a pleasure to be able to rise and take part in debate with my colleague from just across the way in Guelph. Let’s talk a little bit about four as-of-right. I know that’s something that has kind of come up a little bit today, and obviously in committee. It’s interesting that roughly 70% of the province already has as-of-right for fourplexes that has been delineated through the municipality.

I would like to ask: I know Mayor Guthrie in Guelph is supportive of fourplexes, and I’m sure that he’ll have the ability to make them as-of-right in his municipality. I’m just curious, and there’s no malice in this question at all: Why wouldn’t you want municipalities to be able to have the right to be able to go ahead and say that? Why mandate it? Why not let local decision-makers make those local decisions in their municipalities?

1730

Mr. Mike Schreiner: I appreciate my neighbour in Kitchener’s question, because we’re in a housing crisis, because we have a whole generation of people who simply cannot afford a home, because we don’t have enough homes. The government is imposing expensive, low-density sprawl onto municipalities and onto those individuals.

Let’s be clear: If you legalize fourplexes and four-storey, that’s not mandating that you have to do it. It just means you have the right to build it if you want it. That’s how we did housing all over Ontario up until the 1960s and 1970s, when we started bringing in all these exclusionary zoning restrictions that prevented people from building that kind of housing.

Also, legalizing six-to-11-storey along major transit and transportation corridors—I’ve talked to builders. Those two changes, legalizing fourplexes and legalizing six-to-11-storey along major transportation corridors, would cut building times in over half.

We’re in a crisis. We’re in a race against time. We need to increase housing supply. At least on this side, among the Green caucus, we’re going to fight to be able to build homes as fast as we can. at the lowest cost we can, in the communities people love.

The Acting Speaker (Ms. Patrice Barnes): Further questions?

Miss Monique Taylor: Thank you to the member from Guelph for his part in debate today. In Hamilton, we have close to 1,900 people who are homeless. Visibly, they say 263, but I think that number is way larger than that, just going around the city and seeing the amount of tents and the amount of people who are packed into those tents. In the last 10 years, we’ve lost 16,000 units that were under $750. They were affordable homes. Today, we don’t see that. To every one affordable home that’s built, we’re losing four to the private market rentals, so we’re just falling further and further and further behind.

Do you agree with New Democrats that this bill is not the fix that people who are living rough on the streets are so desperate for? The solution that they’re looking for: Are we going to find it in this bill?

Mr. Mike Schreiner: The short answer to the member from Hamilton is, no, you’re not going to find that in this bill. Let’s just look at that radical organization called Scotiabank. They say that in the province of Ontario, if we’re going to address the chronic homeless crisis and the affordability crisis in housing, we need the government to get back into helping investing in non-profit, co-op and supportive housing. As a matter of fact, Scotiabank, that radical organization, says we need to build 250,000 government supported, deeply affordable, non-profit, co-op and permitted supportive housing units.

What I’m tired of in this whole housing debate is it seems like some people think only the market is going to solve it, and some people think only the government is going to solve it. Well, I would say we need both and all hands on deck. We need to legalize housing so the market can build more homes that people can afford in the communities they know and love, and we need the government, as Scotiabank advises, to actually step in and do what they stopped doing in 1995: build non-profit, co-op and deeply affordable homes.

Some 93% of the deeply affordable homes in this province were built before 1995. That’s when the government stopped doing it.

The Acting Speaker (Ms. Patrice Barnes): Further debate?

Ms. Sandy Shaw: Good afternoon. I would like to start by saying to all the folks in Hamilton that our suffering and struggling with homelessness issues—for all the agencies, including first responders, that are dealing with this crisis almost single-handedly, I would like to say that the debate today on this Bill 185 will provide you some solace, some hope that help is on the way, but unfortunately, that is not the case. But let me again extend—the community thanks you; the community sees you. We appreciate what you’re doing. People’s lives are on the line, and you’re saving lives every day. It is something that is a lesson, an example, that I really wish that this government would take and put the spirit of what you do into a bill like Bill 185 that is called Cutting Red Tape to Build More Homes Act.

The reason I say that this bill is such a failure in the face of the affordability crisis and the housing supply crisis and the homelessness crisis that we’re facing is because this bill does nothing for renters. There’s no real rent control here. There are no protections whatsoever against renovictions. There’s no tenant-to-tenant protection, which means that when a tenant, perhaps, is illegally evicted, you can pay the same amount of rent; that they won’t evict tenants simply in order to jack up the rent. That’s not included in here.

There’s no Landlord and Tenant Board reform. Right now, there are about 60,000 cases waiting at the Landlord and Tenant Board, and that would include people who are seeking redress for illegal evictions or illegal against-guideline rent increases.

By the way, the government here does nothing to protect people against guideline increases, which means that your rent has gone up more than the provisions provide—nothing to protect you for that.

There is nothing in this bill for inclusionary zoning. Inclusionary zoning would mean that that gives the municipalities the ability to require developers to allocate a certain amount of their development, their buildings, to affordable units. Inclusionary zoning is not in the bill. Inclusionary zoning has been talked about for so long. It’s a no-brainer. But this government—I don’t know if they’re afraid of the developers, I think, or the lobbyists. I don’t know why they wouldn’t include that. It has been shown to be a solution to help us build the housing stock that people can truly afford.

There are no fourplexes as-of-right. Why? You’ve made triplexes as-of-right. Why not fourplexes? Is it because the Premier went on a rant and said he’s against it, and you won’t see logic because you’re too afraid that you will contradict the Premier?

Mrs. Lisa Gretzky: Fourplexes that are eight storeys.

Ms. Sandy Shaw: Fourplexes that are eight storeys.

I’m not a housing expert, but clearly our Premier is certainly not a housing expert.

Interjection.

Ms. Sandy Shaw: I know. That is PC math right there.

There’s nothing in here to address the idea of non-market housing. We have allowed the market to have free rein over our housing, and look where we are. We are in chaos. As we’ve been hearing time and time again, we have never been in a worse crisis in Ontario when it comes to housing affordability, or just housing in general.

This statistic struck me in debate today: 70% of Ontarians are renters. A lot of people are renters.

As I said, there’s nothing in this bill that provides renters the protections that they need. What we’re seeing time and time and time again is that people who live in apartments, who have lived there for 10 years, 20 years, like seniors, are being evicted—illegal evictions, renovictions. Sadly, they’re often being renovicted straight into homelessness.

Miss Monique Taylor: Dorothy is 72. I met her. She’s 72 years old.

Ms. Sandy Shaw: Dorothy, a 72-year-old woman living in a homeless encampment in Hamilton.

These are people who held jobs, who worked, and who just—there but for the grace of God we would be there. A lot of them fell on misfortune, or a lot of them bumped into the wrong landlord and had themselves kicked out of their housing, and now they’re living on the streets.

We were speaking earlier—not only is it the human cost of homelessness, but the actual cost to the government and cost to taxpayers. The member from Ottawa Centre was talking about how expensive it is to provide the social services for people who are homeless.

I would suggest to anyone who is interested that there’s a Canadian author, journalist, Malcolm Gladwell, and he wrote an article—it’s a bit old now, maybe from 2016—called “Million-Dollar Murray.” Essentially, it articulates this notion. They followed a gentleman whose name was Murray, who was homeless, and they followed him in and out of services, into jail, into hospital and all the services that were provided. Over the course of 10 years, it cost the municipality $1 million. If we had just provided a housing-first approach, provided this gentleman with stable housing, we would have saved $1 million, and he would have had better outcomes. He ended up, of course, dying on the street.

1740

So we agree with the government—with everyone, not just the government. We agree with everyone in Ontario that we need to build housing, that we need 1.5 million homes by 2031. At this point, it’s not even a stretch goal; that’s just what we need. We are in a housing crisis.

I want to also identify the housing crisis has two components. It’s housing supply, which the government likes to talk a lot about, but it’s also housing affordability: Can you afford a home? This government is big on building and the Milton Friedman notion of just supply and demand will resolve the situation, but we need to look at things that we can do to make sure people can afford the homes that they have and that they don’t lose those.

I have to say, by all measures, this government is coming up short when it comes to addressing the housing crisis, and that’s the point that I want to make: When we say there is a housing crisis, we mean that people can’t find decent and affordable places to live, be it a townhouse, a house, an apartment. I came to the realization that when the government says there’s a housing crisis, they mean that we have a shortage of those really expensive, single-family homes that they want to build on farmland and build on the greenbelt.

So I’m here to say, when you hear the government say, “Housing crisis,” you need to think to yourself, “What do they mean precisely by that?” Do they mean that you and your family can’t afford rent in your apartment or your co-op building or your bungalow on the mountain? No. They mean the crisis is that we haven’t got enough developers building expensive sprawl on farmland.

If the government were very serious about this—it completely baffles everyone, not just myself, why the government would have their own Housing Affordability Task Force commissioned—you hand-picked those folks, and then you went and ignored every recommendation that they made.

So we know that you’re not doing very well right now when it comes to your progress on building homes. But do you know who’s really killing it in the country? That is BC. I’ll just read you the stats because this comes from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., CMHC. British Columbia, which is about 35% of Ontario’s population, issued building permits—about 52% as many units as Ontario. So this building permits data from Ontario points to an intensifying housing crisis in Ontario.

Well, apparently, there may be hope on the horizon for British Columbia renters and homebuyers. In British Columbia, David Eby’s NDP government saw building permits issued in February up 7% from the year over, and that’s even more now that we’re into May and June. In Ontario—this data is from April—housing units tumbled 25%. Then, we heard most recently—so that was the worst performance since 2019, and an April stat shows that your housing starts are down by 37%, so it ain’t working. What you’re doing is not working. Even if your metric of success is just to build those big, single-family homes, that’s not working either. So we know BC is leading the country in housing starts, and Ontario is a laggard when it comes to this.

Let’s be clear: BC has the same economic environment as Ontario has, the same excuses that you put forward when it comes to why you’re failing your targets. They have dealt with inflation; they’ve dealt with interest rates. Interest rates have no provincial borders, obviously, so they are doing the same thing, but why?

They’re taking information and recommendations that were provided to you that you chose to ignore. Again, the minister said quite clearly that he was inspired by the Premier’s own Housing Affordability Task Force. Again, this is a task force that our government is choosing to ignore.

I would like to also say that we haven’t got here just overnight. This government has rained planning chaos down on Ontario like I’ve never seen in my lifetime. We are essentially a Wild West of planning now. There have been so many flip-flops on the greenbelt, back and forth, so many changes to land use, so many changes to land use planning things, like the PPS, that municipal planners across Ontario are struggling to keep up, and this bill doesn’t help at all.

I would say it just looks like, to anyone who—if anyone has a modicum of trust left in this government, I’d be surprised. But it certainly would appear to everyone that this planning chaos was driven by this government’s adherence to anything that land speculators, lobbyists or developers put before them. It’s hard to know why you’re beholden—well, I guess I know why you’re beholden to them, but it should be evident that it’s not working out well. It may be working out well for the government, it may be working out well for speculators, but it certainly is not working out well for the people of Ontario.

We saw this when this government caved to billionaire speculators when it came to the greenbelt and urban boundary expansions. We have an RCMP investigation into your actions giving preferential treatment to insiders—preferential treatment; that’s like insider trading. It’s illegal, and your government—it was identified by the Auditor General that that’s what you did, by the Integrity Commissioner. We have investigations by the OPP and, certainly, by the RCMP.

While these speculators may be making untold profits at the expense of public interest, it hasn’t gone unnoticed. Let me just identify some organizations and people who have also identified that the planning chaos that you’ve created in Ontario is setting us so far back from building homes or finding places for people to live.

We heard from the Ontario Real Estate Association at committee, and they said, “We are disappointed that two key recommendations by the province’s own Housing Affordability Task Force (HATF)—strongly supported by Ontario realtors—have not been included in today’s bill. We need to build more homes on existing properties and allow upzoning along major transit corridors if we’re going to address the housing affordability and supply crisis in our province.”

Then they go on say, “We commend Premier Ford and Minister Calandra for the actions ... but we hope to see them go further. The government needs to keep their foot on the gas with bold action....” That is exactly what we are saying.

Miss Monique Taylor: That’s Tim Hudak, your former leader.

Ms. Sandy Shaw: That’s Tim Hudak. Sends us all a lovely Christmas card every year, doesn’t he?

Then AMO: The Association of Municipalities of Ontario “calls on the province to support effective implementation of measures by limiting future changes to the land use planning process and restoring stability and certainty to the system.”

I can only hazard a guess, because I’m not in the corner room and I’m not in the Premier’s office, but this instability, this chaos and this RCMP investigation is probably—certainly—nothing that’s welcomed by builders and developers in this province. You’ve made a complete hash of the thing for everyone, and this bill doesn’t show that you’ve learned a lesson at all.

Finally, I would say—there are many other quotes here; I’m running out of time, but what I want to make sure that I put on the record is that your government has created this chaotic and unpredictable planning environment in the province. You have created an environment where investors are concerned about investing because they don’t know where we’re going next. You’ve created an environment where municipalities don’t know what you’re going to do from day to day. They’ve spent endless taxpayer dollars trying to address your changes and address your re-changes. What you have done has not created housing, but you’ve created substantial cost and waste for taxpayers across the province.

1750

I want to just turn a little bit to Hamilton, because when we were in committee we did hear from Steve Robichaud, who is the director of planning at the city of Hamilton. I want to start by saying that in Hamilton, we voted against an urban boundary expansion. Very handily, we voted against it. And the government, despite that, decided that they were going to big-foot that decision and force an urban boundary expansion on Hamilton that had to then be reversed.

These reversals, coming back and forth, are not helpful for planning departments. They actually are professionals and they take their job seriously. They take planning seriously and they make very reasoned, well-thought-out decisions when it comes to planning. Despite the fact that the government tried to strong-arm the municipality of Hamilton to expand into the urban boundaries, I want everyone to be really, really clear that the city of Hamilton met the housing targets that this government—

Miss Monique Taylor: Exceeded.

Ms. Sandy Shaw: Actually, you’re right. They exceeded the housing targets that this government put forward to the municipality that the municipality agreed to. But they exceeded those targets within existing urban boundaries. They didn’t need the expansion onto farmland and greenbelt to accomplish what we all want to accomplish, which is adequate housing.

So now, despite not having learned from that, the government now has decided that in this bill they’re going to introduce something which is about third-party appeals. Let me just explain this. If a developer at any point wants a municipality to change zoning or expand a boundary, they can come to the municipality at any time, even if the municipality is through an infrastructure planning cycle. And if the municipality says no, the developers could appeal it to the Ontario Land Tribunal and the municipalities have 120 days—120 days—to sort out how they are going to build the roads, the sewers, the infrastructure and how they’re going to pay for it. But if they say yes and that boundary expansion happens to impact your property, you do not have the right of appeal.

I’m just going to read from Mr. Robichaud what he says about this draconian, straight undemocratic, thumbing-down of people’s property rights in this bill. Mr. Robichaud said:

“The concern of the city is that decisions will be made by a third party. And just to put in context, there’s nothing in Ontario in law that requires the owner of the land to be the person applying for an official plan amendment.... A developer could apply for a secondary plan affecting my property, and I may not realize it. The council may not realize that not all the landowners are in agreement or are aware of it. That could be approved by council. The landowners would have no right to appeal. That is one of the concerns that we have, by removing the third-party appeal rights from the process, so that I could end up having the school, the park and stormwater management pond put on my property.”

That is a fear that everyone needs to understand. You, as an individual owner, a municipal Ontario taxpayer, do not have the right to appeal.

We put forward 12 amendments to this bill. The only amendment that the government came forward with was an amendment that would allow airports, large industries and cities to have third-party appeal. So again, it goes on and on and on: This government knuckled down and must have been lobbied hard by their speculator friends, and preferential treatment in the province of Ontario continues and we see it in this bill.

The Acting Speaker (Ms. Patrice Barnes): Questions?

Ms. Christine Hogarth: I love talking about cutting red tape, because that’s what this bill is all about. Our government is taking unprecedented action to make life easier for Ontarians and our small businesses. This bill is the 13th red tape reduction package our government has introduced so far to streamline processes, modernize regulations and create an economic climate that drives new growth and investment.

Just so the members opposite know, we have eliminated over 16,000 regulatory compliance requirements, and I know you like numbers, so that is $1.2 billion in annual regulatory compliance savings for our small business owners. I think that is great work which our government is doing.

Now I’m just wondering if the member opposite and her party would support this bill so we can continue to pave the way for better services while helping Ontario businesses grow.

Ms. Sandy Shaw: Really, the only thing this government is paving is the greenbelt and the farmland in the province of Ontario.

You are not doing anything. You are not seeing results—this is not producing the results that the people need. I don’t know what world you live in over there, but in my riding, in our ridings, people can’t afford to eat. They can’t afford baby formula. Red tape is not top of mind for the people that have no child care; for people like my uncle who waited five days in emerg before he was treated. Red tape is not number one on their list, but what’s on their list is your evident catering and making sure that your insiders continue to profit while they suffer.

The Acting Speaker (Ms. Patrice Barnes): Further questions?

Mr. Wayne Gates: This question was actually going to go to the Conservatives but seeing they didn’t stand up in their last rotation, I’m going to have to do it to you.

I sat on government agencies until the government decided that I was asking tough questions and decided to take me off. Here is what they did in this bill: I’ve noticed in schedule 10 of this bill it creates some changes on how members of the Niagara Parks Commission board are and will be appointed. Do you feel the appointment process should ensure individuals are appointed to the board based on merit and ability, rather than what the Conservative government is doing, through political loyalty or donations, or whether they are a past candidate—that ran against me—for the Conservative Party?

Do you feel that it should be merit and ability, not by who you know and if you’re a candidate for this party?

Ms. Sandy Shaw: This is what in the US they might refer to as pork-barrel politics, that patronage, appointing people to high-level positions that have influence—

Miss Monique Taylor: Like judges.

Ms. Sandy Shaw: Like judges that are like-minded. People that were former candidates that are appointed to boards—important boards that do important work. Unfortunately, what this is doing is continuing to make the people of Ontario cynical about all politicians. Your actions taint all of us. So you would think that if you were truly a responsible government, you would go out of your way to make sure that these important boards and commissions that protect important natural treasures like the Niagara Escarpment have people on it that, it’s not who they know, it’s that they know what they’re doing. But that does not seem to be the case in this province and everybody knows it.

The Acting Speaker (Ms. Patrice Barnes): Further questions?

Ms. Christine Hogarth: I’d like to continue on my line the questioning, talking about red tape.

We talk about patients before paperwork. Our government has been tirelessly working to improve health care in Ontario. We’ve increased access to care. We continue to build new hospitals, reducing wait times and we hired more health care workers. Bill 185, which we’re talking about today, proposes to streamline the registration process for internationally educated health professionals, ensuring they can provide high-quality, safe care.

I’m just wondering what the member opposite says. You mentioned red tape and health care don’t go hand in hand. Can you tell me a little bit about this? And would you support this initiative of patients coming before paperwork?

Ms. Sandy Shaw: If there’s anything in more crisis and complete chaos than housing in this province under this government, it has to be our health care system. Some 2.4 million people do not have a doctor or primary care, and that’s expected to double in the next few years. The people of Sault Ste. Marie—how many, 10,000—are going to lose their family physician—10,000.

Mr. Guy Bourgouin: And 70% of First Nations people don’t have a family doctor.

Ms. Sandy Shaw: Yes—70% of First Nations people don’t have a family doctor.

So, really, how are any of these red tape bills—show me the evidence where they’re impacting the things that people care about—

The Acting Speaker (Ms. Patrice Barnes): Thank you to the member from Hamilton West–Ancaster–Dundas.

Third reading debate deemed adjourned.

The Acting Speaker (Ms. Patrice Barnes): This House now stands adjourned until Tuesday, June 4, at 9 a.m.

The House adjourned at 1800.