Wednesday, January 14, 2026

The committee met at 1005 in the Sheraton Ottawa Hotel, Ottawa.

Official source

The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Ottawa. I call this meeting of the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs to order. We’re meeting today to conduct public hearings on the 2026 pre-budget consultations. Please wait until you’re recognized by the Chair before speaking. As always, all comments should go through the Chair. I’m going to say it’s always that way, but it doesn’t always happen that way. The Clerk of the Committee has distributed committee documents, including written submissions, to committee members via SharePoint. To ensure that everyone who speaks is heard and understood, it is important that all participants speak slowly and clearly. As a reminder, each presenter will have seven minutes for their presentation. After we have heard from all three presenters, the remaining 39 minutes in the time slot will be used for questions from the members of the committee. This time for questions will be divided into two rounds of five minutes and 30 seconds for the government members, two rounds of five minutes and 30 seconds for the official opposition members, two rounds of five minutes and 30 seconds for recognized third party members, and two rounds of three minutes for the independent member of the committee. I will provide a verbal reminder to notify you when you have reached one minute left in your presentation or allotted time speaking. Are there any questions from the committee? Hearing none, we will introduce the first presenters.

Official source

The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

The first presenters are Invest Ottawa, Alliance to End Homelessness Ottawa, and the Canadian Independent Music Association. I believe the Canadian Independent Music Association is virtual. As you heard in the instructions, we do ask that every presenter introduce themselves at the start of the presentation to make sure we can get the right name on the great presentation that you are about to give. With that, the floor belongs to Invest Ottawa.

Official source

Ms. Sonya Shorey

Chair Hardeman, Vice-Chairs, members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to be here today. Merci beaucoup. My name is Sonya Shorey, and I am honoured to serve as president and CEO of Invest Ottawa, your lead economic development agency here in Canada’s capital, as well as a lifelong resident of this great province. I want to begin with sincere thanks to you all, to the province, across ministries and party lines, for your continued collaboration and support of the entrepreneurs, founders, business owners and companies we collectively serve. In a time of tariffs, rapid technological change and economic uncertainty, that partnership has never been more important. At Invest Ottawa, we’re in the business of economic prosperity and collaboration for impact. In 2024 alone, together with our partners, Invest Ottawa supported more than 1,000 companies, generating $635 million in GDP, supporting more than 4,000 jobs and contributing more than $100 million to government revenue. To build on this momentum, I would like to offer three practical economic recommendations today, each grounded in measurable return on investment, that we believe can help Ontario advance its core objectives, productivity, resilience, job creation, investment and long-term shared prosperity: (1) to modernize and scale Ontario’s entrepreneurship networks to help more companies address the changing economic and industry dynamics, including the acceleration of AI, and help more companies scale, lead and succeed; (2) to strengthen Ontario’s ability to attract and expand high-value companies, especially in globally competitive sectors that drive exports, productivity and well-paying jobs; (3) to enable Ontario to lead in an even greater way in defence and dual-use innovation, a once-in-a-generation opportunity to advance sovereignty, economic resilience and growth. Today, I’m excited to share why these asks are so critical for Ontario’s productivity, resilience and long-term prosperity. Ottawa is Ontario’s second-largest economic region, and what happens in Ottawa does not stay in Ottawa—every Amex swipe and global airline route powered by Solace; millions of online stores run on Shopify, born right here; hundreds of millions of vehicles made safer by QNX; global broadcasts rely on Ross Video; global supply chains optimized by Kinaxis; and tens of millions of patients served by Fullscript, which surpassed $1 billion in revenue last year. We’re home to 18,000 tech companies and almost 100,000 tech workers, Canada’s largest tech park, and the highest tech talent concentration in North America six years running, ahead of San Francisco. Our talent pipeline includes four amazing post-secondary institutions, 168,000 students and 28,000 in STEM. We are the most educated workforce in this country. Our ecosystem brings together start-ups and scale-ups, global multinationals, unicorns and champions across AI, cyber security, drones and defence, software, aerospace, semiconductors, smart mobility, clean tech, and more. These firms drive outsize job creation, IP, exports, tax revenue and global competitiveness. How do we collaborate? Deeply and consistently across every part of our city. We are your lead economic development agency, and leveraging generous funding from the province, combined with federal, municipal and private investment, we help companies launch, grow and scale, land and expand, commercialize technology and bring it to market, collaborate for innovation impact, and compete and win globally. When our companies win here in Ottawa, Ontario wins. We’re proud members of province-wide networks and the only organization that brings all facets of economic development under a single roof to maximize efficiency, impact and productivity for the companies we serve, the investors who believe in us, and our taxpayers. These include the small business enterprise centre network, 54 centres serving main street entrepreneurs across the province; the regional innovation centre network, 17 hubs supporting start-ups and scale-ups in tech. And Area X.O, the R&D complex for emerging technology here, is the Ottawa and eastern Ontario hub for the Ontario Vehicle Innovation Network. Building on the strong outcomes we have achieved together to date, we can increase return on investment, expand economic impact and create greater opportunity for Ontario businesses, workers and taxpayers. How? Modernizing entrepreneurship—and this is tech and main street—the opportunity to do more together for the founders that are anchoring our economy. Demand across Ontario is surging. In Ottawa alone, hundreds of entrepreneurs are on wait-lists for our programs and services; they’re oversubscribed, in many cases four to one. A trend we see province-wide is that economic uncertainty pushes more talented people towards entrepreneurship. At the same time, AI and new business models are fundamentally changing how companies are built and scaled. At the RIC and SBEC networks, they are ripe for evolution. We have a vision and a plan we have built together as a network, and we’re ready to build and deliver it for Ontario and deliver greater value and impact for the entrepreneurs and companies we serve. Secondly, foreign direct investment and business expansion: Ontario competes globally for high-value investment, and as Ontario’s second-largest economic region, Ottawa has a powerful value proposition to international investors and companies looking to further support job growth in key sectors here in Ontario. Existing provincial support enables our global expansion team to attract new firms, expand existing ones and secure mandates in critical sectors that are R&D-focused: defence, semiconductors, cyber, aerospace, life sciences, and more. Every successful expansion fuels more jobs, talent, broad economic activity and long-term resilience that adds to the provincial treasury through taxes. This is a proven economic engine and one Ontario should definitely continue to fuel. Thirdly, one I’m very passionate about, defence and dual-use innovation: This is a generational opportunity for all of us. Ontario and Canada are at a historic inflection point.

Official source

The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

One minute.

Official source

Ms. Sonya Shorey

Ottawa anchors an amazing defence and security ecosystem, with a combination of strengths that cannot be replicated anywhere else in this country. Meeting NATO’s 5% GDP commitment is not just about defence; it’s economic resilience, sovereignty and innovation-led growth. We have a strategy we have developed with our entire region, and it will deliver and attract $3 billion in investment, create 18,000 jobs and deliver tens of billions in GDP. This includes moon shots, like attracting the headquarters for the one and only global Defence, Security and Resilience Bank, a stand-alone compound semiconductor fab and a defence innovation hub that is going to be created by the feds here. Members of the committee, Ontario does not lack talent, ambition or ideas. We can do all of this together. We are your partner here in Canada’s capital. We collaborate for impact, and we can do even more. Thank you.

Official source

The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

Thank you very much for the presentation. We will now hear from the Alliance to End Homelessness Ottawa.

Official source

Ms. Kaite Burkholder Harris

Good morning. It’s tough to follow Sonya. My name is Kaite Burkholder Harris. I’m the executive director of the Alliance to End Homelessness Ottawa and the co-chair of the Ontario Alliance to End Homelessness. On behalf of both of these groups, I want to start by saying that ending homelessness is absolutely possible. It feels like an intractable challenge that we face, but it’s not inevitable, and communities across Canada and the world are seeing success. Guelph-Wellington is on the cusp of ending youth homelessness. Medicine Hat has effectively ended chronic homelessness; London, Ontario, veterans’ homelessness. We’re bringing national experts to Ottawa in a few weeks who have seen 75% to 85% reductions in chronic homelessness in their shelters. Houston, Texas has seen a 60% reduction, and Milwaukee has reduced overall homelessness by 50%. In other words, ending homelessness is doable, and we’re doing it. There are opportunities within this budget to accelerate solutions in real time and make progress in the next several years, especially when we focus on prevention. Upstream prevention can include a lot of different things, but big-impact approaches would start with ensuring no young person turns 18 in child welfare and gets discharged to the street. Ottawa’s recent point-in-time count showed that one in three people surveyed were in child welfare at some point. The Ottawa Aboriginal Coalition showed that within 10 days of being discharged from child welfare, almost a quarter of those were on the street. I’ve talked to way too many youth who were packing their bags on the night of their 18th birthday. It is a pipeline to homelessness. Addressing this not only reduces youth homelessness; it reduces the long-term numbers of people becoming chronically homeless. Research shows that about 500 to 600 young people age out of care every year in Ontario. I cannot stress how small that number is. That is an extremely solvable number. We can solve this with smart investment next year. A mix of rent subsidies and supports can stop young people from winding up on the street. All in all, when you math the math, it’s $15 million. We all know that that is nothing in a provincial budget. The next piece of the puzzle is emergency shelter diversion. We can only tackle homelessness effectively if we slow the number of people becoming homeless in the first place. Diversion simply means engaging someone at the front door of a shelter and saying, “Yes, you can stay here tonight if you need to. But is there any other safe place we can get you to?” It’s surprisingly simple and surprisingly effective. It’s a fundamental shift in approach, however. It recognizes that every single day in a shelter is another day of experiencing more trauma. Once you enter the system, your risk of being assaulted, trafficked, having your things stolen, being exposed to toxic drug supply—they are all much more likely to happen. The clock is ticking. Coming back from that becomes much more difficult. Prevent that, and we turn a housing crisis into something that is rare, brief and non-recurring. In Ottawa, we have two recent pilots with surprising results. The first is at the Shepherds of Good Hope shelter, the shelter that serves people with some of the most complex needs. Over a six-month period, staff saw a 22% success rate for diversion. Over time, that means less flow into the shelter, more capacity for rapid response to people already in shelter and the long-term reduction in people getting stuck. The Youth Services Bureau is seeing even higher results: closer to 50% success in diversion with young people. Diversion is low-cost, can be implemented immediately, and across Ontario, communities taking it on are seeing reductions. In Ottawa, an investment of less than $1 million would enable us to scale diversion across the whole city. We’re the second-biggest city in Ottawa; this is a no-brainer. A third meaningful investment that the province could make is to tackle encampments. Right now, enforcement is the dominant approach, and while I appreciate the pressure that local leaders feel when other constituents see folks sleeping in parks, there are options. Unfortunately, people are stuck in encampments because they have no affordable options. Encampment eviction is impractical, expensive at best and cruel at worst. People still don’t have a place to go when they’re evicted. It solves no problems, and in many cases, after they lose their ID, moving forward is nearly impossible. According to AMO, an investment of $2 billion would effectively end encampments in Ontario in three years. It’s doable, and it’s cheap. It’s a cup of coffee once a week for every adult in Ontario. I’d give up my double-double a week to end encampments in this province. The final, most critical investment that the province can make is in non-market housing. Homelessness is ultimately a housing problem. Census data shows us that 40% of Canadians can’t afford more than $1,700 a month for their housing costs, whether that be rent or a mortgage. The average rent in Ontario is $2,200; the average mortgage is $2,700. Speaking to a room full of developers and realtors at the Ottawa Real Estate Forum a few months ago, I asked the room, “Who can build a unit that will only cost $1,700 a month?” Not a single hand went up. The math doesn’t math. Despite many narratives that talk about homelessness as a result of addiction trauma, it’s the consequence of systems that don’t work and housing that isn’t available. The private sector can’t fix this. They can’t build housing that’s affordable at the best of times, simply due to the fixed cost of housing. When tariffs, interest rates, supply chain uncertainty are at play, it doesn’t make business sense to build. Despite red tape reduction speeding up approvals, developers won’t build if they can’t get a return on investment, understandably. The city of Ottawa has approved several thousand site plans that are not in construction. Without the right economic conditions, builders can’t build. Now is the time for non-profit housing at scale. Non-profit providers and developers can offer affordable options in perpetuity. The Rapid Housing Initiative, in 2020, showed us that non-market, especially supportive builders, can build and build quickly. The Ontario Non-Profit Housing Association estimates that we could meet the housing affordability demand in Ontario if we built 99,000 units over the next five years. ONPHA members are ready to build, and 70,000 of those units—

Official source

The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

One minute.

Official source

Ms. Kaite Burkholder Harris

—could be covered by them alone. The province has a willing federal partner for new capital dollars, the ability to leverage federal land, and a renewed commitment to non-profit supply. The operating costs is where we need your help. If the province spent an additional $600 million, that would cover the operating costs of 70,000 new non-profit units. For an additional $900 million, you could fund 30,000 supportive units. That’s basically what we need to deal with supportive housing in this community, in our province. So $1.5 billion a year will get you the operating costs for the non-market housing that leading experts say is what we need. We all see the impact of housing in our communities. It’s the parent choosing between food and rent. It’s the senior who wants to downsize but can’t. It’s the student who is now staying in an emergency shelter because there are no options available. It’s local businesses that can’t hire people because people can’t live in the community. It’s people who want to save for a mortgage and they’re never going to get there, because they actually have not-affordable rent and they’re just putting all their money into housing. The housing crisis—

Official source

The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

Thank you very much. That concludes the time. Hopefully we can finish the presentation during the question period. We’ll now go to the Canadian Independent Music Association, and that presentation will be virtual.

Official source

Mr. Andrew Cash

My name is Andrew Cash. I’m the president and CEO of the Canadian Independent Music Association. For more than 50 years, CIMA and our sister organization, MusicOntario, have worked to build excellent and competitive, Ontario-owned music businesses, serving Canadian artists to get to and remain on the global stage. While CIMA and MusicOntario are not-for-profit trade associations, our paid membership is comprised of close to 600 for-profit companies, which are connected to over 6,000 artists. These companies include record labels, distributors, publishers, managers and artists themselves, as well as industry-adjacent businesses, from PR to marketing to royalty collection services to tech. Our companies invest in and maintain ownership of intellectual property, and develop and support artists to build international careers where the jobs are created and the profits flow back into the economy of Ontario. So why am I here? In 2019, the province’s Ontario Music Investment Fund was cut from $15 million to $7 million. I’m here today with a clear and focused recommendation to restore and increase the Ontario Music Investment Fund to $25 million annually. I’m going to tell you why that’s really going to be great for the province of Ontario. I’m here representing small enterprises that are building businesses and creating jobs in the Ontario-owned music sector. While music often gets put into the cultural policy bucket, I’m here today to discuss an economic strategy for the music sector—one that positions Ontario as a leader on the global stage by strengthening our competitiveness, creating more jobs, and investing in and maintaining ownership of intellectual property, and by that, I mean recorded music. Ontario is the engine of Canada’s music economy. In fact, 75% of Canada’s audio recording industry is based right here in Ontario, and 78% of all of Canadian music revenue—over $400 million annually—is generated right here in the province. However, our competitive advantage is slipping, and it has been slipping since the over-50% cut to the fund in 2019. That decision had immediate consequences. Average investment for our music business dropped by roughly 50%. This, in turn, slowed down the flow of private sector investment in the music business. It’s important to emphasize here that the investments made through this fund must be matched by the companies themselves. After the cuts, entire segments of the industry lost eligibility to once-accessible investment opportunities—specifically, booking agents, management companies and award programs, which really build audiences and market visibility for our Ontario artists. Barriers to entry have also increased for emerging talent. If I can leave you here today with anything, it is that Ontario’s ability to produce, retain and commercialize music IP has dramatically weakened. Since the cuts in 2019, we’ve seen foreign, mostly US-based takeovers of iconic Ontario-owned companies, including Last Gang Records and True North Records. Along with this came the loss of Canadian ownership of some of the master recordings of artists like Gordon Lightfoot and Bruce Cockburn. And in today’s ever-changing and unstable economic and geopolitical climate, more Ontario companies are vulnerable. When domestic capital isn’t available, foreign capital fills the gap, and what once was ours leaves the province. Today, only two other provinces in Canada invest less per capita in their music sector than Ontario, and those are New Brunswick and Saskatchewan. At 44 cents per capita, Ontario’s investment is dwarfed by that of Quebec, at $2 per capita, but also by British Columbia, at $1.25 per capita. It is also lower than Manitoba, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Nova Scotia. This is not consistent with Ontario’s role as the national hub of the sector. Well, the demand is here. Artists from across the country come to Ontario to build careers because this is where the infrastructure is; this is where the bulk of the industry is. As an example, Saskatchewan’s the Sheepdogs, the first unsigned band to ever appear on the cover of Rolling Stone—their international success was built through Ontario-based management companies and label partners. This is, I would say, the Ontario advantage. We need to take advantage of that advantage, and we feel we’re not. That all said, notwithstanding a 50% cut in the budget, the Ontario Music Fund continues to do really excellent work to support a large, export-oriented ecosystem here. In 2023-24 alone, it invested in 158 companies. The province hosts 40% of Canada’s culture jobs. This equates to 267,000 workers. The Canadian-owned music sector contributed an estimated $61 million to Canada’s GDP—approximately $171 million in total direct tax revenue in 2019, so pre-COVID levels. There’s not a specific breakdown provincially, but we can use Ontario’s relative share of the recorded music industry, which is 78%, as a proxy.

Official source

The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

One minute.

Official source

Mr. Andrew Cash

This means roughly $470 million to provincial GDP and $130 million in tax revenue. Now, $130 million in tax revenue on a $7-million investment is pretty good ROI. When we model the impact of increasing this investment to $25 million, we get a $900-million GDP and 7,500 jobs supported. Few programs offer this degree of proven scalability. So, Chair and members, Ontario’s music sector is not asking for a handout here; we’re talking about investment. We’re presenting you with a strategic opportunity to rebuild Ontario’s competitive advantage, retain intellectual property, strengthen export capacity, and ensure that the jobs and revenues and the wealth generated in this province stay in the province. Restoring this fund to $25 million annually is the most direct, high-impact lever the government can pull to achieve exactly that.

Official source

The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

Thank you very much for the presentation. That concludes the presentation. We’ll start the first round of questioning with the official opposition. MPP McKenney.

Official source

MPP Catherine McKenney

Thank you to our three presenters: Invest Ottawa, the Canadian Independent Music Association, and the Alliance to End Homelessness Ottawa. Each of you here is asking for an investment, and that is smart. It’s what we need to do. We need to invest. We know that when we invest in our culture, in our business, in housing and homelessness, we actually end up saving money. I’ll just turn to housing for a moment. We know that one month somebody spends in hospital is $30,000 a year, one month spent in prison is $15,000 a year, one month spent in a shelter is $6,000, and one month spent in supportive housing is $4,000. But people do end up in hospital; they stay in hospital because they have no housing to go to. We’re directing people who are in encampments to prison. And the Association of Municipalities of Ontario just reported, again, that the number of homeless individuals in this province has risen to 85,000, at the very least—a large increase in our northern and rural areas. It’s not just a big-city problem. I want to talk about stopping the flow into homelessness. When we talk about ending homelessness, we have to look at two things: We have to pull people out of chronic homelessness, but we also have to stop the flow. Kaite, you talked about diversion. I was struck by what you said about the kids aging out of care—between 550 and 600 kids a year; that’s it—and that, for $15 million, we could stem that; we could divert those kids into housing. Could you talk about what that would look like in terms of a plan, whether it’s rent subsidies, support services? Give us a sense of what that would look like.

Official source

Ms. Kaite Burkholder Harris

Yes, it would be exactly that. It would be rent subsidies for those kids. It would also be support services, case management. The level of care varies but, on average, that’s what it would cost. Youth are interesting. Youth are in transition anyway. They want to move forward with their lives. They can get roommates. There’s more ability and flexibility there in terms of getting them back on track. But if they are going straight to shelter or if they are going straight to sleeping rough, we lose them. That’s not to say that people experiencing homelessness don’t come back—they do, and people are resilient. But we really interrupt their path to success in life—and the potential of losing people in a number of ways. It’s 580 kids—that’s the number I kept finding. I was actually shocked when I saw that number. We could do that this year. We could actually, this year, stop kids getting discharged into homelessness from child welfare in this province. I think that’s pretty compelling, personally.

Official source

MPP Catherine McKenney

Well, I’d be pretty proud of it. I would go out there and brag that I was part of a province that was able to do that. Another number that you threw out really struck me: In terms of a housing assessment, only 40% of Canadians can only afford $1,700 a month, whether that’s in their mortgage or in rent. Of course, we know that average market rents are much higher than that. So when we’re talking about the benefit of building non-market housing—I think I’ve been called a communist for suggesting that we should be building more non-market housing. And I’m going to ask GOHBA, when they’re here later—but $1,700 per unit is impossible. Nobody can build that. Can you expand a little bit more on the benefit of building non-market housing and what that looks like for a portion of our housing stock?

Official source

Ms. Kaite Burkholder Harris

I’m glad you mentioned the Greater Ottawa Home Builders’ Association. They actually wrote us a letter of support for our report on increasing non-market housing. They know their lane. The private sector is a very particular lane, and that’s great; the non-profit sector is a specific lane as well.

Official source

The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

One minute.

Official source

Ms. Kaite Burkholder Harris

When you look at it, I say non-market or non-profit, as the universe of housing that is not required to make a profit or a return on investment, only to have operating costs covered—mission-driven, permanent. There is an example of a study from units built in the 1980s—private sector, like-for-like with some co-ops—and by the 2010s, they were 30% cheaper. That’s just because that affordability deepens over time, because you don’t have to increase your rent to align with market costs; you just have to increase rent for operating.

Official source

MPP Catherine McKenney

So we keep building homes, we keep employing people in the construction industry, but we build homes for everyone—obviously, in the for-profit sector, but also in the not-for-profit sector for those 40% of Canadians. I can’t imagine that it’s any different in Ontario than across Canada for people who have a limit to what they can afford per month without being in core housing need and, again, falling into homelessness and continuing.

Official source

The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

Thank you very much. That concludes that question. MPP Fraser.

Official source

Mr. John Fraser

I want to thank all the presenters for taking the time out this morning to be here and present so well. I’m going to start with Ms. Burkholder Harris. Is there something you wanted to finish at the end, or is it okay?

Official source

Ms. Kaite Burkholder Harris

Thanks for asking that. I’m sorry I went over. I usually time it.

Official source

Mr. John Fraser

That’s okay.

Official source

Ms. Kaite Burkholder Harris

I would say—

Official source

Mr. John Fraser

Would you like to—

Official source

Ms. Kaite Burkholder Harris

Well, only painting the picture of what homelessness looks like. This is real people, and it’s not the story of only somebody who may have substance use and mental health—in fact, that all gets worse once you become homeless, and the research shows that. I think we just need to recognize that this is no longer a people-in-deep-poverty issue; it’s middle-class people. I’m a parent who is paying child care costs, even with a subsidy, and rent, and it’s impossible. It’s affecting more and more of us, and that’s not changing. Anybody who has got a university student kid—you probably might have them still living with you, or looking at the rent rates and knowing they can’t live alone. So I just wanted us to all kind of ground ourselves in that reality—that it’s not a tiny group of people anymore; it’s most of us.

Official source

Mr. John Fraser

Yes, it doesn’t take much to go off that edge. And the list isn’t getting smaller; it’s getting longer. People getting off the list—that list isn’t growing. I was really interested in what you had to say about the children in care because it is a very small number—that’s doable. We’ve done a lot of different things over the years in terms of education. Extending the age for kids to continue under care—we’ve done some work around extending that, when they’re in, to age 23; I could have the number wrong. So it would seem to me that doing this piece of it is a pretty straightforward, bite-sized thing to do and in keeping with the work that we’ve done. I would encourage all my colleagues here to look at it that way—as we’ve done, I think, a lot of things already. But there’s this piece that’s missing, and these kids are falling off the edge. If they were our kids, we would be doing what we could to make sure they didn’t fall off the edge. They’d probably have a place to go to. They’d know they can come back home. They’d know they have some support. So the thing is, all of us—that’s who we are. We’re the crown. We’re their parents. That’s the way we have to look at that. The other piece, the diversion—so you said less than a million dollars. What’s less than a million dollars?

Official source

Ms. Kaite Burkholder Harris

In Ottawa, right now, we have two positions for diversion, and we’re seeing massive reductions. So if we were scaling that across five or six shelters—that includes city shelters—we could have a pretty big impact: 22% reductions for adults. It doesn’t, right now, lead to a reduction—actually, it’s leading to reductions in beds at the youth shelter; not yet the adult system—but it recycles beds faster. Stays go from 90 days to 12. That’s a huge change. First of all, people aren’t getting stuck, and second of all, you’re using those beds for people—and homelessness really is just a short-term crisis, which is the point. It’s not meant to be something that lasts for so long. So a million dollars would be a lot of workers in Ottawa, which would be amazing—but it’s pretty significant.

Official source

Mr. John Fraser

In terms of how that’s funded right now, is that found internally? Has the city supported it?

Official source

Ms. Kaite Burkholder Harris

The city supported some diversion workers, but then one agency pulled from their private foundation to try to supercharge it, and they’re seeing good results. But if we were to fund that, they could use that for housing. So I think it’s pretty significant in the other impacts it can have, the ripple effects.

Official source

Mr. John Fraser

I’ve got to move on. I might come back. How much time do I have, Chair?

Official source

The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

You have 1.4 minutes.

Official source

Mr. John Fraser

Not bad. I’m trying to keep my questions short. I’ve got to move on to Invest Ottawa. Thank you very much for your presentation. I’m a lifelong resident of Ottawa. I’ve been fortunate to have worked in government and gotten elected over the last 25 years. It’s always a challenge, here in Ottawa, to make sure that Toronto knows that the federal government is not our parent; they’re not taking care of us wholly. I had a question in terms of what investments you’re looking for. Are you looking for investments into Invest Ottawa? Is there a specific program or programs that you wanted to highlight in terms of—whether that’s an investment in Invest Ottawa or an investment in another program?

Official source

Ms. Sonya Shorey

It would be a combination. Certainly, we collaborate with major networks. The regional innovation centre network and the small business enterprise centre network, as a whole, have a huge opportunity to be modernized. That would be an investment in Invest Ottawa, to support the companies that we serve, in addition to all those across the province. You would get a significant lift, as the government of Ontario, from modernizing those two networks, investing more, so that we don’t miss the next Shopify, the next Kinaxis or Fullscript, and we have thriving communities that are growing our tax base to support the exact causes that you just heard about here. That would be one. Our defence innovation hub: We’re looking for $100 million into a stand-alone semiconductor fab that would complement the spin-out of the Canadian Photonics Fabrication Centre that is coming. And that is critical, in addition to investing in companies that are building, deploying and exporting technologies like drones, counter-drones, uncrewed systems that are being developed, tested, validated at Area X.O, which benefits from provincial funding. There are some very specific plans we have in place. We believe that collectively, we can do so much more to drive that pipeline, to build more companies here—

Official source

The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

Thank you very much. That concludes the time. MPP Brady.

Official source

Ms. Bobbi Ann Brady

Thank you, all, for your passionate presentations this morning. I’m going to turn to you, Kaite. As a policy-maker, it’s extremely frustrating to witness spending increases on issues like homelessness while visibility of the crisis grows. I think that you did a good job of explaining why funds today have not translated into a broad reduction in homelessness. I feel that before we commit to providing more funding, though, to any homelessness program, we need to tie funding to performance audits, because we are not getting value for the dollar. I’ve seen money spent unwisely, and the taxpayer never knows whether or not there are true results or if the problem is being reclassified. I was heartened to hear, at the beginning of your presentation, that you believe that homelessness is curable. We’ve seen other jurisdictions—you named them: Medicine Hat, Houston, Milwaukee—that are actually doing it right. So I’m wondering which model you think is directly transferrable to Ottawa.

Official source

Ms. Kaite Burkholder Harris

All of them. But the main thing is a system-wide approach, and if you’re not doing it collectively as a community with common intake, common assessment forms—a person doesn’t tell their story every single time they go, and people are sharing data across agencies—it’s not going to work. You just pour money into more workers at specific places, but it doesn’t actually lead to results. The other thing is that Ontario invested a 34% increase since 2016 in emergency shelters and congregate bed settings. We’ve increased homelessness by 32%; we have invested in creating homelessness. If you invest in the wrong thing, you’re going to get the wrong thing. I’m very outcomes-oriented. I’m not interested in putting money down a pit that doesn’t actually lead to anything. It really does require, locally, the leadership of the community to have cohesive coordination. Use your data to drive your systems, for sure. This pilot on diversion here is absolutely what we are using to scale it across the whole system—

Official source

The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

One minute.

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Ms. Kaite Burkholder Harris

—and I think, ultimately, the provincial-level leadership on systems transitions is a huge game-changer. There’s a lot of stuff that’s not legislation, but it’s bad rules in antiquated systems that don’t make any sense, that directly lead to people ending up in homelessness. It’s not always money—it is money too, but there are a lot of things that we can change, if there’s provincial leadership on those things.

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Ms. Bobbi Ann Brady

And I think you touched on it—I’m wondering how we streamline the approach to homelessness, so that we can align municipal government, policing and health care networks so that we’re under one accountable framework.

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Ms. Kaite Burkholder Harris

Yes. I love that. There are no emergency shelter definitions across the province. We’re actually looking at doing an apples-to-apples, walking through every single definition at multiple funding streams and multiple programs across our city, mapping them, and then trying to figure out if we can create some cohesive definitions. We can’t measure across different funding streams, as you well know. I appreciate you highlighting that challenge. So when we start to do that, that gets—

Official source

The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

Thank you very much. That concludes that time. MPP Sarrazin.

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Mr. Stéphane Sarrazin

Thank you to all of you for your presentations. It’s always the best part of our job—to hear what all these organizations are doing. I want to start with Sonya from Invest Ottawa. I was there a few times over the last few months, with Minister Piccini and Minister Tangri, and I was simply amazed to see your facility and the work you’re doing for the Ottawa region. You are doing the small business enterprise centres for the provincial government, and we thank you for it. You’re doing a great job. Of course, you know we’re listening to your needs and your challenges. You talked about these 1,800 tech companies. What I was thinking is, how can our government help them to expand globally? Is there something that both governments can do? I know, sometimes, it can be depending on regulations, and I think these tech companies, from what I heard when I was at your—we have some amazing people. Like you said, we have the expertise that other countries wish they had. So is there any way that our government could be helping you on this file?

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Ms. Sonya Shorey

Continued investment in the regional innovation centre network, where we see that oversubscription in so many programs, four to one, and helping those companies scale and build differently in an AI-driven, transformative era certainly is one. I love what you said about a system-wide approach. If all of the regional innovation centres are given more money, we can work together in different ways—create one intake, create one set of data where no matter where one company goes in any part of this province, we all have access to the same data and can lean in with our expertise and help them scale faster in this moment of time, get out to new markets. Trade is an area that we are leaning in on with our global expansion team. We’re grateful for the investment the province makes together with the feds so that we can bring more companies to market faster in more impactful ways. Diversification of markets has never been more important. We know, with tariffs and the challenges to the south, that getting out into European and Asia-Pacific markets is key. That is another area—leaning in and enabling us to continue growing our brand and promoting everything that we have in the city. We’ve heard today that it’s sometimes challenging to rise above the noise. That is absolutely true. We have a combination of expertise in Ottawa; we are your economic development hub. There are assets here that cannot be re-created anywhere else in this country. How do we work together with the province to ensure the whole world knows that? We’re building our scale-ups, keeping the IP here, driving revenue and business that supports our whole economy and all the mainstream businesses that create our quality of life, attracting the right major multinationals and soft-landed companies here that will complement and fill gaps that we don’t have capability-wise while we’re planting those seeds. I believe an economy works together holistically. If we make those collective investments—we have built the plans; we have them. We can work together to execute on them. And we track every single dollar, every intervention in terms of job creation, investment, GDP contribution. We are very data-driven, and we are a very inclusive opportunity for all.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

MPP Darouze.

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MPP George Darouze

Thank you, Chair. Through you: Thank you very much to all the presenters this morning. Sonya, I don’t want to waste time; I want to go right to the point. I know in the last few days, we’ve been touring Ottawa. I know Invest Ottawa very well. I served on council with my colleague here for many years. From the perspective of Bill 72, from a policy perspective and a legislation perspective, we’ve heard from so many innovators, we’ve heard from small businesses, we’ve heard from so many people in the last few days—and that was our first tour our government does in Ottawa. Can you share with the committee a little bit of the feedback we’ve heard and what else we could do to move forward what we had heard further with Bill 72? I understand investing in—Invest Ottawa is a huge success and a huge story, but also from a legislation perspective. I want to move it a little bit that way.

Official source

Ms. Sonya Shorey

Procurement is absolutely essential. If you ask any company that we serve whether they’d prefer a grant or subsidy or a customer in government that will generate revenue and create long-term opportunity, reference customers that they can leverage globally—that is exactly what they would say. We are very grateful for the procurement strategy that has come forward. We are leaning in, and there is incredibly positive feedback and a lot of hope. Procurement is one of the biggest stumbling blocks that faces many of our companies, particularly in sectors like defence, aerospace, cyber security and security. That is going to be a game-changer, as long as it is implemented correctly, where we truly lean in and support Ontario companies to keep Ontario IP growing, and we help them to collaborate effectively with multinationals and other anchors to access new supply chains, big-picture customers that can grow their revenue base and their customer base. I do believe it can be done holistically. The government of Canada is also leaning in on procurement. We are an advocate and a partner, and we want to bring our companies forward so that we can find the right opportunities for the government of Ontario to procure directly from them, to help supply chains become more domestically driven. That will generate a significant shift in the opportunity and the prosperity for this province and, certainly, for our region. Our companies are grateful.

Official source

The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

We will now go to MPP Pasma.

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Ms. Chandra Pasma

Thank you to all of our witnesses for being here. Andrew, it’s nice to see you, even if it’s virtually. Kaite, I’m going to turn to you. You mentioned the need for the not-for-profit sector to get involved in building housing so that it’s affordable. One of the projects that I am really happy about—Nepean Housing, which is a great housing provider, used investments from the federal government, provincial government and municipal government to turn what was four units of affordable housing into 31 units of affordable housing, and 35% of them are accessible, which is well above the provincial standard. The building is very eco-friendly. There are units set aside for supportive housing in the building. I think it’s an amazing example of what our not-for-profit sector can do. I’m wondering if you can speak to the supports that our not-for-profit sector would need to build those kinds of homes.

Official source

Ms. Kaite Burkholder Harris

To build or to operate?

Official source

Ms. Chandra Pasma

Both.

Official source

Ms. Kaite Burkholder Harris

First of all, I think we have to be honest. I’ve given you a lot of averages today, but needs vary. The majority of people, around 80%, who experience homelessness do not have super-high needs; it is a small percentage who are actually needing the most robust supports. For folks with the most robust supports, we’re talking 24/7 health care access in a building; nursing care would be there; case management; having a councillor; that kind of stuff. But that’s the Cadillac, and that’s not needed for everybody. There are a lot of people who need independent living, with a rent subsidy and some light-touch case management or light-touch supports—a worker coming a couple of times a week or a couple of times a month—and that will do it; often, those folks are good to go. They don’t need forever support. So I would say it does vary, depending—and right now, we’re not using our data to match need; we’re not building to match need. We’re just building a bunch of housing, but we’re not necessarily saying, “There are 50 people in Ottawa who need supportive housing that is staffed 24/7.” If we had that number, then we should build for that number. Broadly speaking, it’s that kind of various level—but we need the data to drive the decisions as well.

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Ms. Chandra Pasma

On the building side: Nepean Housing was able to take that government funding and turn it into these additional units of affordable housing. Do you think that’s a model? Should we have more funds that are set aside specifically for non-profits to build non-market housing?

Official source

Ms. Kaite Burkholder Harris

Absolutely. I think there are a couple of federal opportunities—we know about Build Canada Homes—that we can really use to supercharge building right now. I think one that isn’t talked about enough is the acquisition fund. Real estate investment trusts are off-loading their buildings because they’re old buildings, but that’s a lot cheaper and faster—to get housing to become affordable, if a non-profit acquires it. There is an opportunity that we could leverage that funding by injecting just a little bit more funding from the province to acquire those homes. And same with Build Canada Homes—I think there need to be standards for scale for non-profit housing providers. You can’t keep funding a 10-unit, tiny organization. They cannot keep doing a capital campaign for a small number of units. They have got to be doing partnership. The legislation and the funding opportunities have to encourage and mandate partnership.

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Ms. Chandra Pasma

The emergency shelter diversion—that was new to me; that’s not something I’ve heard before. I’m wondering if you can talk us through it. There was a woman I met in the Cornerstone shelter last year who told me her story about how she had some mental health challenges. She was employed, and then she went to being unemployed, living in her car, moving to the city of Ottawa emergency shelter and eventually into Cornerstone. What would that have looked like for someone like Lynne?

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Ms. Kaite Burkholder Harris

It’s interrupting at the door. Is this somebody who just has rental arrears? That’s half the cases. That’s a pretty cheap, easy thing to fix—instead of getting somebody stuck in the shelter system and losing their job. Youth diversion is particularly effective because young people are younger—a lot of the time, it is actually family conflict, and it’s family conflict that, when you have a professional supporting some mediation there, is pretty solvable. In the Niagara region, they found that diversion—a lot of the time it’s, “We can get you a bus ticket back home, but you have a safe family or a family friend you can actually stay with.” It’s leveraging those natural supports that actually can lead to diversion in a lot of ways. It’s tougher with adults. A lot of the time, people have more resources than we think they do. It’s fundamentally changing the assumption—

Official source

The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

One minute.

Official source

Ms. Kaite Burkholder Harris

—that you have no place to go, you have no resources, and our job is to bring you into the system. Let me tell you: If anybody here has ever worked with somebody who is homeless or at risk of homelessness—a family friend—you probably are advising them to not get stuck in that system. We need to make sure that, as a system, we’re encouraging that as well and designing it that way.

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Ms. Chandra Pasma

I’ll turn my remaining time over to MPP Bell.

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Ms. Jessica Bell

Thank you to all speakers. Hello, Andrew Cash. My question is to the Alliance to End Homelessness Ottawa. You mentioned the spend of approximately $2 million to end encampments. Could you flesh that out for us? What would that involve? What would you spend it on?

Official source

Ms. Kaite Burkholder Harris

This would be about 5,700 new options for housing—so a lot of rent subsidies for people who are lighter-touch supports. It would include some money for building more supportive units for the hardest-to-house. That’s from the Association of Municipalities of Ontario report. That was the number they fleshed out. That’s over three years, so it’s less than a billion dollars a year, pretty low-cost—

Official source

The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

Thank you very much. That ends the time. MPP Fraser.

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Mr. John Fraser

I thank everybody for their presentations. I’d like to turn to Mr. Cash and ask you a question with regard to your request. I know that the fund was established somewhere around 2013 and made permanent around 2015 and then changed, I think, around 2020. At that change, it was reduced by a little bit more than half. In other words, is that money leveraged by an equal investment from a company? How is that measured—if you can help me understand that.

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Mr. Andrew Cash

Again, this is not a handout. It’s an investment in the companies. The companies have to match that investment. When the province reduced the investment in the sector, it also made it much more difficult for Ontario investors to invest in the sector. One of the effects of that, if you will, is that we’re seeing foreign-owned capital come in and purchase Ontario companies, Ontario IP, that the Ontario government and the people of Ontario have invested in previously. This is part of the place we’re at now.

Official source

Mr. John Fraser

That’s great. I would encourage the government to consider it, especially when we’re in a situation where we’re trying to be more self-reliant and understand that we have to protect ourselves as a province but also as a country. Thank you for your presentation. I want to go back to homelessness, because it is an issue that affects all of our communities. AMO, the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, says about 85,000 people in this province are without a home and about 20,000 of them are children—600 of them are our kids. This is not as much of a question as it is more of a statement. When we’ve had these situations before, after the end of the Second World War and then in the 1970s, when there were some real challenges around housing, a government—not a Liberal government, not an NDP government—got into the business of building public housing. We did it. I want to thank you for all your work, and I want to thank you for trying to roll this ball up the hill. It’s a time when we have to look at this, because the number is growing, and that will—that’s wrong in the first place, but it’s going to affect all of us. It’s going to affect our economy. It is going to affect our health care system. It’s going to affect our education system. So it’s a critical thing. There are willing partners, obviously, municipally—and the work that the alliance does—but there’s a federal government that’s interested in that part of the business right now, in doing that. We have to do it. It can’t keep going in the same direction. We’ve got to send it in the other direction. I’ll leave it at that, and I want to thank you very much for—unless there’s something else you want to add at the end.

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Ms. Kaite Burkholder Harris

I do, actually. Deloitte wrote a report that said it would bump—if we invested getting to 7% of our national housing stock—5% to 9% increase to our GDP. In a time of economic uncertainty, I don’t know that you can make a better argument than that. We desperately need to build, and building non-market still employs private developers. We need somebody to build. On so many levels, this is a path forward. If you pick any social problem, I will get it back to housing as the thing that will at least make that social problem better, if not fix it.

Official source

Mr. John Fraser

Do you know what’s better than building a tunnel? Building affordable housing and making sure people have a place to live. I’ll leave it at that.

Official source

The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

MPP Brady.

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Ms. Bobbi Ann Brady

I want to go back to you, Kaite, again, because if there’s one social issue that profoundly saddens Ontarians, it’s watching people on our streets and in our communities suffer. You mentioned that the economic environment to build low-income and affordable housing or housing that is affordable—two different things—doesn’t exist. We all know that. It currently doesn’t exist. I think we should be looking at things like financial incentives to make the math work for our builders. Forgivable loans, GST removal and loan forgiveness programs are important. I want to go back to the units that you are proposing for Ottawa. Do you have an idea of the percentage of homelessness population it would realistically—that that program would house and what gaps would still remain?

Official source

Ms. Kaite Burkholder Harris

Sorry; the Ottawa numbers or Ontario numbers—like for supportive?

Official source

Ms. Bobbi Ann Brady

Right.

Official source

Ms. Kaite Burkholder Harris

For supportive, I should, but I don’t actually have that number. I only have provincial-level numbers.

Official source

Ms. Bobbi Ann Brady

That’s fine.

Official source

Ms. Kaite Burkholder Harris

Provincial-level numbers are 30,000, so as the second-biggest city, a chunk of that would be here. And that cost, which I had in my head, and it’s written somewhere here that I can’t remember right now, I think is just over one and a half—oh, no, $900 million.

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Ms. Bobbi Ann Brady

It’s $900 million? Okay. How do we ensure that new low-income housing remains affordable over time? We know that the market pressures can quickly see those prices rise.

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Ms. Kaite Burkholder Harris

Totally. It’s a great question. That is the difference between non-market, mission-driven—“Our entire reason is to have affordable housing for people” versus, “We need to make a profit, and I have shareholders to respond to,” which is reasonable, but it’s just not going to meet a human right.

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Ms. Bobbi Ann Brady

As a fiscal conservative, I like to move away from ongoing subsidies. Should we be looking at permanent non-profit co-operative ownership, longer-term agreements for some of the folks who are living in these low-income homes?

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

One minute.

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Ms. Kaite Burkholder Harris

I think, ultimately, we need the buildings, we need the housing that is just in perpetuity going to be affordable. I think that deals like inclusionary zoning and making it affordable for 10 years is just kicking a crisis down the road, but I do think it creates flow. If you have a young family move into a co-op, all of a sudden they can save money for, actually, a down payment. We see that happening in our system. We see people become entrepreneurs, because they wake up in the morning and they’re not in a shelter. So I really think it creates broader flow. It is for the middle class to actually have affordable options. And then you do have the low, low income that—we’re always going to have people in that level of crisis, but if they have housing, they have a much greater opportunity to get out of that, as well.

Official source

The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

MPP Rosenberg.

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MPP Bill Rosenberg

Thank you, panel, for being here today and bringing the ideas forward to us—and that we have that opportunity to listen and bring them back, not only to benefit people here in Ottawa, but all Ontarians. The government is moving forward with helping Ontario manufacturing processors to lower their costs, innovate and become more competitive through the manufacturing investment tax credit, and they’re also amending that to have some criteria for investments in machinery and equipment. My question, Sonya, is to you. As a government, we have been supportive of the private sector finding innovative solutions to problems. I wonder if you would be able to speak to—see how small business as being a very important part of building a more competitive, resilient and self-reliant Ontario.

Official source

Ms. Sonya Shorey

Continuing to invest in the networks that I highlighted—the regional innovation centre network, the small business enterprise centres—to create more opportunity for more founders to benefit from those services, to scale faster, to put AI to work, enabling AI democratization, where we’re all sharing lessons learned on how to put that to work to be the most productive and impactful possible. Certainly, we see the job market changing. Ottawa definitely faces risk with respect to the public sector layoffs at the federal level, so the opportunity to transition those workers into technology-based businesses, main street businesses, becomes a very big stake for the province. As your second-largest economic region, the opportunity to double down there, double down in technologies like those that we support at Area X.O for all sectors—currently, most notably defence, cyber security, aerospace and space—that is an immense opportunity. There is a lot of investment from the federal government in all of those sectors, and they are needed globally. The more we can do to accelerate the development, the IP and the opportunity to take those companies global, the faster we will see our economy continue to grow to support many of the causes that you see today, including the one to my right. So I believe that we can double down in areas where we see it working, meet greater demand. The pipeline is massive, and it will continue to grow with those layoffs in the public sector. If we come together, look at the data and continue to invest, we will see dividends. We measure them.

Official source

MPP Bill Rosenberg

And in return, Ontario will benefit from having several good-paying jobs come back to us.

Official source

Ms. Sonya Shorey

Jobs, investment, GDP growth—those are the three key metrics that we track consistently, and we look at the interventions that we make. I am a big fan of collaboration for impact. It takes a village to help companies accelerate growth. The more we do together—the more we optimize the resources, the assets, the expertise and the investment—the faster they will get there. So we lean into collaboration for impact. We never look for sole attribution, but we measure the impact of our interventions that come with the provincial funding, the municipal and federal funding and private sector technology and contributions.

Official source

The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

MPP Smith.

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Mr. Dave Smith

One of the challenges with being the last round of questioning in 39 minutes is that you don’t have a whole lot of time for anything. Andrew, I’m going to jump over to you. You made some comments at the very beginning of your presentation—a little bit more than 70% of the music industry, from what you were saying, and I’m paraphrasing it, is here in Ontario. I’ve tried to find some numbers on this. It looks like it’s about $215 million in GDP directly from that portion of the industry. Is that a reasonable number? Would you say it’s about $215 million to $250 million that is generated in Ontario right now from your portion of the industry?

Official source

Mr. Andrew Cash

No. In Ontario, our numbers are a bit higher than that. It’s about $400 million in GDP.

Official source

Mr. Dave Smith

Okay. You said about 70% of the Canadian number is in Ontario.

Official source

Mr. Andrew Cash

It’s 78%, yes.

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Mr. Dave Smith

What do you see as the potential growth on that, then? If we’re at $400 million now, do you see us getting to $600 million, $700 million, a billion dollars?

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Mr. Andrew Cash

We see us getting close to a billion dollars, with the ask that we’re coming to you with today of $25 million. That gets us to about $900 million in GDP growth.

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Mr. Dave Smith

And how would that be distributed across the artists? Is that high-end—you mentioned the Sheepdogs, just as an example. Is that artist at that level, or is that artist at a smaller level?

Official source

The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

One minute.

Official source

Mr. Andrew Cash

The beauty of what’s happening in Ontario is that it’s very decentralized and it’s spread out right across the province. Of course, in the Golden Horseshoe, we have a large number of industries, but we have artists all across the province. First of all, it’s not for foreign-owned multinationals. It’s for Ontario-owned companies and Ontario artists—so that goes from the solopreneurs and the freelance artists, all the way up to some really significant, large, independently owned Ontario music companies.

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Mr. Dave Smith

My former EA’s brother went to Nashville to try to grow his music career. Are you suggesting, then, that if we made that type of investment, someone like him, at 21, 22, wouldn’t have to relocate to the States and we could have that kind of an ecosystem here in Ontario to support that?

Official source

Mr. Andrew Cash

Yes.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

That concludes the time for this question. It also concludes the time for this panel. I do want to thank all the panellists for all their work of preparing to come here and, in doing so, ably presenting it to us. As a committee, we appreciate your assistance.

Official source