Good morning, Speaker. The Ford government’s record on the environment and fighting climate change is abysmal. This government broke the law when it comes to Ontarians’ environmental rights—and, of course, the greenbelt grab that threatened the destruction of thousands of acres of farmland and wetlands.

Ontario’s recent climate change impact assessment report identified the very imminent risk climate change poses to Ontarians’ health, livelihoods and property. This grim report was presented to the government in January but was quietly released seven months later with no announcement. Maybe they hoped we wouldn’t notice that this government does not have a climate change plan.

Now we learn through investigative reports that many of Ontario’s gas plants which were supposed to run only during peak periods are actually running almost 24 hours a day. And there are many more gas plants on the way.

While the entire world moves towards greener energy, this government is making things worse. Let’s not forget the cancelled electricity conservation programs that would have saved carbon emissions and saved consumers money.

Ontario hasn’t built any new wind or solar energy since Premier Doug Ford tore down wind farms and ripped EV chargers out of the ground.

The climate crisis is here. Instead of a government that is acting to protect us, we have Premier Doug Ford, who is focused on helping his friends get richer. This is a government with their head in the sand and their hands in the cookie jar, but we on this side of the House will continue to push for real leadership on climate change and the climate crisis.

It really is a sad afternoon when we are talking about the many scandals that have happened in this province of Ontario—the gas plant scandal, air Ornge—but what we saw with those scandals was an appropriate legislative response.

I want to add to this the Airbus affair, which refers to allegations of secret commissions paid to Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and other members of his ministry in exchange for then-crown corporation Air Canada’s purchase of a large number of Airbus jets. This resulted in a RCMP investigation. It resulted in much media coverage. There was an ethics committee struck, and there was also the Oliphant commission inquiry.

This is the kind of response that we need when there is such suspect behaviour on the part of governments, Liberal and Conservative alike.

The Premier was asked recently, “What’s the worst scandal in the province of Ontario?” and he was trying to say that the greenbelt scandal wasn’t quite as bad as the gas plant scandal. It was a terrible spectacle to watch the Premier decide which was the worse scandal in Ontario. But I would say, perhaps he forgot his outrage at Kathleen Wynne when she had the Fair Hydro Plan, because, at the time, the Premier said that this was the biggest political cover-up in Ontario’s history.

And this government—in October 2018, one of the first things they did when they came to power was, they struck a Select Committee on Financial Transparency. They did this. Members of that committee now—the Chair was the member for Brampton South, who’s now the Minister of Transportation. The Vice-Chair was Ontario’s Attorney General, the current Attorney General. The members from this government included the chief government whip; the member for Sault Ste. Marie, who is in the House; Roman Baber—remember?—the previous member for York Centre; we had the member for Eglinton–Lawrence. These were the current government members who thought that it was important to strike a select committee, and I agreed. The purpose of this committee was “to investigate and report on the accounting practices, decision-making and policy objectives of the previous government or any other aspect of the report that the select committee deems relevant. The public has a right to know the true state of the province’s finances and demand accountability from the government.” Sound familiar?

“The committee hopes that the current government will adopt the recommendations and commit to ensuring and maintaining transparency....” This is what we’re asking for today.

This committee—we got tens of thousands of emails. We subpoenaed the secretary of the cabinet, the Deputy Minister of the Environment. We subpoenaed Kathleen Wynne herself, who testified for two and a half hours, and the former Minister of Energy Glenn Thibeault. I spent the better part of four months in this committee getting to the bottom of this—all these members did this. And these are the kinds of legislative responses that we expect that your government would undertake. But despite this, despite this government’s outrage, we have a government here that has clearly signalled that they’re going to vote against our suggestion that they strike a select committee on the restoration of the greenbelt; they said that they’re going to vote against it, quite clearly.

At the time, Doug Ford said in a speech, “We will demand answers about where the money went. A lot of the Liberals got rich, really, really rich, under Kathleen Wynne and off the backs of the taxpayers of Ontario.”

“The purpose of our committee was to ask a lot of the questions the people of Ontario wanted answers to, and I’m confident we asked those questions,” said Ross Romano, the senior Progressive Conservative MPP, about the committee.

So this government has a record. You’ve done this, just five years ago, when you were outraged by the scandal of the Ontario Liberals. But suddenly you’ve fallen silent when it comes to your own dodgy dealings.

Despite all of this, despite all the province’s outrage, despite the fact that this is the right thing to do, we’ve heard that the government House leader is going to vote against this. And you can bet, if the House leader says that he’s going to vote against this, all these PC members are going to tuck in beside him and not support what is the right thing.

So I will say, you’ve done it before—you sat on a committee, you tried to get to the bottom of what is important to the people of the province of Ontario. My question to you now is, what changed? Why are you not committed to transparency and accountability now that you are in the hot seat?