Thank you to the member opposite for your discussion and debate of the budget bill. I’m glad to hear that you comparison shop between the dollar store and Shoppers; that’s great. I always support people who comparison shop. That’s what makes competition healthy—glad to hear that.

I did want to touch on something that’s coming down the pipe on April 1: The increase in the carbon tax. That’s 14 cents a litre on gas. That is going to cost every consumer in this entire province. Every individual, regardless of income, it’s going to cost them more to heat their home, put gas in their car, making life more unaffordable for the people of Ontario, and it’s inflationary, which is not something we want. I think we all agree we need to get inflation down right now.

Will you support us in going against this carbon tax which penalizes hard-working Ontarians?

I’d like to ask the member opposite: When our government took power in June of 2018, I think we all know in the House that the previous Liberal government had spent recklessly for a decade and a half, and we were the most indebted sub-sovereign government in the entire world. That’s a fact. We had an enormous debt in the province, and our government has responsibly moved back to lowering the deficit year after year, and we’re now actually projecting next year to be in a slight surplus and a surplus thereafter.

I understand you may not agree with us on some of the content of the budget, but in general, does the NDP and yourself, the member opposite, support the economic path in terms of balancing the budget for the people of Ontario?