It’s always an honour to rise in the House today and respond to the member from Chatham-Kent–Leamington, who I quite enjoy discussing issues with. I’d like to read the motion in the House first: “That, in the opinion of this House, the government of Canada should take immediate steps to eliminate the carbon tax on grocery items.”

I have to echo the member from Waterloo that the motion, quite frankly, as written, doesn’t make sense, because there is no direct carbon tax on grocery items. I listened very intently to the member when he made his presentation. What he was actually talking about was the cumulative effect of the input costs of the carbon tax on the end price of groceries. I think that’s what he was trying to say, but that’s not what the motion says. There is no carbon tax on groceries, so I have no problem voting for this, but it doesn’t make much sense, honestly. There wasn’t a lot of horsepower put in this.

Let’s think back on things we can agree on here. The reason there’s some kind of regimen on carbon is that the use of fossil fuels is impacting climate change, global warming. Can we all agree on global warming? Because there are a few people—and I’m not saying people in the House, but I’ve heard a few people who even disagree that the world is actually a globe, that it’s not round; it’s flat. So let’s all agree that the world is round and it’s being impacted by—what happens is, over millions of years, we have used a lot of the leftovers from dinosaurs, from plants and animals, which have turned to oil. We’ve burned it all in 100 years, and it’s impacting our climate.

Forward-thinking countries are looking for ways to use less carbon. We hear a lot about electric cars. We talk a lot about electric cars. That’s one of the reasons we’re trying to get rid of the use of carbon.

But if you don’t go back that far, I was here when—and I don’t agree with everything the former Liberal government did. I disagreed with a lot of it. But when the Ford government got elected, there was a cap-and-trade system in the province of Ontario. Actually, it was done with Quebec. Did you know that the federal carbon tax doesn’t apply in Quebec? It doesn’t apply because they came up with their own program to try to help their residents use less carbon. Ontario had that chance as well. The federal carbon tax is a backstop. If you can’t think of anything else to do, you get the federal carbon tax.

So the Ford government didn’t really know the difference between cap-and-trade or a carbon tax. They all put it under one umbrella, and they cancelled the cap-and-trade. But have no fear, folks. Have no fear. The Ford government—I think at one time they called themselves the greatest government ever known to the people—they knew how to deal with the carbon tax: gas pump stickers. The first line of defence against the carbon tax: gas pump stickers. And at cabinet, “If that doesn’t work, we’re going to go to court.”

That’s what they did: spent millions challenging the federal government whether they had the right to implement a carbon tax, and they lost. And they still didn’t realize that the federal carbon tax is a backstop program. A provincial government can come up with their own program to try and lessen the use of fossil fuels so you lessen the impact of burning carbon and—and—eliminate the need for the feds to use the carbon tax. You can still do that, and perhaps if you put some horsepower into it, you could make that program work, but that’s not what you’re choosing to do.

What’s really sad about that—and I listened very closely to the member from Mississauga—

You have the power in the province of Ontario to actually do things. And the member for Waterloo also brought this up: There is a provincial carbon tax on manufacturers and it applies to food processing facilities, bakeries, meat-packing plants. So if you want to have an immediate impact, a provincial carbon tax holiday on food processing plants—as long as those savings get passed through to consumers—you could do that, actually, and make a huge difference very quickly. And you can do that right from this Legislature, not simply just pointing at the next level of government.

I’m getting a bit worked up, so I’m going to calm down a bit.

It reminds me of a story I was once told. Have you ever heard, Speaker, that there’s a custom in some governments that, when a government loses power, the head of the government—Premier, Prime Minister, President—leaves three envelopes for the next Premier, Prime Minister or President? And when they really get in trouble, the advice is that you open an envelope. So the government gets in a lot of trouble and the leader of the day opens another envelope and the advice is, “Blame the previous government,” right? Now, we’ve heard that.

I’ve got to say, I was talking to the former House leader for the Wynne government and it was a great conversation with Mr. Milloy, who I respect. And he asked me—and I hope he doesn’t get angry with me for it, but, he said, “John, you were here when I was the House leader.” I said, “Yes.” He said, “Were we that bad?” I said, “What do you mean?” He said, “Did we actually do nothing in 15 years like the government said?” I said, “John, that’s not actually true. You did absolutely nothing.” He laughed as well.

So anyway, they opened the envelope. They blame the previous government—and this government’s really good at blaming the previous government—and then they get in trouble again. And do you know what? I would say that right now, the current government has got a few problems: the RCMP, greenbelt, special prosecutors—man, I didn’t even hear words like that with the Liberals. So they’ve got a few problems.

So they’re opening up the second envelope. They open it up, and you know what it says? “Blame another level of government.” That’s what this motion is; this motion is part of the second envelope: Blame it on the feds.

Do the feds have things that they should work on? Absolutely. But there are things that we can work on, that you can work on right now, that will actually make a difference on people’s grocery bills, right now, that you have the power to do. Because if you don’t, at some point you’re going to have to open up the third envelope, Speaker. Do you know what the third envelope says?

The member from Timiskaming–Cochrane.

I do. Do you know what the third envelope says, Speaker? It says, “Prepare three envelopes.” And that, Speaker, is where we are.

I don’t want to make light of the subject matter; I’m making light of the motion itself. The subject matter is extremely serious. The fact that people in this province, many of them, can’t afford to eat, can’t afford their rent, can’t afford in many cases to live—I’m from northern Ontario. Everything is more expensive where I’m from. There is no public transport, so regardless of how little you make, you need a car. So I’m making fun of the government, that they seem content to try and play political games, instead of actually looking at what they could do.

And I’m being serious about the industrial carbon tax. Why don’t you, if you’re serious about making food cheaper in this province, take the industrial carbon tax that food processors have to pay now to the province? Because the province does have a carbon pricing scheme for manufacturers and processors. They have it. They put it in, and they’re getting big bucks from it. They could make a holiday for food processors, provided that’s put through to immediate relief. Hopefully some of the members will talk about that, but I haven’t heard anything yet about what they could do.

Something else that the province could do is, yes, look into price-fixing with the major retailers, because retail is controlled by three or four major companies, and that is a big part of the bottleneck in food pricing. The bottleneck isn’t at the farm level. I’ve been a farmer my whole life. Actually, I’ve gone for 15 minutes without mentioning cows, but I’ve been a cow farmer my whole life. It’s not there. It’s not even at the processing level. Because if you talk to processors, whether they’re milk processors, beef processors—they’re not the issue either. It’s the major retailers who call the shots, because they have all the power. And the major retailers have done this before—price-fixing on bread. It’s not a new concept. Why isn’t the government looking at that? Why isn’t the provincial government pushing for a grocery code of conduct so that consumers can be sure they’re paying the actual cost? Should retailers make a profit selling food? Yes. Should they be able to gouge because of their monopoly? No. That’s where the government should come in. I don’t hear anything about that.

So there are things that we could do. But the Ford government chooses not to act.

Do you know where the Ford government did choose to act? They did choose to try to gobble up the greenbelt. They did choose to take Hamilton boundaries—to take farmland to supposedly build housing that they already had land for.

Did you know that even without the greenbelt grab, we lose 319 acres of farmland every day in this province? You think that food prices are high now? Just wait. Remember, I started this speech about climate change. Well, climate change is going to have an impact on our food prices, big time, because there are going to be big parts of the world that now grow food that are going to be able to grow less, or maybe not at all—but specifically, in southern Ontario. I’m from northern Ontario. I’m proud to farm there, and it’s a great place to farm. But the land in northern Ontario is not equivalent to the land here. Why? It’s not just the land, but here, we’re surrounded by the Great Lakes. We have the best climate to grow the 200 various crops we grow in the world. It’s a gift. And the Ford government chooses to stand idly by—not even stand idly by; to actually increase the process. They want to eat up more land.

I listened to the member from Perth–Wellington yesterday, and he was responding to our housing motion. He said that there was a housing project in his riding and it was stopped by NIMBYs, and the government stepped in and eliminated the NIMBY problem. Then, I kind of heckled, “Yes, that’s when the RCMP had to step in.

Please, I urge you—you have a majority: Actually do things for the right reasons. So look at the industrial carbon tax. Look at trying to make a carbon-pricing scheme, so that we won’t have to be under the yoke of the federal one. You should be able to do that.

To the member across: You’re right on the border of Quebec. They don’t pay a carbon tax; your folks do. You’re in the government. Fix it. How come Quebec doesn’t pay a carbon tax and you do? That’s a good question.

No, but I think you know.

I recognize the member from Orléans.

Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? No.

Continue debate.

We were on the same program. We were on the same program, and there’s things that could have been done better with the carbon pricing, with the cap-and-trade—I’m not saying there couldn’t. But the reason we have it is because you scrapped it and we have no alternative.

We were on the same program before.

I’ll be splitting my time with the member from Guelph.

As I started earlier this afternoon, after five years in office, this government continues to fail to take responsibility for anything. After five years in office, the price of buying a home is up. The price of renting a home or an apartment is up. The price of electricity is up. The price of buying food at the grocery store is up. Even the Premier’s signature promise: the price of buying a beer at the hockey game is up. All these prices are up after five years of the Ford government.

As has been so articulately explained already this evening, the government has tools at its disposal to help bring these prices down. It has tools at its disposal to provide benefits and supports to families who are struggling. It has tools at its disposal to help middle-class families enjoy the middle-class lifestyle they’ve worked so hard to try to achieve by providing tax credits to help put their kids into sports and other extracurricular opportunities, like ballet and piano and art and drama and, of course, my favourite—and I’m sure the minister’s favourite as well—football. The government has these tools at their disposal, and yet they choose not to use them.

I remember, a couple of years ago—shortly after I got elected to the Legislature, in fact—the Premier got on television and said that he would not allow grocers and retailers to price gouge, that he would use the power of his office and of his government to stop price collusion and price gouging. Well, three years later from that, what have we seen? I walk into any grocery store—I walk into the Rabba across the street from my apartment here in Toronto, I walk into the Metro or the Loblaws or the Sobeys, and guess what? The price of a rotisserie chicken is exactly the same. The price of a steak per pound is exactly the same. It’s amazing that all these retailers who operate independently have exactly the same prices for everything, all of the time. And it’s remarkable how their prices go up all of the time at the same time. In fact, we know that they’re colluding because they issued a news release about how they were going to jointly not increase prices at the last round, when everyone was expecting prices to go up. We might remember that. I believe it was last fall or last winter they put that joint news release out, saying they weren’t going to collude and increase prices, as expected.

The government has tools within its authority to ensure that grocers don’t do that. It’s interesting, though, Madam Speaker, that some of the families that own many of the largest grocery chains are also very close to this government in other ways that I don’t think I need to describe to anyone. So if the government was serious about reducing the price of groceries, they would use their power to end the collusion that exists in the grocery business and to stop the price gouging that is happening here in Ontario.

So I have to ask the Premier—he stood at a podium; he stood, on television, and said he was going to stop it. So, Mr. Premier, where is the beef? Where is the beef? Because families can’t afford it. Food banks don’t have the resources to provide meats and fresh foods the way that they used to because they’ve seen such a huge uptick in their usage here in Ontario. In every community across Ontario, whether it’s Ottawa, Toronto, in the north or the southwest, food banks are struggling to keep up with the demand.

The theory behind the motion is that if you reduce the costs for farmers, distributors and those involved in the agricultural sector who are being subjected to this tax, that that will trickle down and grocery prices will come down. And, you know what? If you reduce the cost to farmers, chances are there will be an impact on prices at the grocery store, which is why the government has another tool. They could have helped the farmers in Navan and in Sarsfield who had their farms destroyed in the windstorm last year. Farmers who had barns with roofs ripped off, with silos that were damaged: These farmers got absolutely no support from this government.

The Premier came to east Ottawa, went to a fire station and said, “We’re going to be there to support you.” And not a single dollar has flowed to the city of Ottawa to help recover their cost, one of the largest agricultural and farming cities in our province. Not a single dollar flowed to Hydro Ottawa, which, of course, charges Ottawa residents for the hydro they pay. Not a single dollar, as I understand it, flowed to any individual farmer from the government to help them with their costs of repair from the vicious derecho windstorm that tore through eastern Ontario in 2022. That would have helped those farmers directly. That would have helped those farmers directly, but this government chose not to take that action.

I find it interesting, too, just the way in which the debate on the other side of this House has happened throughout the day to day—those who have chosen to speak to it in a language that they used. It feels to me that everyone on that side of the House is working on an audition tape. They’re auditioning for a job at perhaps a higher level of government, which may soon become available to them in their eyes. I think their tape that they’re going to get out of the debate tonight is going to make a great addition to their application for that job. I think that’s largely what’s driving the need for the debate tonight.

Because if it was about helping families, if it was about reducing the cost of groceries and the cost of food, there are any number of other tools and levers this government has at their disposal to pull. As the opposition House leader mentioned, there is a carbon tax that this government controls that applies to farms, farm producers and distributors. There are other taxes that apply to farmers and distributors in Ontario.

With that in mind, I’d like to move a motion to amend the motion. I move that the motion be amended by adding at the end:

“And that the government of Ontario remove all taxes from agricultural inputs including sales, income and corporate taxes from farm equipment, fertilizer, fuel and all other inputs that increase the cost of food.”

I can’t believe that this Ford government doesn’t want to take taxes away from farmers to help reduce the cost of groceries. They should be ashamed of themselves that they don’t support the farming community the way they ought to.

In conclusion, I think that we have demonstrated quite clearly that this government that’s all about the people has many opportunities, both legislatively and regulatorily, at their disposal. They have levers they can pull to reduce the cost of groceries already. They have levers they can pull and dollars they can spend to support families today. Writing a letter is easy. I can show you guys how to write a letter; it’s pretty easy. It’s a lot harder to make the tough decisions that will actually bring prices down. These are decisions that you’re avoiding. They’re decisions you have at your disposal.

You have an economic update coming in a week or two. You have the opportunity to make life more affordable for families in Ontario as part of that update; to provide tax relief for families who put their kids in extracurricular activities and in sports; to increase social assistance rates to those who are the most vulnerable; to ensure that Ontarians can continue to live the lifestyle that they’ve worked so hard to enjoy.

Madam Speaker, instead of simply blaming everyone else for the challenges that are facing our province, it’s time that this government took some responsibility and used the power that they were elected to use.

Interjections.

That’s right. They don’t know any better.

Further debate?

I had to wait for a second because I was overcome with the rapturous applause from the Liberal side for the last speaker. I guess they all got together and applauded at the same time. It was quite remarkable.

Speaker, the carbon tax increases the cost of everything, plain and simple. The carbon tax drives up the cost of everything we do and everything we consume. When we talk about groceries, we have to ask ourselves—and you’re talking about over the last year. I hear the Liberals and the NDP talk about cost-of-living issues over and over again, cost-of-living issues that are exacerbated dramatically by the carbon tax because it’s this spiralling thing. The carbon tax drives up the cost of something; people have to pay more for that something. The next thing you know, people are demanding that they want to get paid more for what they’re doing, and it’s just an endless upward spiral driving up the cost of living on everything we do.

I was somewhat entertained, I must say, by the member for Timiskaming–Cochrane talking about his three envelopes. I can assure you this, Speaker, and this can go out to as wide an audience as you want: The member can prepare three envelopes if he chooses; he will never, ever have the need to open them.

In fact, let’s talk about what’s going on over there. I know, because I listened to them wandering all over the world in their dissertations, and I asked myself, “Boy, I’m just glad I’m not a member of the NDP caucus these days. Wow.” I was just watching CP24 when I took a little break here. What is going on? The poor leader of the NDP must be just beside herself wondering, “Do I even want to have another caucus meeting to hear what’s going on there?” So I know that they’re having so much turmoil amongst themselves and so much confusion that they’re not sure what they’re talking about here today, because here’s one thing that is clear: There is no provincial carbon tax on anything—no provincial carbon tax on anything.

I know the member mentioned Pierre Poilievre. Have you seen those ads, how effective they are? When you’re a consumer and you’re somebody struggling in Renfrew–Nipissing–Pembroke with the cost of living, which is a burden for us as everybody else, and you see that ad—I talk to people on the street every weekend and if I’m home during the week, and they’re saying, “Wow. It’s just amazing, when you think about it, how that is driving up the cost of everything in that grocery store.”

You’ve got the input costs. You’ve got the fertilizer. You’ve got the fuel. You’ve got the trucks that move those goods from place to place. You’ve got people who drive to that farm to go to work. When you start to think about it, it is absolutely scary, because it’s endless. And when you go to buy those groceries, if you live in rural Ontario, you ain’t jumping on the subway that’s running whether you’re on it or not; you’re getting into your truck and driving to the grocery store.

So when I talk to people, they are just—I’ve got to tell you, it pains me when I see people who are just deciding whether or not they can actually buy that item in the grocery store, because the cost not just of those groceries, but everything else, is being driven by the carbon tax. Mr. Trudeau, every so often, sends out a cheque; that is just plain and simple bribery, a little bit of a cheque back to try to convince you that the carbon tax is actually working in your favour.

The member talks about—we’re not debating about whether we have climate change. That’s not the debate here. But what is clear is that Canada produces abut 1.5% of the world’s emissions. Are we the ones who are going to have to pay for the rest of the world that doesn’t implement climate change solutions, such as India and China, which are exempt from those agreements? But we’re the ones that should suffer, and our citizens are the ones who should pay the price, because Justin Trudeau wants to have a little fun that he can play games with—him and his environment minister, Steven Guilbeault? That’s what you get when you put a radical activist in as the environment minister for Canada, because they don’t care what the average person is going through.

So what we’re trying to do here in the PC Party—and yes, we went to court. Yes, we went to court, not because of our philosophy or our beliefs on the carbon tax; it was because we believe, on behalf of the people of Ontario, that the carbon tax would be harmful to them, and we’re right. We’re 100% right. You can dance around that all you want over on the other side, but the carbon tax is hurting, and it is not leading to a reduction of Canada’s carbon emissions. So it’s failing on two counts, but it’s driving up the cost of everything the people do.

So it doesn’t matter if you’re a farmer, a worker, a labourer, particularly if you live in rural Ontario. I remember one bill—we heat with oil in our house, and there was one bill for an oil tank fill-up—over $1,700 for a fill-up, and a significant amount of it was taxation. I said to my wife, “You know, we’re fortunate. We can afford to pay that bill, and we’ll pay it on time.” But if you’re one of those people who is struggling on everyday cost-of-living issues, and you have an oil bill, and it’s the wintertime, you either put oil in, or you don’t and you freeze. What kind of hardship are you placing on them—additional hardship—because of the federal carbon tax, for them to heat their homes? How can you in good conscience actually sit there and say, “We’re doing that because we’re going to save the world, when the rest of the world isn’t”? Little old Canada, with 1.5%, is going to take care of all of that, but our citizens are hurting deeply because of it.

The carbon tax was totally motivated by politics, not about environment—totally motivated by politics on behalf of those Liberal socialists who decided, “We have to find another way to extract more money from the people so that we could put it into the pet programs that we actually like, not because it was going to be a benefit to the people. It was going to be a benefit to us, because now we can now highlight the things that we want the people to see, at least those people we consider our core voters.” So now, that’s just what you get anew.

Speaker, we’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg, as they say, because as this carbon tax rises to 2050, what we’re getting today is just a small sample of the pain that people will be experiencing if this federal government continues on the path that it is on. The sky is the limit, and the provincial NDP were supporting a 300% increase in the carbon tax. And if they’re saying over there that the carbon tax is good and is not inflicting pain on people, then they are denying reality. If they’re going to stand there or sit there or just try to say that the carbon tax is not hurting people, they know they’re wrong. So if it’s wrong today, how wrong will it be tomorrow when it goes up and up and up? And yet those other countries that are far bigger polluters will be doing nothing. But they must be sitting back thinking, “Man, those Canadians are stupid. They are just committing”—I can’t think of a word that is parliamentary. “They’re doing it to themselves,” is what they’re saying.

But we have an opportunity as elected people—and thank goodness that Pierre Poilievre is standing up and saying, “If we’re elected, it’s gone, because we actually care about the cost of living, issues that people in Canada are facing.” He has an ally here in Ontario, because we believe the same thing: It has absolutely gone too far, and it is not succeeding in its purported purpose. We were going to reduce CO₂ emissions by inflicting this carbon tax on the people. Well, they haven’t done it. It hasn’t happened. So in spite of all that, they’re determined that they’re going to not only continue with the carbon tax; they’re going to raise the carbon tax. They’re going to increase the amount of the carbon tax. Where does it end?

If it continues like this, how does it do anything else but drive the cost of inflation up, drive inflation up continuously and incrementally even more? Because if every day you have to pay more for the things that you absolutely have to have—and I speak as a rural member, and the member from Timiskaming–Cochrane would understand this as well as anybody—it costs more. It costs more to get around in rural Ontario.

I’m grateful for the tremendous work that Premier Ford and our government is doing to increase public transit in the GTHA. It’s a tremendous expansion, the greatest in Canada’s history, the largest in Canada’s history. So that will do a lot to reduce the amount of CO₂ that we’re producing. We’re doing those things. We’re putting electric arc furnaces in our steel mills. That’s taking one to two million cars off the road. We are doing the kinds of things that will actually matter to people, but not with a carbon tax.

We actually believe over here—of course, we believe; they don’t believe. We believe that we can actually protect the environment, continue to reduce CO₂ without it having be that tremendous burden on people who are trying to raise their families and wondering whether they’re going to be able to make the mortgage payment.

The Minister of Economic Development has been a tremendous salesperson around the world, bringing to Ontario the greatest expansion into our auto and EV, electric vehicle, manufacturing system. We couldn’t have believed that was going to happen. What is it doing? We’re going to be the world leaders in electric vehicle battery production. If I’m not mistaken, $27 billion has been earmarked or invested or contracted for Ontario in these particular ventures. How much will we be reducing our emissions by because of that? Think about it, folks.

But the NDP actually want us not to continue to produce and build nuclear power facilities. So we’re going to have all these electric vehicles—world leaders in electric vehicles. But what are they going to do? Put a windmill on the roof? I don’t know where they’re coming from. They want us to be able to put all of these things that require more electricity, move them away from fossil fuels into electricity, but they don’t want us to produce electricity except by the way that they want to produce it: unreliable, intermittent sources. There is a place for solar. There is a place for wind. We absolutely understand that. But you can never have your baseload on something that you cannot absolutely depend on.

You might have the smartest guy in the world working for you, but if he only shows up to work on Mondays and Thursdays, he’s going to be a problem. But I’ll tell you—

No, she did it by email.

Just like Ford.

Like Ford.

Oh, now, now. Be careful there, ma’am—from Waterloo.

So what about that guy who is there every single day—

This is the inner conflict that the NDP is dealing with all the time—and the carbon taxes are no different. They’re up there every day, and I see them stand up there: “My question is for the Premier. I want to talk about affordability issues.” And when they have an opportunity to stand with us against the federal government, which is taxing people to death—but the people have caught on to Mr. Trudeau.

Interjection.

Mr. Trudeau has been caught, and boy, are things looking bleak for him. He’s not just an embarrassment here; he’s an embarrassment all over the world.

I’ll say to the member for Timiskaming–Cochrane, Trudeau probably should have had about six or seven of those envelopes. Anyway—

Interjection.

Anyway, hopefully he finds a way to stop the increases in the carbon tax, eliminate it from anything that is absolutely essential. I know the member is talking about groceries and grocery input costs, and I really appreciate the member from Chatham-Kent–Leamington for bringing that forward. But we have to look at the broader picture as well and look at how much damage it is doing in every facet of your life. Everything that we produce in this country, everything we produce in this province is more expensive because of carbon taxes. You can’t do a thing without being impacted by carbon taxes. So if that has so much significance that it is driving up the cost of everything—and we are in a tremendously competitive world—why wouldn’t it be prudent to ask yourself the question, “If I am harming every single citizen in this province, in this country by implementing and increasing the burden of a carbon tax that is not reducing CO₂ emissions, why would we be doing that in the first place?”

I support the motion. I thank the member for bringing it forward. I know this caucus supports the motion, because we stand firmly in opposition to the Trudeau carbon tax.

Are you using the carbon rebate to buy her the house?

I didn’t hear you, sorry. Did you say “Guelph”?

I want to ask the members opposite, are you going to take away my carbon rebate? Are you going to take away the carbon rebate cheques of the people of Ontario because you want to get rid of carbon pricing? Is that what you’re suggesting with this? Because I don’t know about the rest of you, but at least last year—I haven’t seen the numbers for this year—myself, like most Ontarians, got far more back in the carbon rebate than we paid in carbon pricing. I used that money—

Interjection.

I don’t know about the rest of you. I got my cheque a little bit ago, I deposited it in my bank account, and I used it to help buy groceries. That’s what I used my carbon rebate cheque for. I don’t know about the rest of you, what you use your rebate cheques for, but we used ours to help address affordability concerns.

You know what? I was going to say something nice about the minister of industry over there, so give me a second; I really was going to say something nice about the minister, Speaker. If the heckling can die down a little bit, I’ll get to the point in what I want to say, and I’ll say something nice about the industry minister. Okay.

The rebate: More people in Ontario receive more back in a rebate than they pay out in carbon pricing, and it creates an incentive—

Interjections.

Let’s look at what is driving the affordability crisis—

Interjection.

Three things—

So what is driving the affordability crisis people are facing? It’s primarily food, fuel and housing. So I want to start by focusing on food. If you look around the world, if you talk to food economists—and I’m lucky, I represent the riding of Guelph that has the University of Guelph which has most of the country’s leading food economists—at the University of Guelph. So I have the opportunity to chat with them. They will tell you there are three, well, four things—two of them are kind of related—driving up food prices. The first are supply chain disruptions partly due to the pandemic and partly due to the concentration we have in the food sector. Second is conflict—global conflict—primarily the global conflict in Ukraine. The third is all these changes in the weather: All the major food-growing regions in the world are experiencing significant droughts and have been experiencing them over the last five years. Then, oftentimes, when the drought ends, it’s because extreme rainfall comes and floods their crops. It’s one of the reasons the Salinas Valley in California was flooded, and we get a lot of our produce from California.

So when they say these weather events are causing food prices to go up, what is causing these weather events to happen? The climate crisis. It’s all being fuelled by the climate crisis. If the reason was because of what the government is stating—they’re saying it’s due to carbon pricing—if that was the reason, we wouldn’t see food inflation in countries without carbon pricing, but yet we’re seeing food inflation in countries all over the world.

As a matter of fact, food inflation in a number of other countries is higher than it is in Canada, even countries without carbon pricing. So we have to be honest with the people of Ontario. What is driving up the cost of food? Supply chain disruptions: There are two drivers of that. One is primarily due to the pandemic, which is exactly why we should be doing everything possible to support local supply chains. As a matter of fact, during the pandemic, one of the things the Premier said that I agreed with was the absolute need to protect local supply chains for PPE, food and other things.

So I asked the members opposite, will you work with us to end the loss of 319 acres of farmland each and every day in this province? We simply cannot allow more farmland to be lost in this province, because we need to have strong local supply chains. We have to grow food in this province for the people of this province so we’re not so dependent on international global markets affected by supply chain disruptions and conflict. So will you support protecting farmland in this province and actually start building homes and communities people want to live in on land that’s already approved for development, not on farmland?

Secondly, will you help—and this one we need the federal government’s help on, but we can have a role here in Ontario—in the extreme concentration in our food sector? Five retailers control 85% of food sales in this country. That hurts farmers and it hurts consumers. We’re both paying the price for that. That’s exactly why you have things like the price-fixing scandal of bread and other things. That’s why you see food producers, farmers and processors not making as much margins, even though you’re seeing record profits by grocery retailers. It’s why you’re seeing us, as consumers, being gouged at the marketplace. We do need the Competition Bureau and federal government to deal with this issue, but we can also push for a grocery code of conduct here in Ontario modelled after places like the UK and other countries to protect both farmers and producers and to protect consumers from extreme concentration in the retail market.

Now, conflict—I don’t know if there is much we can do about that. I mean, obviously we’re supporting Ukraine; obviously the Canadian government is supporting Ukraine. To me, the disruption increase that conflict is creating—one of the best ways we can combat that is actually being more self-reliant, producing our own food, which is exactly why we need to protect the farmland that grows that food, Speaker.

The big one is climate. The reason you’re seeing huge food inflation across all countries around the world is weather-related drought and flooding, and it is getting more extreme, it’s getting more severe, and it’s damaging more and more crops each and every year. Our farmers are on the front lines of that, and I’m very confident, as someone who grew up on a farm, that farmers are going to help us deliver solutions to that. But we also have to make sure we do our part to reduce climate pollution in Ontario, so we can reduce the impacts of the climate crisis on Ontarians.

As a matter of fact, I would argue that the climate crisis is nature’s tax on every single one of us, and we need to do our part to reduce pollution. Last year alone, insurance claims, because of the climate crisis, were $3.4 billion in Canada. The Insurance Bureau of Canada estimates that the public infrastructure costs are generally about three times higher than that, so that would be around $10 billion last year alone. All of us have to pay for that.

Ontario’s Financial Accountability Officer estimates that this decade alone, the cost to infrastructure just in Ontario is going to be $26.4 billion. That’s damage to our transit lines, our roads, our bridges, our storm waters, our sewers, our communities. So we (1) have to do more to invest in strengthening our infrastructure from damage driven by the climate crisis, but (2) we need to reuse climate pollution because that will help mitigate that damage and those financial losses.

So how are some of the ways we can do that? Well, one of them is that we can electrify our transportation system. This is where I was actually going to compliment the Minister of Economic Development and Job Creation: We are seeing increased investment in electric vehicle manufacturing in this province, and I hope that is something we can all celebrate. We’re behind other jurisdictions—China, the EU and the US are ahead of us—but we’re catching up, and that’s a good thing. But we also need to make sure that those electric vehicles that we produce in Ontario—that Ontarians can actually afford to drive them. That’s why I’ve supported things like rebates for new and used electric vehicles, so people can take advantage of the cost savings. If you want to help people save money at the gas pump, get rid of the gas pump.

I’m lucky; I drive one of the least expensive electric vehicles out there, probably. I’m lucky I drive that. Do you know why, Speaker? Because it costs me about one tenth to fill my car up with electricity as it would to fill it up with gas. I want all Ontarians to be able to realize those savings. That’s how we can significantly drive down costs. We can also invest in better transit. We can also invest in bike lanes and communities that are walkable, so people don’t have to drive as much, but for those who do, let’s electrify transportation and cut their fuel costs.

Housing: If we can electrify housing, especially heating costs, through heat pumps, we can save people money and reduce climate pollution at the same time. I’m working on a project in Guelph with Habitat for Humanity to build a 72-bedroom, multi-unit family housing project for obtainable home ownership for people. It will be covered in solar panels. It’s going to save those residents $62,000 a year on their heating and cooling costs. So we can drive down climate pollution; we can address the real affordability challenges people are facing for food, fuel and housing; and we can increase our economy and benefit at the same time.

I want to close with that: $1.1 trillion invested in the clean economy last year, about half of that in renewable energy; slightly less than that in electric vehicles. And like I said, I’m happy we’re seeing more of that investment in Ontario, but we are missing in action when it comes to attracting that investment for renewables and for heat pumps. I want Ontario to be a global leader in both of those areas too because I want to attract those investment dollars. I want to see the jobs and prosperity they create because we know that’s going to benefit our communities and help pay for things like health care and housing and education.

This year, Bloomberg estimates $1.8 trillion will be invested in the climate economy. Solar alone will exceed investments in the oil and gas sector. Why? Because solar energy is now the cheapest source of energy anywhere in the world. That’s why global investment dollars are flowing to solar.

We can utilize that solar to help reduce food costs. A great example of that is barns. I know solar companies now that are installing solar projects on chicken barns, hog barns, dairy barns, saving those farmers significant money, especially when it comes to chicken farming because of the amount of light required.

We have solutions to lower costs, increase jobs and lower climate pollution at the same time. The question is, are we going to implement the policies to do it? Because right now in Ontario, we’re hardly installing any solar. The government seems to be actively hostile to it. I don’t know why; it’s the lowest-cost source of electricity generation. In the same way that we can attract capital investment in electric vehicle manufacturing, why not in renewable energy manufacturing? Why not in heat pump manufacturing? A 40% increase in demand for heat pumps in the EU last year alone: That’s where the world is going. That’s where the economy is going.

I only have a few minutes left. I want to close by saying that there’s a lot of talk about the cost of carbon pricing, but not a lot of talk about the cost of the climate crisis—not a lot of talk about the climate crisis cost, even though it’s driving up so much of the food costs we’re experiencing. I want to work with government to protect our farmland, so we have those local supply chains.

Let’s build homes in existing urban areas: big cities, small towns. Let’s build homes there, where we have already paid for the servicing for those homes, where we can build more affordable communities and we can protect that precious farmland so not only would we feed our people, but we can export that, generating good jobs and prosperity for Ontario. Let’s invest in solutions like helping people reduce their fuel costs by making it easier to choose things other than a car or a pickup truck, and when they need a car or a pickup truck, they can afford to choose a low-cost electric because it’s going to save them money. Let’s address the housing affordability crisis, and let’s make sure we do it in a way where we build homes that are highly energy efficient and—

Interjection.

You might need help this time.

Further debate? The member from Guelph.

You should use it for speech writing.