Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles' speech to AMO delegates

LONDON — Official Opposition NDP Leader Marit Stiles addressed delegates at AMO Monday, delivering the attached speech.

Responding to the Premier’s announcement of a “Building Faster Fund,” Stiles said: “This temporary program does not come close to replacing the one billion dollars a year in revenue that municipalities are losing – permanently – under Bill 23, revenue that municipalities need to actually build housing.

"It’s more than a little backwards to effectively punish municipalities for not building housing when they don’t have the funding or the provincial partner they need to do so.”

Stiles reiterated the housing solutions the NDP and experts have been calling on the Ford government to implement, including:

• Real rent control
• Building truly affordable housing (including non-profit, public, co-op and supportive housing)
• Cracking down on land speculation
• Establishing inclusionary zoning to build homes within existing neighbourhoods, near transit and other key infrastructure.