It’s an honour to rise today to share with this Ontario Legislature some exciting news from Sarnia–Lambton. Yesterday, the Sarnia Police Service held a special swearing-in ceremony to welcome their new deputy chief of police, Julie Craddock. Deputy Chief Craddock joins the Sarnia police after establishing an impressive record with the Halton Regional Police Service. She began her career in 1994 with the OPP and joined the Halton police in 1995, where she worked in criminal investigations, traffic, recruiting, community mobilization and front-line operations, rising from the rank of constable to inspector. She is also the very first female and Indigenous deputy chief in the Sarnia police force’s history.

I am extremely confident that Deputy Chief Craddock’s strong leadership skills and fresh outlook will help to build on the ongoing work of the entire Sarnia Police Service to protect and serve this community. While my legislative responsibilities prevented me from attending yesterday’s swearing-in ceremony, I wanted to take this opportunity to officially welcome Deputy Chief Craddock to the Sarnia Police Service and the wonderful Sarnia–Lambton community. Best wishes for a great future in your new role.

I’ve enjoyed the debate here on all sides today. It has been quite interesting, and I listened to the debate earlier this morning as well.

My question to the member from Haliburton-Frontenac—

It’s a pleasure to rise in the House today and make a few comments on Bill 71.

I listened to the debate all afternoon, and it has been very interesting and very revealing. I hear about blood diamonds all the time in the media, and I just learned today that there are blood EVs. Some of the people should be ashamed—who took advantage of those $14,000 subsidies and are driving around with one of these EVs, as the member for Mississauga–Lakeshore explained. I’d be getting rid of it tomorrow. We should be shaming those people. Anyway, I didn’t come here to speak about that.

The changes we’re proposing in the Building More Mines Act support game-changing growth in other sectors, like electric vehicle production. It will also help build an integrated supply chain for manufacturers by connecting mineral producers in the north with manufacturers in the south—no more looking around the globe for resources; we would supply those critical minerals from within our own provincial border. What an opportunity. I always say, I wish I was 30 years younger.

What I appreciate most about the Building More Mines Act that the Minister of Mines has tabled is that there are no proposed changes to our world-class environmental regulations.

As I mentioned earlier in my remarks, my riding of Sarnia–Lambton is the hub of energy and chemical production in Ontario. Our local industry and the people who support the companies in the Chemical Valley spend a lot of time and resources making sure they are continuously improving their environmental performance and meeting all of the rigorously demanding standards of the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks. I’m sure that the mining industry will do the same. I heard different people say, “Oh, it’s not going to work, and they’ll go bankrupt.” No investor is going to lend money to someone who doesn’t have strong environmental and safety regulations—not in this day and age. Our local industry and people who support the companies in my Chemical Valley spend a lot of time and resources making sure that they are always continually living up to those standards. It’s something that they believe in very strongly, and they are very proud, as they should be, of the success they have had to date in reducing emissions and developing renewables and the green fuels of the future.

I’m extremely pleased with the Building More Mines Act. The changes that we are proposing are about improving how the Ministry of Mines operates and finding those efficiencies. Modernizing the Mining Act is crucial to supporting our transition to the green economy. The need to modernize the act, in fact, reminds me of the changes we are making to the Oil, Gas and Salt Resources Act to support opportunities in carbon capture and sequestration—something I’m very interested in, from my area of Sarnia–Lambton, because of the geology there, with the former salt caverns and the geology. I’m very much looking forward to that.

The previous government prohibited carbon sequestration based on fears that it would be used at the time to extend coal-based energy production in Ontario—and that probably would have been a good idea.

Anyway, now that coal is a distant memory in Ontario, we as a government need to take another look at the rules around carbon capture and sequestration in our province.

Numerous stakeholders in Sarnia–Lambton have contacted me about the advances in technology and the opportunity they present to help our provincial manufacturing sector decarbonize.

Carbon capture and sequestration also unlocks new opportunities in clean energy, like blue hydrogen production or low-carbon petrochemical development—all things we need in the future. But we had outdated legislation in the province, which has been eliminated because of the red tape reduction acts, that prevented us from seizing the tremendous opportunities that lay before us.

So I was extremely pleased when our government recently introduced the Less Red Tape, Stronger Ontario Act, which included amendments to the Oil, Gas and Salt Resources Act that address the outdated prohibitions on carbon capture and sequestration. I look forward to that bill also coming before this House for third reading. I’m looking forward to speaking on it and a final vote on its future—and I see that the Speaker is looking at the clock, but I’ll keep going until she gives me the sign. Again, it was an important—