Thank you for the question. I was honoured to visit Thornhill with our incredible member from Thornhill and the amazing students at St. Anthony to launch the Battery Blitz. This is a challenge, first of its kind, across the province of Ontario where students are recycling batteries in this province. Thanks to the leadership of this Premier, this government, we’re recycling more in the province of Ontario. You know the saying “recycle, reuse, reduce”? It’s inspiring to look in the faces of our next generation, for them to go home to talk about all the things that they use batteries for and recycling—

Interjection.

Speaker, I don’t want to clip this. I just want kids to recycle. Thanks to Premier Ford and this government, we’re recycling more.

Again, thanks to Premier Ford’s leadership, we’re recycling more in the province of Ontario. We’ve launched among the highest targets in Ontario to recycle, with extended producer responsibility, in the blue box.

We’re finding new and innovative ways to recycle more. We’re recycling hazardous waste, including recycling plants that create fertilizer from end-of-life batteries, an innovation that would not be possible if it wasn’t for our government’s leadership in promoting and investing in recycling alternatives. We’re standardizing what goes into the blue box and expanding its services to more communities across Ontario than ever before. Partner municipalities have been asking for this for years. We’re saving them hundreds of millions of dollars. I’m proud to see our next generation getting so active in recycling across—

It’s waste product.

Thank you. Waste product in these—ponds? Pools? Tailing ponds? And it turns out that, because technology being what it had been before at the closure of previous mines, our technology is different now, so they could go back to those tailing ponds and basically scoop up the minerals that are in there and take a second pass at them with newer technologies. And there’s interest in that because while we’re developing—if it’s the Ring of Fire, other opportunities—there are minerals to be had if we can take that second pass at those ponds.

But, Speaker—and again, this is the stuff that gets me with this particular government—there was a bill that the government had passed before about—I think it was Bill 13, maybe? It gave permission to go back and scoop up through these tailing ponds for the critical minerals but said that they had to leave the ponds better than how they were found, better than it was before the recovery. So that was in the last bill. That’s where we’re at right now, that if they go back, they have to leave it better than it was. And now in this bill, if you want to scoop up tailings, you don’t have to improve the land to make it better; you have to leave it comparable to or better than it was before the recovery. They’ve added “comparable to,” so instead of “better than,” it’s “or the same.”

And why? It’s a fairly open-ended “better than.” If you look at it before, whatever that land looked like, whatever was around the pond before—I’m thinking even as simple as there was litter around, and then you clean it up. Isn’t that technically “better than”? I’m not meaning to say that’s what we should do. But it is not an onerous task to leave a place better than how you found it, especially when it does not specify what “better than” means. So for this government to go back and be like, “Aww that’s a lot. That’s really positive. And since we’re doing so much negative stuff here, let’s just make it comparable. Let’s bring it down. Let’s downgrade that. ‘Better than’ is a lot. I don’t like that.” And who asked for that? Go back to them and say, “You know what, you want what’s in the tailings? You can leave that area better than how you found it.” Because the community around there cares.

I know that we’re going to hear from the northern members about what has been left historically in the wake of different mines, big and small, of the lessons learned of how we can do better. You guys are like, “Oh, we can’t do better. Let’s just do comparable.” Again, rehabilitation is only up to the minister. I think that is a mistake. Because it wasn’t even industry that asked for that, I think you guys have some explaining to do.

Speaker, one of the things that I’d like to talk about when we’re talking about critical minerals and the opportunity in Ontario—I’d like to take a minute and share about Project Arrow. Ontario Tech is an excellent university in my neck of the woods, and they had the opportunity at the ACE automotive centre’s aerodynamic climatic wind tunnel at Ontario Tech to be a part of a really special, globally exciting project, and it’s called Project Arrow. Project Arrow phase 2 was an all-Canadian-engineered concept vehicle that just debuted earlier this year. It is a wonderful success story. And the university was chosen because of its global reputation for its excellence in energy and automotive, smart mobility. This vehicle is like the perfect vehicle. Yes, it was cool, but it went from being a concept to reality. It was to show the potential in Canada.

It doesn’t have an engine or a gas tank, so there’s room for bigger passenger compartments. It’s smaller than many crossover-style vehicles on the market today. People were quite excited to look at it. It’s part of the EV revolution. Cutting-edge-technology suppliers were involved. It’s really a wonderful focus opportunity for and a showcase of Canadian talent, Canadian product and Canadian potential. We were very proud in Oshawa to be super-secret hosts to Project Arrow before the global launch. Now, I can’t keep track of Project Arrow anymore. It’s travelling around the world; I’m not sure which country it’s in right now. But it’s a wonderful showcase.

As we’re looking to those exciting futures—electric vehicles, technologies we have yet to imagine—there are important conversations to be had connected to critical minerals but also, fundamentally, our responsibility to do things well and sustainably here in the province of Ontario. We should be leaders with everything we do. This bill is an opportunity. I’d ask the government to take it.