It is time for this…

It is time for this Conservative government to start listening to citizens and municipalities who are having these omnibus bills shoved down their throats in the complete absence of public consultation.

The real motive behind BILL 23 shows this government is pandering only to the unique self-interests of the five-point plan prepared by Ontario Home Builders and the Building and Lands Development (BILD) Association: https://www.bildgta.ca/Assets/misc/fivepointplan.pdf

Understand that Conservation Authorities are absolutely essential to watershed planning. If their plans were always adopted, instead of being undermined multiple times over the years at the OMB, or LPAT, (while the OLT's short existence also shows favoritism toward developers' revisions to Official Plans), Ontario's flooding risks would be under control.

Enough of gagging the public! There is an old saying: “No taxation without representation”.

Taxes are what citizens pay to have a ‘civilized society’, but this Conservative government seems to have turned into a secretive network, intent upon implementing the plans of its favourite corporate backers. There is already a 30-year supply of land for building in the GTA, but it appears developers want access to the entire province.

RIGHT NOW, there is a lull in the housing market, caused by necessary interest rate hikes to control irrational prices, resulting from previous excessively low interest rates that remained too low for too long.

On 27 October 2022, the Association of Municipalities of Ontario explained, "Ontario had 100,000 housing starts in 2021, the highest in 30 years. However, some municipalities have seen a sharp decline in permit applications in 2022, due to factors such as higher interest rates and labour shortages." The decline in permit applications has nothing to do with municipal restrictions; instead developers are postponing work until prices rise, while labour shortages represent temporary fall-out from the pandemic's hang-over and disruptions of supply chains.

It must be too obvious, even to this Conservative government, that Toronto's skyline has sprouted many condo towers over the past decade or so -- there is no shortage. As of April 2022, 40% were investor-owned, while according to StatsCan (Canadian Housing Statistics Program), nearly 31% of all homes in Ontario were investor-owned. Canadian home owners are competing with domestic, international and institutional investors when it comes to purchasing this “commodity”.

On 23 Nov. 2021, John Pasalis of Realosophy Realty Ltd told the CBC, "When investors are the biggest segment of your buyer base — no amount of supply is enough."

According to Brian Doucet, Canada Research Chair in Urban Change and Social Inclusion at the University of Waterloo, reducing demand from speculators is key to controlling affordability. He explained, “Speculators both increase demand for housing and shape the supply that gets built.”

I do credit the Conservative government for raising the real estate speculation tax for international buyers to 25% to tackle the province's housing crisis, but we know such buyers can find their way around such taxation, possibly by moving to an 'institutional investor model' -- and it sounds like developers still want those well-financed buyers. Such international sales ought to be banned outright until Ontario's housing market is balanced. People who live and work in Ontario ought to be the only priority for government when it comes to housing.

Consider this quote from former Liberal MP, Adam Vaughan, during an interview with TVO’s Steve Paikin on 8 April 2021: “We’re in this very strange market. We’re in a safe market for foreign investment, but we’re not in a great market for Canadians looking for choices around housing”, later adding, “So, we’ve got to make a number of decisions that address the two sides of this coin. It’s not a binary sort of dynamic of just supply and demand. There are also some other monetary components to it that have to be examined and understood.”

Mr. Doucet also noted that, between 2006 and 2016, the number of Ontario households (where the average Ontario household included 2.58 people) rose by 614, 615, but during that same period, there were 689,625 NEW occupied buildings.

Furthermore, Mr. Doucet observed “new housing supply meets or even exceeds population growth, especially in the biggest cities and hottest property markets” where some of the biggest price increases were recorded during the last quarter of 2021, at which point, “18 homes were completed for every new person”.

Barely a year later, house prices are declining in many parts of Ontario, so developers are deliberately postponing projects as they refuse to risk lower profit-taking. Speculators might wait out the market, while the change presents some welcomed opportunities for people who are searching for a home for their families.

Clearly, ENOUGH land has been set aside for housing. There is NO need for Bill 23.

There is so much WRONG with Bill 23 that I will only focus on a few areas, especially the urgent need to restore the powers of Conservation Authorities to manage watersheds on the basis of science. Conservation Authorities (CAs) have ben protecting watersheds to prevent flooding and erosion since the 1950s, following the devastation of Hurricane Hazel.

Now, climate change has increased the power of storms, as demonstrated in Barrie in 2021, followed by the next path of devastation from Uxbridge to Ottawa in May 2022. Even the west and east coasts of Canada have been deluged and damaged by extremely powerful storms recently.

As a result, more tax dollars are needed for evacuations followed by urgent repairs to infrastructure (a situation which demands paramount attention from the federal government. Who is responsible for assessing the landscape in terms of climate change?)

Instead of planning for this predictable future, Ontario wants to prevent municipalities from entering into agreements with conservation authorities to review planning applications, thereby guaranteeing more flood damage and erosion, while allowing exemptions from natural hazard permits for those municipalities where Planning Act approvals already exist. In an act of irresponsibility, the Conservative government intends to remove ‘conservation of land’ and ‘pollution’ from permit decisions. It also wants CAs to sell their lands for more housing … in flood plains, hazard zones, and protected areas.

Finally, there is the planned freeze on development charges. Who is going to pay for all the water/sewage expansions, the expansion of the electrical distribution system, and roads? Schools? Parks? HOSPITALS?!! Clearly, the Ford government intends to punt all these costs on to taxpayers.

Steve Clark, MMAH, pretends development charges are hidden away in municipal 'slush funds', instead of recognizing how these fees, supplemented to a larger degree by OUR tax dollars, are used to pay down infrastructure DEBT that was recently identified in the 2022/23 ‘Costing Climate Change Impacts to Public Infrastructure: Transportation’ report of Ontario’s Financial Accountability Office (OFAO).

The OFAO notes: “Ontario’s municipal governments own $269 billion of the transportation infrastructure assets in scope (82%), while the provincial government owns $61 billion (18%).” The Financial Officer estimates it will cost $12.9-billion/year to maintain existing public transportation infrastructure until 2100. This relates ONLY to the cost of transportation, not sewage, water, etc., not new infrastructure related to new buildings.

Now, heed the recent warning from the Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC) regarding climate risks. On 25 October 2022, IBC stated: “the disclosure of natural hazard and climate risk is urgently needed in the Canadian housing market because of the increasing frequency and severity of natural disasters.” IBC insists a Real Estate Climate Risk Score must be instituted across Canada by 2025, to indicate a property's susceptibility to catastrophic loss based on known risk factors. The Index would form the basis for managing and reducing household, community and municipal climate risk.”

Craig Stewart, V.P., IBC Climate Change and Federal Issues, stated, "We simply can't wait until 2050 to be climate compatible in the housing sector. Immediate action must be taken to protect homeowners and communities, or catastrophic loss to homes and communities will continue to increase in severity and cost, year after year.”

This Conservative government has gutted environmental policies and green energy plans to ensure building is cheaper for their developer friends.

This is an absolute abomination, a disgrace, and an abdication of your public responsibility!

We cannot pretend the federal and provincial governments exist in separate spheres in Ontario. Both levels must wake up to the realities of climate change, ensuring it is the absolute top priority for this nation now, instead of trying to breathe new life into a tired old 1950s model for the economy of the 21st century.

Ottawa’s plan for net zero by 2050 now appears too little too late; yet, I fear the federal approach overlooks new damage that will be inflicted through foolish provincial planning changes about to be imposed by Doug Ford's government.

Such government behaviour is symptomatic of the glaring democratic deficit in Ontario, which reveals a complete disconnect between the public and those who supposedly serve the public. That needs to be fixed. NOW, but first, get rid of Bill 23.