Didn’t the Premier promise to do something like that?

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?

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.

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.