My question is to the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks, who earlier this morning made a great presentation and spoke about the environment and how it relates and fits within Bill 69. If he could expand a little bit more on whether this legislation will have any impact on existing class EAs and overall environmental protection?

The government is proposing legislation that will waive the waiting period for the ministry to review environmental assessments and public comments. Now, that might not be a problem in some situations, but the record of this government on environmental makes me worried.

Let me quote the government’s Housing Affordability Task Force: “Land is available, both inside the existing built-up areas and on undeveloped land outside greenbelts.” And yet the Premier is selling off the greenbelt just so wealthy developers and donors to this government’s party can profit.

Speaker, through you, to the member opposite: Can you explain how we can trust that the ministry won’t weaponize this change so they can ignore public comments, ignore communities and ignore concerns about the environment, and fast-track through projects and enrich their friends?

Meegwetch to the member for the presentation.

I know we talk about environmental assessment and we talk about the last 15 years of the Liberal government—never mind the last 15 years. As First Peoples of these lands, we’ve been doing environmental assessments and environmental stewardship for thousands of years as First Nations people.

When we talk about infrastructure and reducing inefficiencies and whatever, I wish we were talking about the takeover of infrastructure such as water sewer systems in far northern Ontario. They always talk about good governance; they always talk about the people of Ontario. But we’re always left out. It would be so cool if we removed the boil-water advisories in far northern Ontario. That would be the change—