Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Energy. Last week, media in New Brunswick reported that OPG was in negotiations with New Brunswick Power to potentially buy the ailing Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station. We’ve gone through this kind of acquisition effort before when the six-million-dollar man ran Hydro One. We need to focus on Ontario and its needs, not on problem plants in other provinces.

Why is OPG focused on New Brunswick when we need it to focus on providing affordable and sustainable power in Ontario?

Why should Ontario ratepayers take on a project that could stick them with huge debts?

My question is for the Minister of Energy. Individuals, families, farms and businesses all across our province struggle to pay their electricity bills. However, our government respects the people of Ontario, and our focus is on keeping costs down. Families, workers and businesses are looking to our government to help them get through these challenging times, particularly reducing their energy costs and helping them to make life more affordable.

Speaker, can the minister please explain how our government is helping hard-working Ontario families save money on their energy bills?

Our government must continue to build on what has already been accomplished to bring down costs and provide help to Ontarians after the Liberals squandered our province’s clean-energy advantage for many years. Can the minister please elaborate on what programs are available for those who need help the most?

I want to thank the member from Whitby for that great question this morning. We have cleaned up the Liberal hydro mess, but we’re still doing more under the leadership of Premier Ford.

I’m pleased to inform the House this morning that as of today, we’re raising the income eligibility threshold for Ontario’s Energy Affordability Program by almost $12,000 for a family of four, $8,000 per couple. That’s going to mean thousands of additional families in Ontario can receive free home efficiency upgrades like insulation, like smart thermostats, energy-efficient refrigerators and air conditioners. These free upgrades can help eligible families save up to $750 a year on their energy bills, while also conserving energy and maintaining overall reliability of Ontario’s electricity grid.

The Energy Affordability Program has already provided free upgrades to about 47,000 families across Ontario, and with today’s announcement we’re going to help a whole lot more.

At the same time, we’re saving the average residential family $168 per year in the Ontario Electricity Rebate—lots of programs, Mr. Speaker. While families had to choose between heating and eating when the Liberal government was in charge in Ontario, we have stabilized rates. We stabilized our electricity system, and we’re providing targeted supports to families that really need the help.

The folks at OPG are world leaders when it comes to providing clean, reliable, affordable nuclear power to our province, from the large-scale Candu reactors that we have in Ontario to, now, the development of the new small modular reactor that’s going to be developed at Darlington. Our government has continued to watch what’s happening down at Point Lepreau with OPG and we will inform the House all the way along. But again, I just want to confirm to the member opposite, we’re not going to sign bad deals like these guys that you supported did. We’re going to—

Yesterday, we signed a massive, massive deal in Port Hope—the member’s home riding—at Cameco, a $2.8-billion deal to extend the Candu fuel contract with Bruce Power, one of the largest nuclear facilities in the entire world right here in Ontario, a facility that has been providing clean, reliable, affordable nuclear power. I have to ask the member opposite, why would he oppose a technology that is providing clean, reliable electricity—60% of Ontario’s power every day? Why do the NDP not support our nuclear fleet?

Madam Speaker, I am just so intrigued by this member’s analysis of our energy sector I have to dig a little bit deeper.

I was here in 2011, and a few members were here in 2011. The NDP were in lockstep with the Liberal government of the day when it came to the Green Energy Act: FIT contracts, feed-in tariff contracts, that were paying 80 cents a kilowatt hour for solar, and much more for wind as well. These projects were being spread out all across the province. The Financial Accountability Officer indicated that $38 billion is the cost of overmarket contracts that were signed as a result of the Green Energy Act, therefore the subsidy that the member opposite talked about.

So I just want to know: Do the member opposite and his party still support the Green Energy Act, and do they support the fact that it has resulted in $38 billion? That doesn’t even cost the electricity that people are using; this is just the overmarket cost of those 20-year contracts, many of them 80 cents a kilowatt hour, when you’re getting nuclear for seven or eight cents a kilowatt hour.

I want to thank the Minister of Red Tape Reduction, Minister Gill, for his hard work on this file, and I want to thank MPP Oosterhoff as well for his hard work on making sure that we’re continuing to reduce red tape. I want to thank him for his dedication to this cause.

Speaker, I’m really excited to speak on behalf of this bill, another red tape reduction bill that our government has put forward. I’ve been trying very hard over the last 12 years that I’ve been here to reduce red tape in this province. I arrived, along with a number of individuals on my side and the other side, in the election of 2011, and when I was elected in 2011, our leader at the time made me the small business critic and the critic for red tape. I was a busy, busy guy, because there was a lot of red tape in this province at that time—overregulation that was holding businesses back from expanding. My goal as a critic was to hold the previous government, the Liberal government, to account for all the red tape that they were foisting and imposing on Ontarians.

I’ve got to tell you, my parents in New Brunswick are actually moving out of my childhood home. They were going through a lot of their stuff that you accumulate over 75 years. Some of the things that they were going through were old pictures. When they sent me a picture the other day, I had a full head of hair, and that’s not the case anymore. Now, that’s not because I’ve been pulling it out trying to have red tape reduced in the province, because we’ve been making great progress on that since I came here. But I saw first-hand just how unnecessary a lot of the regulation or overregulation was in the province, and how it was affecting businesses in my riding of Bay of Quinte and right across Ontario, and I made sure to let the Liberal government know my thoughts on that matter.

When we formed government in 2018, I was the Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade, which was also the minister responsible for red tape reduction at that time. Now we have a full-fledged ministry for red tape reduction, which I think speaks to just how important this is for our government, to make sure that the province truly is open for business, open for jobs and open to see our economy moving.

While I was in that portfolio of economic development, job creation, trade and red tape reduction, we brought forward a couple of bills, as we do, every year. One of them was Bill 66; it was called the Restoring Ontario’s Competitiveness Act. After seeing all of the red tape that was created by the previous Liberal government and the damage it was doing to job creators and consumers alike in our province, I wanted to make sure that Ontario was competitive again.

The first bill that was brought forward to reduce red tape was Bill 47, and that was the Making Ontario Open for Business Act, a reducing-burdens-while-protecting-workers act. I’ve got to say thanks, and probably our public servants don’t hear thanks enough: The deputy minister who I had on that file was a gentleman—and I mean gentleman—by the name of Giles Gherson. Giles was so passionate. He was responsible for reducing red tape, and do you know why he was so good at reducing the red tape? It was because he was a public servant when the Liberals were in power, so he knew exactly where all the red tape was adding up and he knew exactly where to go back and peel it off. So I just want to say thanks to Giles Gherson. He has since retired from the public service, but he made a real impression on me in my time in that ministry.

Bill 47 and Bill 66 removed dozens of pieces of overregulation in most of the ministries that we had at that time, and it really did make a difference. As I say, we’re not stopping there; we now have a full-fledged minister on this file.

I recall the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, as they do every year, hand out an award to the various provincial governments across the province when it comes to their efforts in reducing red tape. I remember in 2019, the CFIB came into my office—I was the House leader, too, at the time. It might still be hanging on the wall in the House leader’s office; I’m not sure. But we got an A-, which was the highest mark in the country for reducing red tape from the CFIB.

Interjections.

I’m glad to be able to ask a question of the Minister of Energy. I’m glad to hear his enthusiasm for broadband. I wish that we saw that the government was actually investing in that enthusiasm at more than the rate of 2% of what they’ve budgeted.

Specifically, I wanted to raise something that’s sticking in my craw from the other day. The member from Nickel Belt thoughtfully raised a concern from her neck of the woods about the lack of broadband investment and hope—the lack of hope, I think, because in northern and rural communities like the riding of Nickel Belt, businesses are not going to put in broadband; there’s no money in it for them. She asked if the government would take responsibility, a public solution, and she was mercilessly mocked for suggesting such a thing.

I would ask the Minister of Energy, who’s excited about broadband going across the province, how is this government going to ensure that when companies will not put it in because there’s no money for them—how are they going to get that broadband? Or are they just up a creek?