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Tent City Eviction |
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September 25, 2002
Debates of the Ontario Legislature – Hansard AFFORDABLE HOUSING Mr Howard Hampton (Kenora-Rainy River): My question is to the Deputy Premier. I would say to the Deputy Premier, yesterday was a very shameful day in Ontario. It was a shameful day because in effect homeless people, some of the poorest, most vulnerable people in this province, essentially had the police sent out to round them up. Your government's way of dealing with a social problem is simply to send in the police and turn them out. Minister, it's pretty clear that there is a big problem growing, that there is not enough affordable housing, not in this city, not in many other cities. We have put forward a plan that would allow us to build not only 8,000 units of affordable housing each year, but 2,800 units of supportive housing for people who need a hand up. What is your plan for affordable housing, or do you have a plan for affordable housing in this province? Or do you just send in the police? Hon Elizabeth Witmer (Deputy Premier, Minister of Education): I'm going to refer that to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. Hon Chris Hodgson (Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing): I think yesterday's events are tragic in the sense that a lot of people need shelter, need all kinds of assistance. I know the city of Toronto is working on that with their agencies, and the province of Ontario, as you heard yesterday, is there to support with the homeless shelters. In terms of the housing policy, there is good news. More than at any time in history, most people are into home ownership. There are more vacancies coming on-line; 40% of condos are rented. Clearly, you're talking about the affordable end. Interjections. Hon Mr Hodgson: I'm just telling you the facts and the history. If you don't want to hear the good news, if you want to concentrate on the bad news -- Interjections. The Speaker (Hon Gary Carr): Order. The minister has the floor. Hon Mr Hodgson: I'm trying to point out that there is some good news happening in the housing industry itself. We have record numbers of people being able to buy their first home. That's good news. There's still a problem with affordable rents at the low end. Quite frankly, it's because of past policies, where we killed the market. We're also planning to implement the federal program. For the first time in 10 years, the federal government has put forward dollars for an affordable housing program. We're going to participate in that and roll that out this fall. There's also assistance for rent-geared-to-income subsidies, which in August, if you have been following it -- The Speaker: The minister's time is up. Supplementary? Mr Michael Prue (Beaches-East York): Minister, quite frankly the policies of your government surrounding housing and a great many other things are quite shameful. Your first act as a government was to slash welfare. Your second act was to deregulate housing so that today in Toronto it costs about $2,500 a year more to live in an apartment than it did when your government deregulated housing. It's been a windfall for the landlords. You've refused to increase ODSP for some of our most vulnerable and disabled citizens. The streets are meaner. The streets are full of desperate people. We have tent cities not only in Toronto, but under literally every bridge and every overpass and in every ravine in every town in this province. You have watched and you have done nothing but let your friends grow richer. We talked to you and we gave you a copy of our urban vision some months ago, and you commented that it was a good vision and that you appreciated the fact that we put it on paper. Having read it now, will you give money from the land transfer tax to the municipalities to build co-ops and non-profits? We're asking you right now, will you implement the provisions that we gave you some months ago? Hon Mr Hodgson: Just for the record, you talked about things that have happened to drive up the cost of rent. Probably the most atrocious thing to happen was what you voted for on council, to raise the taxes paid -- Interjection. Hon Mr Hodgson: I can read the resolution for you. That translates into about $200 on average for every tenant in this city, when you wanted to raise the property taxes for multi-residential four and a half times higher than for residential condos. That had the biggest impact. The second thing we're not going to do is go back to the failed policies of past governments. The auditor talked about a billion-dollar boondoggle. No government of any responsible partisan flavour wants to go back to that. The federal Liberals don't want to own the mortgages and have government doing that; the provinces don't want to do it. But we do want to assist in having more affordable housing built on the supply side, and that's what we're doing.
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