Monday, April 13, 2026

The House met at 0900.

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The Speaker (Hon. Donna Skelly)

Good morning, everyone. Let us pray.

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Prayers.

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The Speaker (Hon. Donna Skelly)

And now a moment of silence for inner thought and personal reflection.

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Resuming the debate adjourned on April 1, 2026, on the motion for second reading of the following bill:

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Bill 98, An Act to enact the Fare Alignment and Seamless Transit Act, 2026 and to amend various Acts / Projet de loi 98, Loi édictant la Loi de 2026 sur l’harmonisation des tarifs et l’intégration des transports en commun et modifiant diverses lois.

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The Speaker (Hon. Donna Skelly)

Further debate?

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Mr. Mike Schreiner

It’s always an honour to get up and rise in this House, especially when we have the opportunity to debate the housing crisis, which is the number one crisis facing families in this province and driving the affordability crisis that so many people are facing as they have this impossible choice of paying the rent, paying the mortgage, and putting food on the table. Bill 98 is a bill that makes some important changes around the edges that in some respects can be positive, and I’m going to talk about that, but it also makes some changes that are going to set us back and make life less affordable for people, and that in some respects just don’t quite meet the moment—the bold moment that we need to address this housing crisis. To put this in context: Right now, housing starts in Ontario are at historic lows. Housing prices are at historic highs. There is no city in Ontario where a full-time minimum wage worker can afford average monthly rent. And, tragically, over 85,000 people in this province do not have a place to sleep tonight and are experiencing homelessness. So we need bold, ambitious, pragmatic actions to solve this crisis. There are some things in this bill that will move us forward. The changes to lot sizes and making them smaller is a good thing, something we’ve been advocating for. It makes a lot of sense. We utilize land more efficiently, which makes homes more affordable and makes opportunities for municipalities to service housing more affordable. We know how expensive low-density sprawl is. If you look at most of the housing record of this particular government over the last eight years, it has been about, “How do we incentivize low-density sprawl to benefit a handful of wealthy, well-connected land speculators to cash in billions and billions of dollars at the expense of homes that everyday people can afford?” So moving forward on changes to lot sizes is a good thing. Clarifying the rules around site planning is a good thing. I can’t tell you how many builders talk to me about the fact that one of the things that’s slowing down quickly increasing the supply of new housing is challenges around site planning. I want to say, if we can fix that, if we can make it more efficient and speed it up, I’m all for it. It’s going to help builders move faster, quicker, which is going to help them save money. The changes to development charges, something the Ontario Greens have been pushing for over and over again: It’s finally great to see the federal and provincial governments working together to do this in a way that makes municipalities whole. We can’t transfer the cost of new home building off of new home owners and put it on the backs of existing property tax payers who are struggling right now with these Ford-government-inspired property tax increases you’re seeing in municipalities across the province. They simply can’t afford to do more. But I will say the government’s rules around development charges should be done in a way that doesn’t incentivize low-density sprawl development, which is actually going to put more costs on the back of municipalities. It costs 2.5 times more to service low-density sprawl than to service homes built within existing urban boundaries, where—many planners have shown quite clearly, we already have enough land within existing urban boundaries to build over two million homes in Ontario. This government is not even going to get close to their goal of 1.5 million, but we have enough land already approved. We should restrict the development charge changes to homes built within existing urban boundaries. That way, we don’t incur additional costs on municipalities for additional infrastructure because the infrastructure is already in place within most existing urban boundaries. It will save taxpayers tremendous amounts of money, it will lower the cost of new home construction, and it will help us speed up construction. So let’s do development charge changes. Let’s do it in the right way to save people and municipalities money. Let’s get into some difficult changes in this bill. Removing the requirement for green development standards: Taking that away from municipalities and making it a volunteer instead of a mandatory standard is going to set Ontario back. It means we’re going to build less energy-efficient homes, which are cheaper to operate. So at a time when we’re seeing gas prices go through the roof, at a time when so many families are struggling to figure out how to buy groceries, heat and cool their homes, pay the rent, pay the mortgage, this government is going to make policies that will help lower operating costs, help people save money by saving energy—they’re going to get rid of. The other thing that’s going to happen is, there are going to be other unintended consequences. FLAP Canada did a fantastic event on the weekend that I attended, that shows how many birds die by hitting building windows. Green building standards in Toronto prevent that from happening by having mandatory bird-friendly glass in those windows. Those are standards that are being internationally recognized. There was a company there—bird friendlier—who talked about how they are getting work all across the world, creating good jobs right here in Ontario, based on the standards that exist around bird-friendly windows, and now Ontario is going to get rid of those. The rest of the world is saying, “You guys are doing great things in Ontario. We’re going to do this.” And this government wants to get rid of it, and it’s going to increase the number of birds we lose. I think that’s wrong. It’s wrong for nature, and it’s wrong for our quality of life, especially when simple, low-cost solutions exist that actually—Ontario companies are innovating and moving forward, benefiting our economy at the same time. The second thing is, the provisions around removing EV charger mandates for parking lots and new home construction is also going to set back affordability for people. There was a recent study done—and it particularly pertains to me because I drive a Chevy Equinox EV. If you look at the cost of a gas-powered Chevy Equinox versus an electric vehicle Chevy Equinox, the electric vehicle will save the average owner over $22,000 during the course of the lifetime of that vehicle. But the challenge increasingly is, where do you charge those vehicles? The number of EVs on the road are exceeding the charging capacity of this province. We’ve had a government—and I complimented the government for this—spending billions and billions of dollars to incentivize electric vehicle manufacturing in the province of Ontario. That is critically important to the future of our economy. It’s critically important to creating jobs. But who is going to buy those vehicles? They’ve taken the rebates away. Now they’re taking the charging mandates away. I can tell you, I’ve been driving all electric for almost eight years now. I used to easily get access to chargers wherever I went. Interjection.

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Mr. Mike Schreiner

Thank you for that. I’m saving lots of money. I’m just telling you guys, you fiscal conservatives over there, you should be driving EVs to save money. It’s good for the environment too, by the way. But it’s increasingly becoming difficult to access a charger. I can’t tell you how many times I go to charge my electric vehicle and all the chargers are full because so many people like me want to take advantage of the lower cost of operating an electric vehicle, and they know it’s going to make our climate better. If we don’t have chargers for them, then it’s going to create a disincentive for people taking advantage of that. Yet this government is removing the mandates around having chargers in place. That not only hurts electric vehicle drivers and the environment and everything else, but it actually hurts the investment this government has made in building an EV manufacturing sector. So you only have half a strategy. If we’re going to truly take advantage of the generational jobs in electric vehicle manufacturing, we need to ensure that people have a place to charge and they can afford those electric vehicles.

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The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Effie J. Triantafilopoulos)

Questions?

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Ms. Sandy Shaw

Thank you to the to the member for Guelph. I just want to bring your attention to Metrolinx. This government has given Metrolinx more unchecked power, and they’ve exempted them from having to apply for building permits. We know that Metrolinx is awash in VPs—they have 124 VPs, one VP for every MPP in the province—and they have now a really disturbing pattern of safety problems. Our leader, Marit Stiles, has asked the Auditor General to investigate. There is a report that was revealed by the Toronto Star that there was a near derailment, a near miss in Metrolinx, and it was only revealed by investigation. This is an organization that’s awash in VPs. They are not transparent. They don’t bring anything on budget, on time. Now they have safety concerns. Why in heaven’s name would this government give this organization more unfettered power when we need someone to be on top of this organization that costs us so much in terms of taxpayers and puts people’s lives at risk?

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Mr. Mike Schreiner

I appreciate the member’s question. Yes, Metrolinx needs a complete overhaul. It is so top-heavy. So much money is being wasted on all these vice-president positions, and yet transit is not being delivered on budget and is not being delivered on time. As a matter of fact, we’ve been waiting for all-day, two-way GO on the Guelph-Kitchener line, it feels like forever now. I was told back in 2014 it was going to happen within a few years. It’s now 2026, and Metrolinx just announced another delay in it happening. So I think this whole organization needs a complete overhaul. To give it more power, especially unaccountable power, and especially when the government is taking away freedom-of-information request opportunities—I am deeply concerned about what’s going to happen here, and I share the member’s concerns with the question.

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The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Effie J. Triantafilopoulos)

Question?

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Mme Lucille Collard

Thank you to the member for Guelph. I love to talk about EVs. I also drive an EV. I know you know we’ve had those discussions before, for years now. When this government took power eight years ago, one of the first things that they did was cancel all green projects and rip out EV charger stations. Because of that, we have a challenge today in finding those chargers when we travel. Now that the government has seen a financial benefit to encouraging EVs because of the battery business, they’re encouraging people to drive EVs, without providing more charging stations. I’ve been to Guelph, actually, in the last few months, a number of times, and there was no way I could charge my car in Guelph. So you’ve got to do something about this, Mike. What would you recommend the government do to be consistent with its encouragement to produce more EVs—to make it accessible to everyone in Ontario?

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Mr. Mike Schreiner

I appreciate the member’s question. I’ve got to say, as the MPP for Guelph, we do have to do better on high-speed chargers. We have the automotive dealership in Canada that has the largest per capita sales of electric vehicles—it’s where I bought my electric vehicle—and yet we only have three high-speed chargers in the entire city of 150,000 people. It’s a big issue, 100%. Do you know what? Here’s what people tell me all the time: We need to have mandates in place—that when new homes are being built, especially in multi-residential buildings, they at the very least need to rough in charging infrastructure, because it will be way cheaper than to put those chargers in later, when there is more demand for chargers. But as the member just noted, there is already sufficient demand. We do not have enough chargers in Ontario now. Five years ago, we had enough; today, we don’t. The government removing these mandates is only going to make it worse.

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The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Effie J. Triantafilopoulos)

A very quick question and response.

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Hon. Graham McGregor

Thank you to my colleagues from the Green Party and the Liberals. I note that they both drive electric vehicles—my colleague from Guelph, for the last eight years. I drive a 2010 Honda Accord. It’s a great car, a V6 engine—sorry to my colleague across—270 horsepower. It’s a great vehicle. I’m just wondering—because the member from the Liberals talked about more chargers being available under the previous government than today—can my colleague across confirm, are there more chargers under the PC government of today or the Liberal government of yesteryear?

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Mr. Mike Schreiner

I appreciate the question. And by the way, congratulations. I know you had a personal milestone last week, and I think we all want to congratulate you. Interjections.

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Mr. Mike Schreiner

I will just say that there are not enough EV chargers given the number of EVs on the road. If we’re going to incentivize EV manufacturing, we have to have enough chargers.

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The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Effie J. Triantafilopoulos)

Further debate?

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Hon. Michael S. Kerzner

I am so happy to stand today and talk about the future of Ontario and to talk, specifically, about Bill 98, Building Homes and Improving Transportation Infrastructure Act. I want to speak for a minute and set the stage as to why I really want to congratulate the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, the associate minister—the member from Parry Sound–Muskoka—and everyone in our caucus who believes that now is the time to be bold and visionary. Now is the time when we’re staring down the barrel of a gun—it’s not only the threat of US tariffs and what they’re doing to our economy; it’s seeing them actually here and knowing that in Ontario and in Canada we have used this time judiciously to reinvent ourselves and to understand that in our province there’s nothing we can’t do, there’s nothing we can’t achieve. As I’ve said before, I am proud that in this province of Ontario, we all have an equal place to belong, to contribute and to succeed. I’m really proud of that. I can’t help but say, when I’ve had the privilege for almost four years of serving as the Solicitor General, the minister responsible for public safety in our province, and seeing our first responders first-hand in their place of work, at graduations, in our correctional facilities, in our police stations, in our fire halls—I’ve seen the animal welfare inspectors in action. I’ve gone to the coroner’s office. I’ve been to the Centre of Forensic Sciences. At each opportunity, I realized these are people who wanted to come forward to make a difference to our public safety. But these are real people too, who want to have the ability of home ownership, just like we all want. The Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing has said many times that one of the problems facing us is that it takes too long and it costs too much. If we remember that line that he has made many times—“It takes too long, and it costs too much.” It’s because, left unchecked, the way that things have progressed for decades—the bureaucracy to get a building permit, the wanting of a person to build a home or a series of homes, an understanding that they don’t have the municipal services to do it. And what we want to do, including in Bill 98, that I think is a great component, is bring in this communal water concept—also allowing that the service corporations will have a role to play, because we have to continue to expand the services to bring more houses online. Bill 98 showcases the importance of our homes and the role that a home plays in a person’s life. I was lucky, although the economics looked different in the 1990s, just before I got married—and many members of this Legislature will tell the story of when they finally, in their day, had enough courage to move out of their parents’ home. This was a big step—moving out of your parents’ home and understanding what would be the first place that you would occupy. Some would rent an apartment. Some would put a down payment on a condo. Some would even go further and put a down payment on a house. When you go back to the 1970s and 1980s and 1990s—and for people in this Legislature, that’s our generation. We knew what it was like to take that first step. I want to go back even further, to the time when my grandparents had an opportunity to not only build but buy their first home. That is something that we have to go back to the 1930s and 1940s for. The 1930s were the Depression era. People didn’t have a dollar. What people would do is work two or three jobs—maybe similar, actually, to today—and they would find a way of finding a few dollars and making a deposit. My dad, Max, who will be 95 in a few months, reminded me that when he was a baby, born in Toronto in 1931, his family moved five or six times—interestingly, all around the corner to where we are, to Huron Street, to D’Arcy Street, to Wells Street and other streets. Along the way, what he told me about my grandparents the late Sam and Sarah Kerzner was that they would rent out rooms in their home so that the family would be able to fulfill a dream of owning a home. Gradually, as they worked even harder, they were able to occupy a home—a single home. People know that in the area around where we are, the homes are small. They had seven kids, but they made it work. Along the way, in the 1940s and 1950s—and in the 1960s, when my parents, Max and Dolly Kerzner, got married, they aspired, after getting married, to own a home. They went up to Bayview and York Mills, which was probably—and people might remember that period of the Windfields Farm. This was E.P. Taylor’s area that he was developing. He was selling homes—again, by relative standards; they were relative to the days. Whether you could buy a home for $20,000 or $30,000 and get a mortgage for 4% or 5% in the early 1960s, people made it work. They worked hard, and they paid off the mortgage monthly. They tried to raise a family and to be part of a community, growing Toronto in the 1960s, of which I was a part. I was lucky to grow up in the area of Bayview and York Mills, which was a new subdivision at that time. I really benefited from the parks and the schools that were being built and the infrastructure that the government, led by Premier William Davis—wow, if there was one person other than our Premier, the Honourable Doug Ford, who I most aspire to be like, it would be Premier Davis, followed by Premier Mike Harris, because they believed in our province. Parce que nous croyons en notre province et en notre avenir, et ensemble, nous bâtissons l’Ontario. We say it because we have to believe in our province. And we know when we build our province together, we’ll leave something for the next generation. Bill 98 is important because we acknowledge a number of things—that things have changed from the 1930s, 1940s and the 1960s. The 1930s and 1940s—when my grandparents placed their first deposit. And on my mom’s side of the family—and I’ve spoken about my late grandfather Murray Penwick, who bought a home, firstly, on Cherrywood Avenue in the Vaughan-St. Clair area. He, as a pharmacist, put a deposit down on a little store at the end of the street and had his first pharmacy. Those were different times. What we have learned now, in 2026—and I’ll repeat it again: It takes too long and it costs too much to build a home in Ontario. The problem is completely undeniable. I’ve had a chance to speak to people who are building homes—and firstly, I want to acknowledge the great work that our incredible Minister of Finance has done by removing the HST on new homes. If you read the Globe and Mail just today, it was quite interesting but not surprising that since the government of Ontario, led by Premier Ford, made this incredible announcement, the phones are ringing again. People are calling developers and they’re coming forward and saying, “This is our chance to get into the home ownership opportunity.” In 1996, when my wife and I were getting married and we put a deposit on a home in Bathurst Manor, in the riding of York Centre that I live in today—we never moved out. I’m so proud that my wife and I were able to not only say at the ballot box twice, “We live in the riding,” but—we’re so proud of it. When we had an opportunity to make a deposit on a home, we were scared. We didn’t know how the future would fare. We didn’t know what the value of a home would be. We were fortunate a few years later, after we had three kids, we realized—like many families, you outgrow a home. You want to make sure that the priority is always for our children—that they should be close to a school, if possible; that they should be close to a park. I remember my father—when it came time to buy our first home, he said, “These are things that are important. You have to have a backyard for the kids to play. You have to live on a side of a street that allows kids to play when they get older—road hockey, kick the soccer ball around where it’s safe.” Home ownership was important then, and it’s very important today. And one of the reasons why I think we have turned the corner in terms of encouraging people to take that first step is because we laid the foundation to make sure that protecting Ontario means protecting us. As I’ve said before—public safety perspective, yes. As Solicitor General, I’m very passionate about it. From a health care perspective, I was at our incredible Humber River Hospital, where we welcomed, last Friday—the Minister of Health and the Premier and my colleague from Humber River–Black Creek across the aisle—a visionary donation of $50 million from Jay and Barbara Hennick and their family, who believe in our visionary approach to our province. When we look at housing, one of the things that we want to do is standardize, as an example, and simplify the official plan. We want to standardize it across the province so people know what they’re getting. We want to standardize the fact that, as we know—and I was in that business for a long time with my father and my uncle. We were small builders, and we took after my late grandfather, who may have claimed the fame that he built the first angular carport in the 1950s. If somebody lives in a home from 1950 and you see the angular carport—the reason I used to say, “Why didn’t you build a garage?” They said, “It was too expensive. We wanted to pass the savings on to a person in the Victoria Park and Sheppard area”—the area we call today Wishing Well. In that area, my grandfather built a few homes. What we want to do is make it simple where it became cumbersome. The conversation of standardizing the process of one obtaining a building permit in a period of time that allows somebody to get the job done—“It costs too much, and it takes too long.” We have to remember those words from the Minister of Housing and the associate minister, my friend from Parry Sound–Muskoka. We want to move forward, and we want to be bolder. We want to move forward with our plan for the municipal service corporations to help municipalities finance critical infrastructure, getting key waste water facilities in place. It’s a model that has to evolve. This whole concept, by the way, of municipal service corporations is to work with pension funds and other funds that taxpayers are part of, because these funds should help build Ontario. When we read the statements of pension funds across Canada—I remind them all the time that Ontario is a great place to invest, because when you invest, you’re helping your members every single day. And this is something I’m very, very proud of. We want to make sure that we don’t leave anybody behind. We want to make sure that we’re there for our seniors. That’s why, when we look at the record of building long-term-care homes, our government has already—through Bill 17, the building faster and smarter act—exempted long-term-care homes from development charges. When I came to this place almost four years ago in the class of 2022, I was amazed by the opportunity that we had in front of us. Whether it be things that I learned along the way, both as the MPP from York Centre but also as Solicitor General—I understood that we had limitless potential. We had nothing but opportunity to be bold. Yes, we knew we were not going to get the problem solved on day one. But all of us will tell a story of our seniors, some being our own parents—or my friend from Niagara West, perhaps his grandparents, or others who have grandparents alive. We want to make sure that we don’t forget our seniors. That’s why exempting the long-term-care homes from development charges will make a difference. We want to bring the cost of housing down in Ontario. One of the ways we do it, as the Premier has said, is to lay the groundwork, lay the foundation for people to invest. There is no doubt that the times we find ourselves in are scary for everyone in Canada. Now is the time to unite. Now is the time for governments of different levels, federal and municipal, to work together.

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Hon. Michael S. Kerzner

And I’m very proud that our government, led by Premier Ford, is continuing to work day and night with the municipal governments of Ontario and our federal government. Nobody has an exclusive for patriotism and loving our country more than one to another. Go back to the anthem. I’ve said it in this chamber before—what does it mean, in the second stanza: “True patriot love in all of us command”? Again, what are we commanded to do? We’re commanded to love our province, to take care of everyone who lives here, to be responsible to the taxpayers who are allowing governments to exist, to understand that the role of the government is to make sure that we lay the seeds for people to invest. We know, as the Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade has shown us, there’s a multiplier effect by every investment, whether you’re in the southern part of Ontario or—today, I spoke to friends in Kapuskasing. And I want to thank the people, especially up north. Madam Speaker, it’s easy to say that you represent an urban riding in Toronto—and it’s true, it’s easy to say it, simply because the size of our ridings relative to rural ridings is much smaller. Yes, I’m fortunate—on a nice summer’s day, as I do in the summer, I walk weekly the four corners of our riding. I can see people gardening. I can see people in their backyard. I can see families whose kids are growing up right in front of me. I can see people who want to have a dream fulfilled. In my own family, where I’m blessed to have three children, Seth, Aaron and Shaina, I want one day for them to have everything that my father and mother were able to give to me and my brothers. This concept of home ownership shouldn’t just be a dream that skips a generation. No. That will never be acceptable for our government, led by the Premier. We’re not going to let that happen. We’re going to continue to evolve. We’re going to continue to make sure that this concept of being visionaries, of imagining things that we could solve, imagining ways of getting things done quicker and making sure that this moniker, which we must one day—and we say it’s undeniable; we can’t let that define us. It costs too much, and it takes too long—I’m saying it differently. This bill that we’ve had the privilege of speaking to today is another example of a government that is not afraid to be bold. Bill 98 helps move the needle. I’ll go back to where I started. I’ve had the honour of a lifetime to meet thousands of our people who proudly wear uniforms and keep us safe. They raise their families. Their kids play in the park. Their spouses go to work. At the end of the day, they shop. At the end of the day, they want to have a place to worship. It all revolves around the concept of home ownership. Our government’s responsibility is to be bold when others tell us to be quiet. We will stand up. We will never stop in believing in our province and in our future, parce que nous croyons en notre province et notre avenir. Et madame la Présidente, ensemble, nous bâtissons l’Ontario.

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The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Effie J. Triantafilopoulos)

Questions?

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Ms. Jessica Bell

My question is to the member opposite. I would like your opinion on schedule 4. Schedule 4, the Fare Alignment and Seamless Transit Act, allows the minister to set the TTC, Toronto’s, fare structure. It also allows the government to take money from the TTC and give it to other transit agencies, which could mean that Toronto will be subsidizing York’s and Peel’s transit agencies instead of keeping that money within Toronto. My question to the minister is, is this government looking at increasing fares on the TTC?

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Hon. Michael S. Kerzner

I want to say proudly that the Amalgamated Transit Union is located in York Centre. I have a great relationship—and I want to shout out to Marvin Alfred, who is its president. I speak to President Marvin Alfred on a regular basis. We spoke about this, actually—what the member just referred to—and I said to Marvin Alfred, as part of his leadership at the ATU, that we’re going to speak to stakeholders. The Minister of Transportation said that. And we’re going to make sure that we will always stand with everyone, not only to keep us safe, but to provide the motion for us to go to work every day on our transit.

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The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Effie J. Triantafilopoulos)

Question?

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Mr. Mike Schreiner

I appreciate the Solicitor General’s remarks. Also, you talked about your support for first responders. I want to thank you for the many visits you make to my riding to support both police and fire services in Guelph. The member talked about the need to standardize things across the province with a building code review. The housing affordability task force, which I admit issued its report prior to the member’s election in 2022, said two of the most important standardized changes that could be made to incentivize building more homes that people can afford is to legalize fourplexes and mid-rises as-of-right across the province of Ontario. Would the member agree with the government’s own housing task force that that would be a bold step forward in building homes people can afford in communities they know and love?

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Hon. Michael S. Kerzner

I want to say to the member from Guelph how much I appreciate his support of his local fire service and his police service. I really appreciate it very much. At the end of the day, it goes back to what the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing has said: If we have to address something that’s undeniable, that it costs too much and it takes too long, we have to be bold. I hope to say that we have to continue to evolve. Bill 98 before us today takes that first step. The member from Guelph has said in this House many times suggestions that we debate, and this is something that—we’re not going to leave any stone unturned. We’re going to continue to be bold, and we’re going to continue to be visionary.

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The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Effie J. Triantafilopoulos)

Questions?

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Mr. Jonathan Tsao

Speaker, my honourable colleague across mentioned a number of communities that have been built up over the years, that actually surround my own riding. As a younger person today, in my own riding, where I have been born and raised, the dream of home ownership unfortunately has become just that—a dream—for many people. When you speak to housing experts, the experts will tell you that in order to get people to that dream of home ownership, not only do we need a government that is making the rules easier; we also need to support the entire housing spectrum, because it’s a continuum. There’s not just one point that we need to focus on. The government itself committed to 1.5 million homes about eight years ago—a number that this government now refuses to even speak about, and for understandable reasons. What do you plan to do to support the entire spectrum of housing to make sure that this dream of home ownership is able to be alive still today?

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L’hon. Michael S. Kerzner

Je voudrais remercier mon collègue pour cette question pertinente. At the end of the day, we have to make sure that if we set a goal to build a large number of homes, we get that thing done. But we had a few things that happened in the way—we had a pandemic; now we have the undeniable threats of tariffs. We have to make sure, as an example, that by removing the HST, that we did as part of the Minister of Finance’s budget, on new homes—that has encouraged people. I’d ask my friend opposite—check with your builders there to see whether their phones are now ringing. But this undeniable burdensome permitting that takes forever, the development charges in Toronto that are ridiculous, and the fact that to get any permit issued in the city of Toronto you’ll wait till you become a grandfather—we have to move past that.

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The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Effie J. Triantafilopoulos)

Questions?

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Mr. Matthew Rae

Thank you to the Solicitor General for his great remarks. He actually touched on the subject I was going to ask about this morning; it was around development charges. I know in Bill 60 and Bill 17—earlier in this Parliament, last fall, we’ve tabled and this assembly has passed those bills. The work around development charges, making sure people understand what is included in those development charges, working with our municipal partners to get a greater understanding of that—it should go to infrastructure. It should go to pipes in the ground. Unfortunately, in some municipalities, that doesn’t go to those infrastructure investments, and it goes to general reserves and sits there. I was wondering if the Solicitor General can talk about how this bill before this place further builds on that important work on improving transparency around development charges and what’s included in those, so we can continue to cut taxes on homes and get more homes built.

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Hon. Michael S. Kerzner

I want to thank my great friend from Perth–Wellington. I know, as a new father, he’s waiting, one day, to figure out a plan—that his newborn baby will move out of his home—with his wife, Meghan, but not today. The reality is, it’s so obvious: What this bill tells us is, whether we’re looking to cut red tape—and we have a great Minister of Red Tape Reduction, our member from Barrie–Innisfil. If we’re looking at ways of making it clearer and more transparent to a developer, knowing that there will be certainty to get a permit, understanding where the development charges are going—but at the end of the day, most people don’t understand. And the member is 100% right; the development charges have sat in a private bank account—that didn’t go to what they should have gone to, to build the infrastructure. That’s why we’re changing that.

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The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Effie J. Triantafilopoulos)

Questions?

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Mr. Chris Glover

I want to thank the member for his comments. This government has the worst housing record of any province in the country. So I’ve got a suggestion for you. The Ontario Line runs through my riding. There are a number of stations. The government owns the property over the stations. They’re going to be building housing there. Why aren’t you going to mandate that 30% of that housing be affordable housing? In the city of Toronto, Mayor Olivia Chow is doing that. She’s converting parking lots—she’s giving parking lots to developers in exchange for 30% of the units that are built to be affordable housing. Why don’t you do that with the Ontario Line stations?

Official source

Hon. Michael S. Kerzner

I want to thank my colleague opposite. At the end of the day, homes need to be affordable. What’s driving the inflationary cost of homes? It’s the development charges. It’s the fact that, especially in the last few years, people have been demotivated to want to build anything. As the Minister of Housing said—and we talked about it—it costs too much, and it takes too long. This bill goes forward—but specifically, what the member says is that we need to have more affordable rental housing units. We know—and the minister has said this—that the interesting thing that we’ve seen in recent days, in recent months, is that developers now will build rental housing. It’s the marketplace that’s driving the cost down, which is important. Rental home prices need to reflect the better economics—of making sure that they are affordable. One way we do that is, get rid of some of the onerous development charges that are preventing people from owning a home.

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The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Effie J. Triantafilopoulos)

Quick question and response.

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Mr. Jonathan Tsao

I just want to follow up with the minister, as he asked me if my phone is ringing off the hook from developers. No, it’s ringing off the hook from my constituents who can’t afford a home, because that’s who I speak to every day. I’m concerned about hearing from the minister the constant repetition of how this supports developers. If he wants to help get houses built in my riding, will he commit to build the Sheppard extension?

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Hon. Michael S. Kerzner

The member opposite knows I’m 100% in favour of seeing the Sheppard extension join from where my riding is to his riding. So 100%, yes; I want to see that get done.

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The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Effie J. Triantafilopoulos)

Further debate?

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Mr. Peter Tabuns

Happy Monday morning. There are a number of things to talk about in this bill, and I know my colleagues have addressed them earlier. There are some real causes for concern around the attacks on green development standards. And there is a very strange exemption for Metrolinx from provisions of the building code. Given the difficulties we’ve had with Metrolinx in my riding, the idea that they’re no longer going to be covered by the building code is a pretty odd thought. I will be curious to hear how the government justifies that. There are a number of concerns here around housing affordability. This bill does not legalize missing-middle housing options—as-of-right—in all neighbourhoods. If you’re concerned about making low-cost housing available quickly across Ontario, this would help tremendously. I’ll note, recently, I believe it was the mayor of Markham who used his strong-mayor powers to block this kind of housing—so no thanks to the government in making it more difficult for people to find a place to live. The government, in this bill, continues to rely solely on the for-profit, private market for delivery of all new housing, as if the collapse in developing housing in Ontario can be fixed with a tweak here and a tweak here, and a change to development charges. I don’t think it’s a bad idea to reduce the cost of building new housing. In fact, I think it’s a really good idea to reduce the cost of building new housing—going back to my earlier comments about missing middle and making it possible to build fourplexes all over the place. But the reality is that people who earn minimum wage are not going to be buying $1-million, $1.2-million homes. It’s not going to happen. The government needs to actually step in and have a housing agency, as we have had historically, to build housing for those parts of the population—and they are large—who do not actually have the purchasing power to participate in the market. That’s something that this government needs to address, and it’s not addressed in this bill. Frankly, one other huge affordability issue that needs to be addressed is real rent control, so that people who are living in rental housing in my riding, and many others, who are facing continuous increases in their rents, to the extent that people have said to me—and I had an 80-year-old come up to me at a meeting in an apartment lobby late last year, who said, “One more rent increase and I’m out. I can’t afford to buy groceries and pay rent,” in this fairly modest rental building in my riding. She said, “So do you have government housing options for me?” I had to say to her that it’s a 10-to-15-year waiting list. And her response was very simple: “I’ll be dead.” This government is not addressing the needs of a big chunk of the population who aren’t going to be buying new houses, and it isn’t addressing the needs of those who want to and may well be able to buy a new house, by actually taking the steps necessary to change regulations in this province. A few other comments: Seamless transit is a good idea. I take transit a lot. I’ve used the GO train to get out to Oshawa. I’ve used it to get out to Ajax. I’ve used it to get out to Mississauga, to Hamilton. I think that investing in more transit makes a lot of sense. But I don’t think that a minister-controlled fare hike with no accountability is a good idea. How is the minister actually going to determine what is a fare hike? Will the minister actually look at things in terms of affordability? Will the minister actually look at things in terms of the sustainability of the transit entity that he’s dealing with or she’s dealing with? That giving of power without accountability is not a reasonable or thoughtful approach to the problem that we’re facing. Putting money into transit? Absolutely. When Mike Harris cut funding for transit back in the 1990s, it had an immediate and obvious impact on the TTC—I can’t speak to other transit systems, because I don’t travel in transit in Hamilton and Ottawa. But I did see it in Toronto, and my suspicion is that transit systems all over were hurt badly by that withdrawal of funding—not being restored, not being addressed in this bill. The environmental standards for new housing and the attack on the efforts of local governments to actually do something about affordability, about the cost of operating those homes by reducing their energy needs, and the efforts of local governments to reduce emissions so that we deal with climate change are being undermined by this bill. And I find it weird, but this government effectively has abandoned action on climate change. As you’re well aware, it has abandoned its targets on greenhouse gas reductions. Am I totally surprised? I’m not, because I knew they weren’t going to make their targets, notwithstanding the statements of the Minister of the Environment in this House. The reality is that the climate crisis is there and things are deepening. For those who care about bottom lines rather than the impact on people: It is having a huge impact on insurance across North America. Insurers are withdrawing from jurisdictions where the impact of climate is making homes effectively uninsurable. So California, Louisiana, Florida are jurisdictions where there are areas that cannot get insurance. In those states, state governments have set up insurance companies that, I have to say, are deeply underfunded. We are facing a northern Ontario problem with people getting insurance, because of the increase in flooding that is, again, happening because of climate change. So we are seeing increased costs. This is a real phenomenon. This is a government that has responsibility for looking after the people of Ontario and is not paying attention to a fundamental issue that will determine the kind of future that we have. And going from water, I’m going to go to fire. The reality is that as the world gets hotter and as the interior of continents gets drier, we will see more fires in cities. You saw the fire in Los Angeles well over a year ago. That was a wake-up call to everyone. We’ve seen the fires in Fort McMurray, in Jasper—Lytton, British Columbia burned to the ground. But we hadn’t seen it in big cities. You should all be well aware that the wildfires that we’ve seen in places like Australia a number of years ago—wildfires that produced enough smoke that in Sydney, the smoke detectors in the interior of office buildings started going off because of the concentration of smoke from the outside coming into those buildings. That is substantial. The World Bank runs a website on risk, and on that site they look at fire risk in cities around the world. Toronto is listed as a high-risk city for urban fire. That is something people need to consider. It wouldn’t have been a high-risk city 30 years ago or 50 years ago, but the world is hotter; it is drier. And thus, the potential is there for a fire breaking out in a wooded area going into an urban area. Halifax, in 2023, had that problem—165 houses lost. I talked to one of the firefighters who was on the scene. They drove their truck into the area. The glass on the fire truck shattered from the heat. That week, a number of firefighters, after the fire was out, retired—“We didn’t sign up for this.” So we have a substantial problem that is in motion right now and is deepening. And yet, this government is going after every measure it can that actually will try to address the problem. Governments tried before to get rid of the green building standards—and it’s sort of like whack-a-mole: They hit it; it didn’t really work. They hit it again; it didn’t work. Maybe they’ll be successful this time and knock it out. That is a real disservice to the people of this province. It raises some very substantial questions. What has this provincial government got against local governments trying to make housing more efficient so people have lower energy bills? The reality is, if you have a higher standard of insulation, if you seal a house properly, you will need less fuel, less energy to heat it and to cool it. So why don’t we, in fact, require that standard so that in the long run people’s costs are lower? It’s much cheaper to make a house efficient when you’re building it the first time than to go back and try to retrofit it later. A number of you are well aware of that. You also are well aware, I’m sure, that 70% of our natural gas comes from the United States. So the more gas we burn, the more we are subsidizing a government, a country, that is actually trying to undermine our economy. When we hire Canadian workers to insulate our homes, upgrade the windows at time of construction, make buildings more weather-tight, we are putting Canadian workers to work and reducing the amount of money we send to the United States. Why is the government against that? They could make the argument that we’ll get rid of these city standards and we’ll have an Ontario Building Code that brings about the same result. That would give you a uniform standard. But that is not what is proposed before us. And then I have to ask: Who is asking for this? Who is saying, “Get rid of these green building standards. We want to pay more for heating and cooling”? Who, in the end, is asking for that? It does not help the vast majority of Ontarians who will rent or own a home that could be efficient, weatherproof, and hopefully far less expensive to operate. If you look around, you’ll find that the green building standards in Toronto have not slowed down development. Toronto has seen increasing or consistent housing starts since its green development standards were introduced 16 years ago—16 years ago, and you’re trying to roll it back now. Seriously? We do have a decline in housing construction. It’s not because of a 16-year-old standard for energy efficiency and weatherproofing in a house. So if the province wants to step up and set a standard that will protect people from climate change, it will protect people’s pocketbooks from higher energy bills—bring on those regulations. But that’s not what is happening here. What we’re seeing is a rollback to increase the heating of the world, increase the risk, increase the cost of insurance, make home ownership more expensive and home renting more expensive. If the government is not that concerned about the homes and their standards, then I want to go on to this whole question of safe drinking water and water corporations. I found it interesting that this initiative was coming forward, and I found it useful that there was enough political pressure that the government said, “No, these will be publicly owned water corporations.” It sort of reinforced that language. I was here when Kathleen Wynne took it upon herself to privatize Hydro One, and you could just see the steps of setting up a corporate structure with shares that can be sold, that allowed one to move step by step to eventually taking it out of public hands. And that is my worry about what we see with this bill. I appreciate the fact that, again, political pressure has made the government make a variety of statements about how, in fact, these private water and waste water corporations won’t be privately owned. But you have to ask, why on earth are you doing it in the first place? And when you have in the text of the bill that the ownership of shares can only be with a level of government or an agent of that government, you have to ask, how is an “agent” defined? If you appoint an agent—let’s say Imperial Oil—to run your water, and they decide to run it on a basis that is contrary to your interests, are you going to overrule them? Are you going to actually have a de facto operation that delivers the same results as a private corporation with a window dressing of public ownership? I have real questions about the government’s intentions here and what exactly is driving them. I’m also concerned about the communal water systems.

Official source

Mr. Peter Tabuns

I can see some utility—particularly in small, rural, northern communities—where a communal water system could be useful. But I have to say, you have to be very careful here, because you have to wonder whether or not those water systems will actually be subject to the protections of section 19 of the Safe Drinking Water Act, which was recommended by Justice O’Connor. The proliferation of those communal water systems necessitates the updating of many source protection plans under the Clean Water Act, and I don’t see any provision in the bill to do that. I don’t see an apprehension that, in fact, we might put ourselves in another Walkerton situation. That is a substantial concern. You also have to ask, what is the long-term financial viability of these communal water systems, and how does one assure that the actual operation is at a level such that those who drink that water will be protected? That is a substantial concern. I can also see—because I accept that these systems can be useful for small, rural, northern places—that, given human ingenuity, they can also be used to facilitate sprawl. And if you’re concerned about the affordability of government or the affordability of housing, facilitating sprawl is not your friend. So that is a real concern for us. My hope is that, in committee, we’ll actually get an opportunity to dig into this further and hopefully make some amendments that would put us in a position where the bill would be beneficial to the people of Ontario. So there are a number of amendments, obviously—one of which being either drop the attack on green building standards or make sure that the Ontario building code reflects the highest possible level. And I did leave something out—the member for Guelph remarked on this: The attack on requirements for charging for electric vehicles is quite extraordinary. The world is going to electric vehicles, in terms of technology. If you want to be building tomorrow’s products, you want electric vehicles. And if you want a market for electric vehicles in Ontario, you need to have the charging capacity. So if you take away that charging capacity, you undermine people’s incentive to buy electric vehicles; you undermine your industrial future. Why would you do that? Who does this serve? I just find this bill to be contradictory in the way it’s set up, contradicting statements of the government around its commitment to future manufacturing by undermining the conditions that are necessary to make that future manufacturing viable. We are going to need committee hearings on this bill. The custom in the last year has been far fewer committee hearings. I don’t know what the government is currently planning. My hope is that they will have committee hearings and that the public will have an opportunity to come, present information, be questioned and, although they won’t get answers, at least raise questions that may be substantial in the way people assess where things should go with this bill. One of the things that I hadn’t mentioned earlier and I want to mention now is that reducing development charges will, or should, make housing less expensive. It depends on whether or not the builders are charging at what the market will bear or charging at what it actually costs the builder to put a house in the ground. But if you reduce development charges which are collected by cities, the cost of putting in place the infrastructure doesn’t disappear. So, effectively, what you do is say to cities, “You will now pay for this infrastructure that previously was paid for by the new development.” Cities will be pushed to have property tax increases. This government says, “We don’t raise any taxes.” That’s right; you farm it out. You put the pressure on lower levels of government, and, in the end, they’re the ones who are forced to raise taxes so that the roads are paved and the infrastructure is there for new development. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to talk to the bill. There’s a lot here, but I covered as much as I could.

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The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Effie J. Triantafilopoulos)

Questions?

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Mr. Terence Kernaghan

I’d like to thank my friend the member from Toronto–Danforth for his ever-eloquent presentation on Bill 98. He spoke about power without accountability. In Metrolinx, we see that there are now 124 vice-presidents, which has been revealed through a scan of the sunshine list—the same as the number of members of provincial Parliament for the entire province of Ontario. It’s up 5% since last year. Having a bloated, top-heavy and arrogant administrative overlord—overload such as this is really—

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Mr. Peter Tabuns

Overlord?

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Mr. Terence Kernaghan

—siphoning money away from the core mandate of Metrolinx, which is really to get people to their location faster and more effectively. My question is, what does it say about the Conservative government, that they have allowed Metrolinx to become this bloated and this top-heavy?

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Mr. Peter Tabuns

I appreciate the question, and I thought the Freudian slip about overlords was entirely appropriate. I urge you not to correct your language, sir. I think it simply reflects the culture of the government. As people are aware, the Premier has, I think, the largest Premier’s office in history, and you have to ask why. Seriously, why? If the Premier is operating with some efficiency, he shouldn’t need a larger bureaucracy than the Liberals had. And let’s face it, the Liberals were very, very generous with themselves. Do you need to be more generous than the Liberals with your political staffing? I suggest not. I would suggest some modesty in this matter and going to a level that is defensible. Frankly, your comments are well put, sir—overlords indeed.

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The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Effie J. Triantafilopoulos)

Question?

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MPP Alexa Gilmour

Thank you so much, Speaker. Through you to my colleague: We know that Metrolinx has been plagued with well-documented concerns: ballooning executive ranks with an unusually high number of vice-presidents, a pattern of costly delays, decisions that have too often disconnected from the communities that the transit was meant to actually serve. At the same time, in my riding of Parkdale–High Park, we’re not asking for luxury announcements or glossy press releases; we’re asking for reliable, accessible, affordable transit. So my question to my colleague is this: How does—if it does—the Metrolinx section of Bill 98 actually improve accountability and deliver better transit rather than simply reinforce the same top-heavy structure and decision-making that has led to the challenges in the first place?

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Mr. Peter Tabuns

Well, that’s a puzzler. I don’t know how it actually does in fact make things better and more accountable. I know this may sound strange to some members of this Legislature, but ensuring that government operation is as close to the population it serves as possible makes a lot of sense to me. So the idea that the TTC had its downtown relief line taken away from it and the Ontario Line put in place raised serious questions. We were told the Ontario Line that was being put in place would be done faster than the relief line. Well, the relief line was going to be under way shortly before or about the time this government came into power. Instead of having transit from the east end to downtown in the mid-2020s, we’re looking at closer to the mid-2030s. I don’t see that as being responsive to the needs of the population. I would say that structuring things so that accountability is lost and power is vested at a much higher and much less accountable level is a huge problem. I don’t see this bill actually correcting that.

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The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Effie J. Triantafilopoulos)

Question?

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Ms. Sandy Shaw

My question is regarding public transit and the fare integration that this government is talking about. I will just say that one of the things that municipalities struggle with is all the downloading that they have to deal with from the province. The province dumps all the costs on municipalities and expects them to deliver expensive services like public transportation. One of the things that we have been saying is that the government needs to actually take back, upload the 50% cost of running public transportation, but now, instead, we’re going the opposite way. With this minister’s ability to integrate fares but have no consultation with municipalities and no indication as to whether they can increase fares, whether local municipalities will receive additional funding to support this, do you have any confidence that this government’s meddling in public transit will improve things for the people trying to use that as an affordable option for getting around their cities?

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Mr. Peter Tabuns

Well, that is a toughie. No, I don’t have any confidence. I would say that—

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Interjection

I’m shocked.

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Mr. Peter Tabuns

I know the member is shocked by my response and by my apparent cynicism. But no, I don’t think the government is going to be very responsible on this. Frankly, if they did care about transit and they did care about the impact on fares, they’d start putting the money back in; they would reverse the decision that was made by Mike Harris and actually put provincial dollars, in a substantial way, back into public transit and municipal transit corporations around this province. It would make for more affordable transit. It would make for transit systems that were better funded and thus better maintained. I would say that what we see here in this bill is in fact an undermining of that ability to make sure transit works well and make sure that transit is accountable to those who ride it.

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The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Effie J. Triantafilopoulos)

Question?

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Mr. Anthony Leardi

I have a question for the member from Toronto–Danforth about parkland dedications.

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Mr. Peter Tabuns

I’m sorry. I can’t hear.

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Mr. Anthony Leardi

—a question about parkland dedication. It could be a maximum of 5% parkland dedication under the Municipal Act for planning purposes—actually, I don’t know if it’s the Municipal Act or the Planning Act. Sometimes municipalities and developers have difficulty negotiating what portion of the development should be dedicated to parkland—“Should it be that part? Should it be this part? Should it be something that looks like along a river valley?”

Official source

Second reading debate deemed adjourned.

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The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Effie J. Triantafilopoulos)

I beg to inform the House that the following document was tabled: a report entitled 2026 Ontario Budget Note, from the Office of the Financial Accountability Officer of Ontario.

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Ms. Jennifer K. French

When I was first elected to serve Oshawa, in 2014, it was alongside then-Mayor John Henry. John was always kind and thoughtful and fair and interested in the story of Oshawa and its people. I was very grateful to work with John. Lefties thought he was a Conservative, and Conservatives thought he was a progressive, but from my vantage point he was always a principled, community-minded politician and neighbour. When we didn’t agree on an issue, I remember John having said to me, “It’s just politics, Jennifer. We can still have coffee.” In 2010, the people of Durham region voted in a referendum to stop appointing and start electing our regional chair. So in 2014, we elected Roger Anderson. In 2018 and again in 2022, Durham region elected John Henry to be regional chair, responsible to the voters across all our communities and for the staff at the region. Unfortunately, John Henry is being very publicly fired by this Premier and his minister through new legislation that overturns the will of Durham region residents, who voted to elect their regional chair. This minister and Premier will be appointing someone who will answer to them and not to the electorate—a puppet for the Premier who can be hired and fired by this minister. This unelected chair will have control over the regional budget with strong-mayor powers and will not have to answer to voters. This is taxation without representation. The Premier and minister want someone to do as they are told, and I don’t believe John Henry was ever that man. John Henry has always worked tirelessly and sincerely on behalf of the communities he has been elected to serve. He doesn’t—

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The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Effie J. Triantafilopoulos)

I recognize the member from Etobicoke–Lakeshore.

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Ms. Lee Fairclough

A complete community is one with quality schools for children, parks, affordable housing, and reliable transit for people to make their daily commutes. But in Etobicoke–Lakeshore, we are seeing more high-density luxury condos without any accompanying new infrastructure like schools, public transportation, recreational centres and parks that communities need to thrive. Municipal planning decisions are being completely overridden by this government in all corners of our riding, including on Bloor Street and in Long Branch. The community of Humber Bay Shores, for instance, has over 30,000 people without schools or a promised GO station. The congestion is unbearable. Eight years ago, this Conservative government halted the procurement of GO stations. People in Humber Bay Shores are still waiting for this government to build Park Lawn GO. The Ministry of Transportation must get back to directly financing and building our public transit infrastructure. We need to build complete communities—ones with affordable housing, reliable transit and schools. Communities in my riding or anywhere in Ontario shouldn’t have to fight for basic infrastructure; they should be able to count on it.

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Mr. John Jordan

I want to thank the Minister of Emergency Preparedness and Response and this government for announcing in last month’s budget that it’s maintaining the $20-million enhanced funding for the Fire Protection Grant in 2026-27, after doubling it in 2025, to ensure firefighters on the front lines have the infrastructure and equipment necessary to protect themselves and do their jobs effectively. This funding provides municipal fire services from across the province with funding to purchase equipment and supplies for cancer prevention initiatives, equipment to address lithium ion battery fires and infrastructure upgrades and modernization. I was very happy to see funding go to our fire departments in Lanark–Frontenac–Kingston. I visited several of them in the fall to see first-hand how this funding will assist our firefighters. By investing in these resources, departments can respond more effectively, protect their firefighters and deliver faster and safer services to the communities they serve. The Beckwith fire department, the Carleton Place Fire Department, Central Frontenac Fire and Rescue, Drummond/North Elmsley Tay Valley, Lanark Highlands, Mississippi Mills, Montague, North Frontenac, Perth, Smiths Falls, South Frontenac, and the Kingston Fire and Rescue team received just under $671,000 to purchase life-saving equipment, ensuring municipal firefighters have access to the tools and equipment they need to stay safe in critical situations, when they are needed.

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MPP Alexa Gilmour

Speaker, it would be nice if the Premier governed for the whole province, but, instead, like a child whose parents have failed to buy him a Lego set, he obsessively uses taxpayers’ money to build infantile schemes along Toronto’s waterfront. While families across Ontario are buckling under the weight of grocery bills and rising rents, this Premier is focused on a luxury spa, a convention centre in the lake, and the Billy Bishop airport takeover. He’s trying to turn our public shoreline into a private playground. I’d like to remind him that his predecessor Bill Davis halted the Spadina expressway, saying, “If it’s not for the people, stop.” Ontarians want clean, E. coli-free beaches for boats and sandcastles, but this government is rerouting sewage overflow to accommodate a private spa, risking contamination in Lake Ontario. Waterfront land on one of the world’s Great Lakes is rare; it should belong to everyone, not just those who can afford luxury spas and private jets. The Premier keeps giving away our children’s future for developers’ payday, and that has to stop. While this Premier consolidates power and hides his business dealings, the NDP is standing with the millions who are pushing back—just like we did on the greenbelt—because Ontario deserves better. Now to the Premier: I see the obsession. I’ll buy you a Barbie beach house or a Lego beach amusement park—

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The Deputy Speaker (Ms. Effie J. Triantafilopoulos)

I recognize the member for Lambton–Kent–Middlesex.

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Mr. Steve Pinsonneault

I’d like to welcome the Heart and Stroke Foundation to Queen’s Park today, as it highlights two critical health issues that affect Ontarians every day: stroke and cardiac arrest. In Ontario, someone experiences a stroke every 12 minutes, and delays in treatment can lead to permanent disability or even death. That’s why it is essential that Ontarians recognize the FAST signs of stroke: —face: Is it drooping?; —arms: Can you raise them both?; —speech: Is it slurred or jumbled?; and —time to call 911. Knowing the FAST signs offers a simple and effective way to identify stroke and seek urgent treatment. When someone experiences cardiac arrest, the heart suddenly stops. Every minute without CPR and defibrillation dramatically reduces the chance of survival. This government has demonstrated leadership through Bill 141, Defibrillator Registration and Public Access Act, which establishes a framework for a provincial AED registry to map AEDs and connect these life-saving devices to emergency responders. Fully realizing the impact of this legislation depends on public awareness, including ensuring people, especially young people, have the confidence and skills to respond. Please join the Heart and Stroke Foundation in the legislative dining room tonight at 5:30.

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Mr. Chris Glover

This Premier is not satisfied with being the Premier of Ontario. He also wants to control the chair of every region. He wants to control the mayor of every city and town in this province. He wants to control the directors of all of our school boards. And he wants to control every police officer and judge. The latest attack on our democratic rights is Bill 100, the seizing control of regional governance act. With this act, he’s going to be replacing elected regional chairs with his appointees, and these appointees will be able to govern with only one third of the votes of the elected councillors. This is an assault on our democratic rights. Ontario is the only region, the only jurisdiction in the Western world where we do not have the right to majority-vote decision-making in our democracy. Under this government, you no longer have the right to democratic municipal elections. We no longer have the right to impartial judges, because this government is appointing Conservative judges. He has tried to appoint his friend to be the chief of the Ontario Provincial Police. He’s gutting the freedom of information act so he can hide his phone records and not obey a court order. He has stripped us of freedom of speech and our other charter rights, using the “notwithstanding” clause. And what is he doing with this consolidation of power? He is using it to hide his attacks on our public services and to hide his corruption. We need to restore our democratic rights in Ontario, and removing Bill 100 is a start in that direction.

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Mr. Tyler Allsopp

I rise today to share an announcement in my riding of Bay of Quinte. Last Friday, I had the pleasure of making a significant announcement at Belleville General Hospital on behalf of the Premier and the Minister of Health. BGH’s aging HVAC infrastructure challenges needed to be addressed in order to ensure that staff and patients alike had a safe and welcoming environment that was conducive to providing high-quality care. That is why I was so proud to announce $20,037,000 to replace the boiler plant, to replace one of the chillers, and to refurbish the other two 700-ton chillers, and to replace the emergency power system. These upgrades will not only ensure that everyone at BGH is comfortable in the climate-controlled environment but will also double operating capacity when using the emergency power system, and reduce energy usage by 25% to 30%. This investment represents 90% of the costs associated with the projects, and I want to thank the leadership and the maintenance team for their advocacy and planning for this project. I especially want to thank Tim from the maintenance department, who got creative and was able to source the emergency power system over four years sooner than the projected timeline, meaning that the units are already on-site and ready to be installed. Tim, thank you for the incredible work, on behalf of our hospital and all the people of the Bay of Quinte. And I know we have you until the end of the year, but in case I don’t see you, congratulations on your retirement—very well deserved.

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Mr. Deepak Anand

Each year, there is one thing in common for more than 26,000 families across Canada: They receive support from a Ronald McDonald House program. One of the hardest realities any family can face is having a child in a hospital far from home. This charity provides a place to stay for family members during a child’s medical journey, by giving them the ability to be by their child’s side during some of the most difficult moments of their life. These homes are truly a godsend for these families in pain. One in four Canadians has either stayed at a Ronald McDonald House or knows someone who has. Over the past 45 years, more than half a million families have been supported across Canada by Ronald McDonald House. Today, there are 16 Ronald McDonald House programs and 21 family room programs, including one at SickKids, providing families with meals, mental health and wellness support and a place to rest and recharge close to their child’s bedside. Colleagues, May 6 is McHappy Day. I encourage everyone to visit their local McDonald’s, take part and support this noble cause. Together, let’s do our part and support those who are supporting our communities.

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Mr. Ric Bresee

Speaker, I was recently honoured to stop by the volunteer appreciation day hosted by one of my smaller municipalities, the township of Tudor and Cashel. They were hosting the day for all their volunteers, but with an extra special thank you to one in particular: Debbie Woolley. Debbie has deep roots in the community of Tudor and Cashel. For over 30 years, she has been volunteering and contributing to help sustain small-community life. Debbie has organized and coordinated so many initiatives and events for families and children, from improvements to the playground equipment at the community centre, to this last term serving as the library board chair. Her long involvement in the community has set a great example for her children and for her grandchildren, showing them what it means to be there for your neighbours and to take part in local life, helping your small community. Speaker, my role as MPP for Hastings–Lennox and Addington has given me the opportunity to interact and engage with so many volunteer organizations and people just like Debbie. With each visit, I’m reminded that it is these people, the everyday folks who share their time and energy, who make the difference and help to define the amazing quality of life in rural communities. Speaker, as we approach volunteer appreciation week, I want to express my gratitude to all those who help. Volunteers are the very heart of our communities, and we are very grateful to you.

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The Speaker (Hon. Donna Skelly)

Joining us today in the Speaker’s gallery we have the Right Honourable Alison Johnstone, the presiding officer of the Scottish Parliament; accompanied by Mark Brough, principal private secretary; and Steven Bell, international relations officer at the Scottish Parliament. Welcome to Queen’s Park. And the timing for the kilt was perfect today. Introduction of visitors. I recognize the Minister of the Environment.

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Hon. Todd J. McCarthy

I would like to introduce and welcome to the House today my niece Julia McCarthy, who has just finished second year at the University of Toronto Victoria College. She is the youngest daughter of my younger brother, the Honourable Justice Mr. John McCarthy. Welcome, Julia.

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Hon. Nina Tangri

I just want to take an opportunity to wish my husband, Ashwani, a very, very happy birthday. And for those of you celebrating today and tomorrow, a very happy Vaisakhi.

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Mr. Jeff Burch

It’s my pleasure to introduce Melinda Chartrand, who is here from the French Catholic school board, and also the chair of an organization I used to run, immigrant services Bridges, from Niagara.

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Mme France Gélinas

I want to introduce my son, Michael, and my granddaughter Anika, but they’re not here yet; they’re on their way. But I will introduce people from the Heart and Stroke Foundation: Liz Scanlon, Dr. Robert Ohle, Joanna Degez, Maggie Zhang, and Orli Joseph. Welcome, Heart and Stroke Foundation.

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The Speaker (Hon. Donna Skelly)

And when the member’s family arrives, we will stop the clock and actually greet them. How is that? I recognize the member for Orléans.

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Mr. Stephen Blais

It’s my pleasure to welcome Daryush and his mother, Neha, to Queen’s Park this morning. Daryush is joining us as a legislative page, proudly representing the great riding of Orléans et le Collège catholique Mer Bleue. Bienvenue, Daryush. Je suis sûr que tu feras un excellent travail.

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Hon. Jill Dunlop

Today I’m pleased to introduce Meg and Danny Young. They are joining their granddaughter, Paige Young, who is one of my ministry team leaders. Welcome to Queen’s Park, Nonni and Poppi.

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Hon. Sylvia Jones

Today, I am also pleased to welcome Heart and Stroke—of course, the leading funder for life-saving research and a champion for healthier lives across Canada. Joining us are Brady Carballo-Hambleton, the senior vice-president for Ontario and Nunavut; and Liz Scanlon, vice-president of health systems and provincial mission teams. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

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Hon. Laurie Scott

I’d like to introduce page captain Catherine Charpentier. Her family is in the gallery. Christina and Josh, her parents; and Maggie and Eve, her sisters, are here. Welcome, and have a good time.

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Mr. Sol Mamakwa

I have some friends from Thunder Bay who are here: Nathan Vaillant, Ivan Brady, Ellen Yeast, and Jim Bailey. Welcome to your House.

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Ms. Peggy Sattler

I’m delighted to welcome Jelena Jelich from London West, who is here today with the Heart and Stroke Foundation. I’m looking forward to our meeting later this afternoon.

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Mr. Joseph Racinsky

I want to welcome Ted Arnott, the 42nd Speaker of the Legislative Assembly and my predecessor, here to Queen’s Park.

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The Speaker (Hon. Donna Skelly)

To our guest from Scotland: He is the previous Speaker, and he is my mentor as well. Welcome, Speaker. I recognize the Associate Minister of Energy-Intensive Industries.

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Hon. Sam Oosterhoff

We have Colin Anderson, president of the Association of Power Producers of Ontario today, with a number of companies from across Ontario. Welcome. It’s great to have you at Queen’s Park.

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Hon. Doug Ford

I’d like to welcome the Etobicoke—I’ve got to emphasize the Etobicoke—women’s U22 Elite hockey team. They did something that no one has ever done, ever: They won the triple crown—only from Etobicoke, the greatest jurisdiction anywhere in the world. U22 girls—champs.

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Mme Dawn Gallagher Murphy

I’d like to welcome, from l’Assemblée de la francophonie de l’Ontario, Melinda Chartrand. Bienvenue.

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Ms. Effie J. Triantafilopoulos

I’d like to welcome two people from my riding of Oakville North–Burlington, from the Heart and Stroke Foundation: Avril Goffredo and Donna Bedell. As well, I’d like to welcome page Mayra Kaushish from Oodenawi Public School in Oakville, who will be with us for the next two weeks.

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The Speaker (Hon. Donna Skelly)

I recognize the member for Lanark–Frontenac–Kingston on a point of order.

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Mr. John Jordan

If you seek it, you will find unanimous consent from the House for members to wear pins in recognition of heart and stroke disease.

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The Speaker (Hon. Donna Skelly)

The member for Lanark–Frontenac–Kingston is seeking unanimous consent from the House for members to wear pins in recognize of heart and stroke disease. Agreed? Agreed.

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The Speaker (Hon. Donna Skelly)

I recognize the member for Sarnia–Lambton on a point of order.

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Mr. Robert Bailey

If you seek it, you will find we have unanimous consent from the House for a moment of silence for the victims of the shooting at Lampton College last Thursday in my riding of Sarnia–Lambton.

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The Speaker (Hon. Donna Skelly)

The member for Sarnia–Lambton is seeking unanimous consent from the House for a moment of silence for the victims of the shooting at Lambton college last week. Agreed? Agreed.

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The House observed a moment’s silence.

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The Speaker (Hon. Donna Skelly)

You may be seated. This morning, in the members’ gallery, we are joined by Joanna Majoko. She is a vocalist, composer and bandleader from the riding of University–Rosedale, who will be performing O Canada and God Save the King. Please stand and join her in the singing of our national and royal anthems.

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Singing of the national anthem / Chant de l’hymne national.

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