Tuesday, January 20, 2026

The committee met at 1000 in DoubleTree by Hilton, Kitchener.

Official source

The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

Good morning, everyone. 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 are recognized by the Chair before speaking, and as always, all comments should go through the Chair. The Clerk of the Committee has submitted 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 the 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 one minute left for your presentation or allotted speaking time. The “one minute” does not mean you have to stop. The “one minute” says, “Put your punchline in, because at seven minutes, you’re going to be cut off.”

Official source

The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

So with that, we’ll start this morning’s presentation. First of all, I need unanimous consent from committee—we have an extra presenter at the table—to allow two presenters for one slot. We have to have unanimous consent. Do I hear any dissension? If not, welcome. Now, for the first table, we will have Axtion Independence Mobility Inc. and Co-Operative Housing Federation of Canada. We have one cancellation that will not be here, so there are just two presenters at this table. So with that, are there any questions from the committee? If not, the floor is yours. We’ll hear from Axtion Independence Mobility Inc. I should mention the microphones are automatic—and that’s as much for the committee as it is for the presenters.

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Mr. Dave Smith

It’s on.

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Ms. Tracey McGillivray

Okay. Good morning, and thank you for the opportunity to participate in Ontario’s 2026 pre-budget consultations. I’m Tracey McGillivray, and I’m the co-founder and the CEO of Axtion Independence Mobility. I’m joined by my colleague Suling Duong, who is our chief occupational therapist. Our team has designed and manufactured the Canadian-made Raymex Lift. It’s the only device in the world to help both prevent and recover from falls and allows people to do so independently or with a single caregiver who provides minimal assistance. The Raymex Lift can help reduce the strain on Ontario’s health systems and helps people regain their independence. Ontario, like all developed jurisdictions, is facing a major structural demographic shift. We’ve got a rapidly aging population, we’ve got a year-on-year increase in the number of people falling and we’ve got an aging and shrinking caregiver workforce. There’s growing pressure on hospitals, long-term care, with overcrowding, long wait-lists and long wait times—and those are getting longer every day. One in four people over the age of 65 experiences at least one fall—most of them, multiple falls per year. That number doubles to one in two for those over 80, and the over-80 crowd is the fastest-growing subset of our older-adult age category. Half of those people need help getting back up, which results in, in a lot of cases, a call to EMS just for a lift assist—just to help somebody get off the floor. One in six of older adults that are admitted to hospital these days are there because of a fall. That’s a huge number and, sadly, the death rates have tripled. The death rates resulting from falls have tripled over the last 20 years. This is a significant problem. Today there are 3.2 million people over the age of 65 in Ontario. That number is going to grow to 4.2 million by 2040, so in 14 years the number is going to increase by a third. This is an unsustainable structure. That means there are 800,000 people falling each year and, again, many of them multiple times. Some 10% to 15% of calls to EMS are just for lift assists and for 50% of people who call, there’s a repeat call in two weeks. Again, 50,000 hospital admissions and 40% of admissions to long-term care are from falls or the fear of falling. I want to talk just a moment about our health care workers, too. They’re injured at four times the rate of any other industry. You would think it would be construction or heavy equipment or mining; it’s not. It’s health-care workers, and it’s due to patient lifting—

Official source

Failure of sound system.

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The committee recessed from 1007 to 1023.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

We’ll come back to order. The present presenter has four minutes left to proceed.

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Ms. Tracey McGillivray

Thank you very much. We were talking about older adults falling and the problem that it is for Ontario. And why should this committee care? Because it’s costing Ontario over $4.5 billion a year in direct costs. Hospital stays after a fall are almost twice as long as stays for all other causes, and I know, because I lived it personally with my father. The Raymex Lift that we’re presenting to you here today is named after him. His name was Raymond. Everybody thinks of and imagines falls to be the dramatic trips and the dramatic slips, and while those exist, that’s not the majority of falls. The majority of falls happen during everyday activities—things like bending over to reach an object or kneeling down to do something and just simply being unable to get back up, and they end up on the floor and can’t get up. Current tools that are out there don’t address those types of motions and those types of activities. Despite decades of efforts with best practices and grab bars and all of these things, we have not moved the needle one iota on the rates of older adults falling. And with the increasing population, the numbers of falls are exploding and just absolutely straining our health care system. Once somebody falls, there is a cost and a consequence to it. But the fear of falling—they stop doing all the activities that put them at risk, so they lose their independence and, ultimately, they lose their dignity and end up having to go into a facility. Again, 40% of admissions to long-term care are because of falls or the fear of falling. The Raymex Lift is a breakthrough device that combines a powered lift, a transfer aid, a multipurpose mobility aid and a rehab tool all in one easy-to-use compact portable unit. It’s already in use by Veterans Affairs Canada because the longer they can keep somebody at home, the more money they save. And the chief medical officer says, “If I can keep somebody home six weeks, I’ve paid for the device”—just six weeks, and this will likely keep them home for multiple years. It’s been deployed by the US Veterans Affairs and their Veterans Health Administration in both home care and in their facilities and multiple other locations across the US, UK and Canada—and soon to be in Europe, starting in Q2 of this year. Our ask, today, is simple: It’s to support a funded pilot within the province of Ontario through Ontario Health atHome. You could actually include it in the newly announced high-intensity bundled health care at home program that you’ve announced to try and get people out of hospital, to reduce the overcrowding and the strain.

Official source

The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

One minute.

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Ms. Tracey McGillivray

The potential savings are significant and immediate. We can measure those savings, and we can measure the patient outcomes. If I’ve got time, I’ll show you a brief demonstration video, but I want to land this by saying the Raymex Lift is the only compact portable mobility aid that combines a lift, a transfer aid, a multi-purpose mobility aid and a rehab tool, and it does so at a lower cost than all the other single purpose tools that are out there—and again, it’s made in Canada. We sincerely appreciate the opportunity to present today, and we thank you for your time, for your attention and your engagement. We’re happy to answer any questions when the time comes.

Official source

The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

Thank you very much for the presentation. We now will hear from the Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada.

Official source

Ms. Simone Swail

Good morning, Mr. Chair, members of committee. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. I will just note my co-presenter can’t hear anything online while I speak. My name is Simone Swail. I’m the senior manager, government relations for the Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada, and I’m joined online by Elana Harte, the executive director of the Central Ontario Co-operative Housing Federation. Across Ontario, families are struggling to find housing that is affordable, secure and rooted in community. For many, the private market is out of reach and wait-lists for social housing are far too long. But there is a proven solution with a 50-year track record: non-profit co-operative housing. Ontario is home to 550 non-profit housing co-ops providing stable homes for approximately 125,000 people in communities across the province. These are places where seniors can age in place, families can put down roots and neighbours support one another. Co-op housing is different from other forms of rental housing because there is no outside landlord. Co-ops are owned and governed by the people who live in them and because they operate as a non-profit, housing charges reflect the true cost of operating and maintaining buildings. These keep homes affordable and stable over the long term. After decades of limited development, co-op housing is building again in Ontario, largely due to the federal investment through the Co-operative Housing Development Program and strong municipal partnerships. This includes the largest co-op housing development in Canada in a generation in Toronto, Kennedy Green co-op, as well as new projects here in central Ontario, including the 30 Lauris development. These projects are delivering new homes at a critical moment. They are supporting jobs in the residential construction industry and local supply chains during a private sector slowdown, while creating permanent community assets that serve people shut out, again, from that private market. But these projects are just the start. With the right choices in budget 2026, Ontario could unlock much more potential by protecting existing co-op homes and scaling up new development. Our first recommendation to this committee is to protect and preserve the existing co-op housing. More than 250 Ontario co-ops, representing over 21,000 homes, operate under the Housing Services Act—that’s provincial legislation. These homes were originally developed by the province and later downloaded to municipal service managers. In 2022, the province introduced a new service agreement framework to govern what happens to the co-ops once the original mortgage ends. The intent was positive: to ensure rental assistance would continue for low-income households and integrate flexibility that would better support housing outcomes and growth. Some service managers have worked in real partnership with housing providers within this framework, like Waterloo region here in Kitchener. Unfortunately, others have used gaps in the regulation to undermine the financial stability of co-ops and non-profits. In some cases, subsidy funding is dropping to zero once the mortgage is paid off. This is despite the fact that 75% of their homes house low-income households from municipal social housing wait-lists and they also need to manage aging buildings with growing repair backlogs. Because interim funding is not guaranteed until a new agreement is signed, some co-ops have gone years without funding for rental assistance, placing the entire community at risk. CHF Canada urges the province to strengthen oversight, guarantee interim rental assistance during the negotiation process and enable co-ops to refinance so they can maintain buildings and reinvest in affordable housing. With clear provincial direction, Ontario can protect the existing assets, rather than allowing them to erode. Our second recommendation is to partner with the co-op sector to build the next generation of co-op homes. Ontario needs a decisive shift towards non-market housing. With substantial federal funding already committed, the province has an opportunity to leverage these dollars and significantly increase supply. A recent Deloitte analysis found that if Ontario increased its share of co-op and non-profit housing to the OECD average, productivity would rise by nearly 10% and provincial GDP could grow by more than $50 billion. Affordable housing is also economic infrastructure. Building co-op housing now at scale would be counter-cyclical investment that would help the market and the people in need of affordable homes, protecting jobs, local supply chains and creating a lasting public asset. To support this, CHF Canada recommends expanding the mandate of the Building Ontario Fund to create a $150-million affordable-housing-construction-guarantee program. A modest provincial guarantee would unlock private financing, allowing projects to proceed and be released once buildings are stabilized without adding to the provincial debt. Without provincial participation, Ontario risks losing federal affordable housing dollars to provinces with established co-investment tools. I’d now like to invite Elana Harte—who, I hope, has heard what I’ve said—to speak briefly about a project here in central Ontario.

Official source

Ms. Elana Harte

Thank you so much, Simone. The Central Ontario Co-operative Federation is looking to build 101 new co-op homes in Cambridge. This is only one of the new developments our regional federation is taking on. Our Cambridge co-op will create long-term, affordable and inclusive housing for people from all walks of life. It will support seniors, families, couples, singles and individuals requiring mental health support, and there will be 27 accessible units. We are taking this risk because we recognize the need for our organization to step up and take on this role to do what we can to expand affordable housing. We are committed to supporting efforts and initiatives originating with co-op and non-profit organizations, as well as private businesses that share our goals. To make this project possible, we are pursuing federal funding through the co-operative housing development fund. We have received municipal support in the form of $100,000 from the city of Cambridge, but we don’t have a pathway to access provincial support.

Official source

The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

One minute.

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Ms. Elana Harte

During its construction, this project will inject over $33 million to the local economy, but its long-term impact will be far greater. We are looking to the province to come to the table to amplify the federal investments so that they can do more, because we know Ontario needs more affordable housing, and, specifically, we know Ontario needs more co-operative housing. In the CHF Canada budget recommendations, which we endorse, we know there are a number of potential options laid out. We need the province to seize one to match the federal investment and help build the housing we know the province needs and simultaneously support jobs and local supply chains.

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Ms. Simone Swail

The housing challenges we face are serious, but they’re solvable. Co-op housing is proven, scalable and built to last. With the right choices in budget 2026, Ontario can unlock co-op housing as a cornerstone of more affordable, resilient and inclusive—

Official source

The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

Thank you very much. That concludes the time for the presentation. We’ll now start with the questions. MPP Sattler.

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Ms. Peggy Sattler

Thank you to both of our presenters. I wanted to start with the Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada. I’m concerned about your comment that without access to provincial funding, Ontario risks losing new housing projects to other provinces where provincial funding is available for new co-op housing. Can you expand a little bit more about what’s happening in other provinces compared to what we have here in Ontario?

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Ms. Simone Swail

Thank you, MPP Sattler, for that question. There are a number of different models across the country that provinces pursue. Ontario is quite unique in that it’s the only province where housing has been largely downloaded to municipalities. Municipalities, by and large, just do not have the capacity to be a real partner on some of these projects. BC Housing is a very large organization and has the capacity to support loans to provide other types of funding to new housing developments. And you see, particularly in Quebec, similar structures exist as well. The Building Ontario Fund has a mandate to support the development of affordable housing, but in practice we haven’t seen it successfully do so. It has been supportive of long-term care and supportive, I believe, in the new student housing project, but I’ve yet to see a demonstration of an affordable housing project come out of it. I think, really, it has to do with the structure of the fund and the timing. Also, what we highlight here is another way that fund could be used: as a guarantee to unlock private financing. Ontario is home to the largest banks in Canada. However, large banks are very, very nervous about dealing with non-profits and co-op housing. So the province coming in, as a role, to guarantee those loans, recognizing they are a provincial asset, something that we desperately need, would be a way that they could backstop these projects without adding to debt—which I know is a key priority for this government—but really unlock at scale some new development for the province. The fear is that some of these federal programs—we have yet to see what exactly Build Canada Homes will be. But for the Co-op Housing Development Program, projects are submitted—the program is national in scope—and they’re scored. If there is a provincial partner, they typically can score better.

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Ms. Peggy Sattler

I noticed in your submission that one of the recommendations you include is removing barriers that prevent the Building Ontario Fund from fulfilling its mandate. Are there other barriers than the ones you’ve just mentioned around timing and—

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Ms. Simone Swail

The primary one we’ve seen so far is the timing of the loans. The way the fund seems to be structured—again, it’s all very new. They seem to want their money back on a timeline that just doesn’t work for affordable housing development. If they were willing to be more patient capital—to join in the project over a longer time period to make that investment back or to be paid back—then they would be able to provide a very, very strong partnership when it comes to affordable housing. The rates out of the Building Ontario Fund are significantly better than even what we can sometimes access through CMHC, so it would make a very significant impact on, particularly, large developments like we are seeing in a number of places. We’ve got a proposed development in St. Catharines, 400 units; 660 units in Toronto. There are many other projects at quite significant scale—over $150-million projects—across the province. But we do need the Building Ontario Fund to be there as more patient capital, and then that difference that they can offer in financing could be all of the difference about whether that project pencils out or not.

Official source

Ms. Peggy Sattler

Thank you very much.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

One minute.

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Ms. Peggy Sattler

I just want to quickly ask the Raymex lift people—thank you very much for coming here today. You mentioned that your product is already in use with Veterans Affairs Canada. How long has it been in use? Has it been evaluated? And why aren’t we using it in Ontario?

Official source

Ms. Tracey McGillivray

Those are good questions. The product is just launching now, so this is a brand new product. Veterans Affairs Canada acquired it because we went through the Innovative Solutions Canada testing stream program over the last year and a bit, which is what gave them immediate and early access to the product, so the very, very first units that rolled off the line have gone to Veterans Affairs Canada. It is being evaluated by them; that evaluation will be complete by the middle of March. We’re already seeing benefits from it. We can’t publish it until the study is completed, but we’re already seeing—

Official source

The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

Thank you very much. That concludes the time. Hopefully we can get the rest of the answer next time around. MPP Fairclough.

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Ms. Lee Fairclough

Thank you both for your presentations this morning. I’m going to start with the long-term-care example as well. I thought that your stats are pretty compelling, that 40% of people are going into long-term care because of a fear of falling. As somebody who worked in health care, this is a very significant issue. I think, as well, given where we are with hospitals at the moment and the overcrowding, this would help to keep people at home safely. I’m wondering if you can talk a little bit more—it was good to hear that you’ve been through this evaluation phase. What does it look like for somebody in their home using the device? And then, secondly, are there any other competitors out there that we should know about? And then the third thing: I just want to understand the numbers a little bit more. You’ve laid out what the investment would be and what that share would be between the province and the individual. Can you just talk a little bit more about the details?

Official source

Ms. Tracey McGillivray

Sure, I’d be happy to—sorry; I’m going to try and do these in order. From a competitors’ standpoint, there are a few and in the appendix of the presentation, I have actually listed them all out.

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Ms. Lee Fairclough

Oh, great. Okay.

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Ms. Tracey McGillivray

There’s two pages. It’s page 8 and page 9. The first page is the functional capabilities of the other alternatives that exist out there. Most of those are single-purpose devices, and it shows you the cost comparisons, as well as the weights of the devices and so on. If you’re a former health care provider and worked in the system, the second page is actually derived from a white paper we’ve done in collaboration with the US Veterans Affairs, showing the operational comparisons. The Raymex Lift is smaller, it’s faster, it’s easier, it’s cheaper and it does more than any of the other devices that are out there. The other thing, just quickly: There are only two manufacturers of lifts in Canada, period. We are one, and it’s done with intellectual property. The only other one is using old technology. It’s all off-patent, so that means it’s at least 20 years old. It’s the typical Hoyer lift, the ceiling-lift kind of thing that’s out there. They are made in Canada. You still need those in the health care system for people who are completely bedridden, but for about 70% of the patients that are in long-term care or acute care, they still have some trunk control, in which case this device works. We brought it here; it’s actually physically here.

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Ms. Lee Fairclough

There it is. That’s great.

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Ms. Tracey McGillivray

This device works for those individuals.

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Ms. Lee Fairclough

That’s great. I’m going to ask another question. I think you answered my question, so I want to just as a quick question on the co-op as well. Thank you very much. In terms of the co-op presentation, I certainly am in favour in supporting these kinds of projects, especially at this moment in Canada where we’re looking to ensure there are more affordable options for people as well. I just wondered if you could talk about—when you look at the ways that the government could invest, just talk a little bit more about why it makes the most sense to be investing in co-op housing at this time.

Official source

Ms. Simone Swail

I think why co-op housing makes the most sense at this moment is it really fills a need for people that are just absolutely cut out of the market. Co-op housing provides a place for families where they build a real sense of community, where the people take care of each other. Yesterday on The Current, there was a fantastic interview about co-op housing and what it provides to folks, where you hear about how it creates a sense of community. It deals with the issues of isolation that so many people in our communities create—because there is a coming together, because it creates a sense of real ownership over your home in a model that you don’t need to be a millionaire to access. I think that’s a real sense of stability, security, ownership, place. You really struggle to find that anywhere else.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

One minute.

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Ms. Lee Fairclough

And from a government perspective though, when you’re thinking of investing in it, why would it make sense for governments to invest?

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Ms. Simone Swail

Why does it make sense? Well, I think it goes back to that Deloitte study and that $50 billion. We are losing out when every last dime a household has is going to their housing. That means that they are not investing in their education. That means they’re not investing in the community. It is costing everyone. One of the great things about co-op housing is that we get more affordable overtime, and that is because when we increase what we call housing charges—really, rent, if you will—we do that at the cost of what it takes to maintain that building in good condition over the long term, and that makes a massive difference. We’ve done studies where over a 10-to-15-year period, our rents get hundreds of dollars cheaper per month in every major city that was studied—

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

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

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Ms. Bobbi Ann Brady

Thank you to our presenters this morning. I’ll start with Axtion Independence Mobility. Maybe I missed it; is there a dollar figure attached to each unit?

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Ms. Tracey McGillivray

Yes, there is. The cost—and I’ll disclose this—that the federal government is reimbursing is $5,000 a unit. I know that sounds like a big number initially—because people look at this and they see a rollator walker, because that’s what it looks like, and those typically run about $500. But this is a full-powered patient lift, and the cost comparisons for other patient lifts are substantially more than that, plus the cost of other tools that you will also need, because if you have a lift, you’re also going to need a rollator walker. You’re probably also going to need a transfer aid. So by the time you stack those up, it’s significant. This one is lower-cost than the other patient lifts, and it’s lower-cost than the transfer aids that are out there, and we’ve been able to combine it into one single unit, so it’s a multi-functional unit.

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Ms. Bobbi Ann Brady

Great—

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Ms. Suling Duong

And it’s easier to use, from a clinician’s perspective. I’m here because I’ve been working as—

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Ms. Tracey McGillivray

You’re Suling.

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Ms. Suling Duong

I’m Suling. I’m an occupational therapist. The reason why I wanted to accompany Tracey today was to share the clinical piece of it and how easy—this is designed by clinicians. It was designed to make it easier, it was designed to make it more affordable and also to have cost savings across the board. I had to step away from acute care because the demands of lifting and the physical aspect—despite the fact that I really pride myself on being fit, I wasn’t going to be able to keep up. It was way too much.

Official source

Ms. Bobbi Ann Brady

Great. I’m interested—you talk about the government investing in funding a pilot project. What would that look like? Are we looking at this being part of the Assistive Devices Program eventually, or are we looking at just implementing in institutions at this point? What are we looking at?

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Ms. Tracey McGillivray

Thank you very much. That’s a really, really great question.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

One minute.

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Ms. Tracey McGillivray

The answer is both. I would ultimately love to see it as a systematic inclusion in the Assistive Devices Program as well as the Ontario Health atHome formulary for reimbursement. Within the Assistive Devices Program, the current policy says they will not fund any lifts at all. There’s a reason for that: because all other lifts require mostly two able-bodied caregivers to assist, so they’re not an independence tool; this one is different. You can use it independently, so it affords and promotes independence and living at home, as well as being a transfer aid and vertical mobility and translational mobility as well. It’s a true tool for independence, so I really do want to see this included in ADP. All the therapists and physicians we talked to want it included. Then the other is Ontario Health atHome. We’d love to see it included in the high-intensity bundle—

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

Thank you very much. That finishes that question. MPP Dixon.

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Ms. Jess Dixon

My first question is for Axtion Independence. Going off a little bit after MPP Brady’s question—as you noted, as a government we have invested quite heavily in the idea of helping people age at home, and so we are always interested in ideas that work. You’ve described a lot of potential benefits across home care, EMS, hospitals etc., but if this were to be a targeted pilot, can you help me understand, where is it that you would be focusing first? What would the target client of that group look like? And what type of outcome measures would you actually be looking for to demonstrate the required efficacy of that pilot?

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Ms. Tracey McGillivray

What I would look to do in a pilot would be what I call the “frequent fallers program,” as opposed to frequent flyers. The top 500 would be what I would recommend, because that is a material group that you could really sink your teeth into. We can identify those because of the great job that Ontario Health and long-term care and the EMS service does in tracking the patients. They’ve got coding for everything, and so we can pull—like, EMS knows who the frequent fallers are out there because they know the addresses they’re going back to, often every two weeks, to go pick somebody up off the floor. We can identify those people—whether it’s in a geography or across the province or a subset of geographies—and we can track that data to see the actual reduction in falls. What I would love to see is a reduction in falls and a change in their fear of falling. There is an actual instrument out there to measure people’s fear of falling. It’s the falls efficacy scale-international. It’s what we’re using at Veterans Affairs and the USVA to measure that. We can deploy those already approved measurable instruments to measure the outcomes across patients, and you can start to measure the change in the number of falls, the number of calls to EMS, admissions to hospitals, admissions to long-term care and the change in the falls efficacy scale. Those are all measurable.

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Ms. Jess Dixon

Suling, if you can just expand a little bit more, when you said “on the clinical side,” what was your experience?

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Ms. Suling Duong

Oh, 100%, yes. Oftentimes, when we were in clinic and someone had a fall, you couldn’t actually help them off the ground, depending on where the ceiling lift track was. We would have to, unfortunately, get them—if they’re on the ground, we’re rolling them. There’s like four or five clinicians that—it would be in carry situations—roll them onto a sheet, pull them aligned—it’s just very undignified. It was also traumatic for the patient as well as for the clinicians, because we’re often trying to help and do our best, right? And it was not always easy. Those situations would be negated if we had something that was portable, rollable—we could get them sitting up; we could just help them scoot their bottom. This goes all the way down to the floor. We helped design it. We had all this clinician feedback: “What are the features you want in this?” “Make sure that gets all the way down.” “Make sure that these arms move up so that you can”—

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Interjection

And elbow room.

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Ms. Suling Duong

—“have room to get moving”—yes, exactly—“positioned where you need it.” You could log roll them. You could also sit them up. But as long as you have trunk support, they can get their bottom onto the seat no problem. I used to work in acute care for the elderly at Grand River. I’ll tell you, the times I’ve heard people saying, “I don’t want to go home because I’m just scared of going home.” And the conversation would stop there. We’d spend lots of time coaxing, convincing, trying to understand what it was. It was usually a fear that their caregiver would get hurt or they would get hurt at home. So again, it’s the fear—the psychological fear of it all was so overwhelming for them to even consider. So having a tool like this that, either the clinician at home care could bring or have it at home there for them to use, would just alleviate a lot of those psychological barriers—as well as give a practical tool that you could use to get people up off the ground. Because really, like Tracey was saying, a lot of the falls aren’t devastating—

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

One minute.

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Ms. Suling Duong

It’s just lowering to the ground after getting something, like a pot out of a drawer. Very daily living kind of stuff becomes dangerous and, in their heads, a potential fall. It’s not that they get hurt. They’re not hurt. They don’t have the lower extremity strength to stand back up again. They just need someone to help bring this over, get their butt on it and get up.

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Ms. Jess Dixon

How long would a pilot have to be?

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Ms. Tracey McGillivray

The pilot could be as short as six months to measure it.

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Ms. Jess Dixon

Thank you.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

Thank you—25 seconds, MPP Smith.

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Mr. Dave Smith

Is there an off-road version of this, because I’m looking at rural Ontario saying that somebody’s going want to be doing something in their garden, and that is not going to be effective in the yard.

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Ms. Tracey McGillivray

There are no knockoffs. We are patent protected in 42 countries as well, and—

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Mr. Dave Smith

An off-road version—something that you could use on your lawn.

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Ms. Tracey McGillivray

Oh, I’m sorry—

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

I’m afraid the time is up. MPP Sattler? Interjection.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

Whoa, whoa, whoa—time is up.

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Ms. Tracey McGillivray

Oh, I’m sorry.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

MPP Bell.

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Ms. Jessica Bell

How about you just respond by briefly answering MPP Smith’s question, and then I’ll get to my questions?

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Ms. Tracey McGillivray

The way that the frame is designed, it’s not a rigid frame. It has a little bit of flexibility in it. It also has the larger tires so it can be used outdoors, and it can be used on things like grass; there are no other lifts that can be used on grass. It can be used on cobblestones because of the uneven terrain there; there is nothing else that can be used on cobblestones. Even a rollator walker—the traditional ones that are out there—because the frames are so stiff with the welding points out there, when you go over a cobble, two wheels lift off the ground, so it’s not stable. This one, only one wheel will lift. You’ve always got three points of contact with the ground, even on rough terrain, providing that stability. And the geometry—we took a ton of time focused on the geometry, with the balance and where we position things like the battery and the motors to give it some ballast at the bottom. So, the stability on this one—there’s nothing else that’s like it.

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Ms. Jessica Bell

Thank you so much. I very much appreciate it. My questions are focused on Simone Swail. Thank you so much for coming here today. In the last election and the election before that, we put forward a proposal to get government back into the business of building affordable housing—financing it, working with municipalities, co-ops, developers and non-profit developers—so it’s really good to see you here. I have some specific questions. I have a question about your first ask, around changing the Housing Services Act and changing the provincial service agreement. If it was going to be changed in the way that you wanted—something that we certainly support—how much would it cost municipal service providers, and what would it cover exactly? Who would benefit?

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Ms. Simone Swail

It’s a really interesting question, because what we have right now is a patchwork. We deal specifically, co-op housing, with 31 service managers across Ontario. There are 47 service managers in DSSABs. I would say about half of them—or about the ones that serve, certainly, co-op housing—are already providing interim rental assistance. They recognize that there is no long-term benefit to putting these providers into financial risk while they are negotiating their service agreement. So, half of it is already there. The other half is who we need some help with the province to bring to the table. It’s very difficult to run negotiations with 15 service managers. Some of these locations are quite small. So, it really would a little bit depend. I know that’s not a great answer, but we’re talking about helping to provide the rental assistance for what we would say is maybe 7,500 households across the province based on the very affordable co-op rent, as it is. We’re not talking, actually, about a huge amount of money, but what we’re talking about is creating an environment where there can be a fair negotiation. Because it’s really hard for a small community organization to have a real negotiation with a service manager about the next 10 to 20 years when they are losing money every single day.

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Ms. Jessica Bell

That makes sense. Thanks for putting a number on that, that it would affect about 7,500 households, essentially people who are low, moderate income and needing a subsidy so they can stay in their co-op housing. The second question I had is around the $150-million loan guarantee. It seems very practical to me to allow provincial Ontario co-ops to access federal funding and also private capital from banks. Have you done any kind of estimate on, if this loan guarantee were in the budget, what kind of co-op construction it could spur in terms of numbers?

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Ms. Simone Swail

Yes, that is a really great question. We’re actually just in the process of working this through, because we are trying to be an innovative partner here. We’re recognizing the mandate of this particular government and what they’re trying to achieve, and we are trying to figure out what is the opportunity here. We are actually in the process of developing it. I don’t have the number for you today, but I will provide it to everyone on the committee as soon as we have it. But what we know is there is a substantial amount of money that could be accessed, and there is real interest by developers with our co-op housing development program.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

One minute.

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Ms. Simone Swail

Why we’re speaking to you at this moment is that developers are coming to us now. They want to develop this housing, and nothing else is being built right now. This is a real opportunity.

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Ms. Jessica Bell

Yes, I’m excited to see those numbers. This seems like a very cheap way to spur the construction of non-market and affordable housing. My final question is around offering incentives to municipalities if municipalities meet affordable housing targets. I would love it if the government required municipalities to track affordable housing targets; they don’t yet. What kind of incentives do you think the provincial government could provide municipalities if they build more affordable housing?

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Ms. Simone Swail

I mean, there are all sorts of opportunities. I think the Housing Accelerator Fund has shown that municipalities can respond when the province provides incentives. So we would of course incentivize—that they should get additional financial support, whether that is through existing portals like COCHI, OPHI—those dollars are largely committed—or we would highly recommend new funding—

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

Thank you very much. That concludes the time for that question. MPP Cerjanec.

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Mr. Rob Cerjanec

Through you, Chair: Thank you, Simone—very nice to see you again. I’ve been doing a lot of work in the housing sector, going back over 10 years, and I tend to see a bit of the same theme around challenges with service managers as it varies from municipality to municipality. Some service managers tend to do very well and are very responsive; other service managers don’t. Part of this is that it’s downloaded at the municipal level. What needs to change in order to ensure we can preserve and protect co-op housing with a lot less stress?

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Ms. Simone Swail

I think, long-term, we could look at some of the structures that are in place. Maybe 47 service managers might be too many across the province. But certainly, I think there is a role, and part of the tension here is for the province to come to the table with for funding for social housing. The reality is this is the only province in the country where housing has been downloaded to municipal service managers, and that creates real tension, because it’s one of the largest items on municipal budgets. Every year, year in, year out, it’s the cost of affordable housing, so I think that would be a key place to start. We could look a full-scale review of legislation to see how we could make things better. But this is a critical moment, and service agreements were supposed to be—and we worked very closely with the government on it to solve some of this problem and to bring that long-term vision. But again, 47 service managers are really, I think, probably a big part of the problem.

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Mr. Rob Cerjanec

Thank you. What can the province be doing to leverage some of the equity within existing co-ops in order to spur some new affordable homes?

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Ms. Simone Swail

That is such a fantastic question, because we do have all of these assets across the province with billions in real estate assets. Part of it with rental assistance at reasonable, real rates—then we can refinance with the private sector. We’ve done that just for, to date, the rehabilitation of our buildings. We’ve accessed over $300 million from the private sector to ensure that these co-ops are in good condition going forward for future generations. That is a real opportunity. So that’s one piece of it. For going forward: Again, it’s about also doing things differently. One thing we would love to see as we are developing co-ops is to structure things a little bit differently. We still want the decision-making around the community done in that place, but using organizations like land trusts, other co-ops—we call them co-ops of co-ops—will help us to better leverage the overall real estate assets to create an engine for continued development and growth. That is something we are very actively pursuing.

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Mr. Rob Cerjanec

And that would help create more of an entrepreneurial not-for-profit housing sector as well, right?

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Ms. Simone Swail

Absolutely. I mean, one of the problems—small is beautiful in that there’s such spectacular feedback to your community, but what it doesn’t allow for is that expertise to grow. We certainly are at the forefront of working with CMHC, service managers, others, looking at how we can aggregate. There are some examples. There’s a land trust in Toronto; 32 co-ops are part of that land trust, and they are spurring the development now—and fantastic partnership with the city of Toronto, a co-op housing development that is happening there, and they are creating real assets that will continue growth for future generations.

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Mr. Rob Cerjanec

Now, with the Building Ontario Fund, I think, in principle, it’s a good idea, especially when we’re looking at some of these bigger projects, but it requires scale. It requires larger investments in it. So I think this is an interesting suggestion around a $150-million affordable housing construction guarantee program to leverage lending from the private sector. Are there potential opportunities—or do you think there should be—around bundling projects and then going to the Building Ontario Fund?

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Ms. Simone Swail

Absolutely. One thing we’ve seen in another province—in Nova Scotia, it started off with a couple of co-op projects that were actually in difficulty. We bundled those together into one community.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

One minute.

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Ms. Simone Swail

That community is now growing and building a number of co-ops all across the province. We can do that here. When we bundle projects, they can then also help reach the Building Ontario Fund as a $150-million project minimum. But the truth is, some of our projects are reaching that target on their own. The cost of building in Ontario is so high. The scale of development that we’re trying to reach right now is kind of the future, but bundling is certainly a great way to get there when you’re doing it smaller. If you’re doing it smaller in towns across the province, that would be a spectacular way to meet that target, to help them access those better loans that will make a huge difference on their overall development.

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Mr. Rob Cerjanec

I think the human impact will be that folks of my generation and younger—and folks who are a bit older as well—struggling with housing insecurity would be able to have a safe, affordable place to live.

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Ms. Simone Swail

Absolutely.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

Thank you very much. We’ll now go to MPP Clancy.

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Ms. Aislinn Clancy

I’d like to start off with our co-op friends. We’re looking at 85,000 people who are homeless right now. Half of those people are underhoused or precariously housed, and that’s going up to 175,000 to 300,000 people in the next decade. I know even Scotiabank has recommended building hundreds of thousands of affordable homes as a way to support our economy. Can you talk about some of the cost savings to hospitals, jails, front-line EMS when we alleviate pressure from the social and financial cost of homelessness on municipalities, when we can offer people a stable, safe place to live?

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Ms. Simone Swail

Absolutely. We spend billions on shelters in Ontario. Those shelters absolutely need that funding, but that is not helping solve the housing crisis at all. We really need to flip on our head the way we think about housing in Ontario. When you speak about shelters—and I don’t have the most recent numbers in front of me, but on the average, it can be $16,000 for a very basic room. If you’re talking about hospital beds, you’re talking about $40,000 a month for that hospital bed, for folks to be in a place they don’t really need to be. The cost of an affordable home is on the order of a couple of thousand dollars a month to the province. It would make a massive difference to provincial budgets across the line if we actually started to get ahead of this problem and build the affordable housing that we know our communities need. This is something advocates have been saying to governments for a very, very long time.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

One minute.

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Ms. Simone Swail

What I hope that we see right now is that we can add in the benefit to the jobs in the construction industry to really spur action in the development of affordable housing so we can realize those massive financial gains that we would have by investing in affordable housing.

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Ms. Aislinn Clancy

And if I may say, I think if we could combine these two, where we have accessible units like you’re building in St. Catharines—I have to say, $5,000 is not a lot. A power chair costs over $50,000 and beyond, and people are generally only covered 75% of that cost. To me, $5,000 of savings in an accessible unit would prevent our society, as we hit the silver tsunami, a great deal of humanitarian cost and financial cost on the system and burnout of front-line staff. Thanks to both of you for coming today. Hopefully you could collaborate. I’d like to see the pilot happen in these accessible units to see how many folks we can alleviate and move out of hospitals, out of long-term care, and keep their integrity and help them age at home. Thanks to all of you for coming today.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

Thank you very much. MPP Babikian.

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