Yes, he did promise, but they haven’t enforced it.

So the government has the power to crack down on price gouging by the grocery monopolies, but the member isn’t proposing this today, and the government certainly doesn’t seem to have any problem with the price gouging of these certain grocery store chains.

But pointing the finger at the federal government on a carbon tax on groceries that does not exist is not helpful. I think that’s the key piece here. It’s just not helpful to address the very real issue of high grocery prices. In fact, the government is actually helping one grocery corporation expand into privatized health care. Now, this is interesting, right? There’s an acknowledged problem with price gouging; they’ve got the market cornered on groceries. They hold all the cards, Madam Speaker. But there is no attempt on behalf of the provincial government to balance that relationship out and address price gouging.

Maple, a Loblaw-funded virtual care business, charges $69 per doctor’s visit. It is illegal to charge for medically necessary care in Ontario, but it is happening anyway and it’s this government that is not doing anything about these fees. If you want to help people with their cost of living—going to a doctor should not cost you $69. In fact, this was the promise by the Premier: that you will never have to use your credit card. Well, these people who are going to Maple, a Loblaw-funded virtual care business, are using their credit card, not their health card. And this is a cost pressure that is impacting many Ontarians. Ontarians should only need an OHIP card to pay for health care, not a credit card.

And so we’ve already said the government doesn’t seem to care about Loblaws charging fees for health care, and it certainly doesn’t care about the grocery price gouging. Instead, it is pointing fingers once again at the federal government, which actually is now happening more and more in this House.

Let’s just move over to farmers, because we’ve spoken to a lot of farmers. We have a very strong agricultural critic in our caucus. We’ve spent a lot of time with speaking with farmers around the kitchen table and talking about their cost pressures and the reality that they face in a very competitive market. Ontario farmers are really, really upset with this government right now. They really are mad. The government keeps launching wave after wave of a tax on farmland and food security, MZOs, the greenbelt scandal, urban boundary expansions, allowing farms to be split in three and fragmented, gutting conservation authorities and wetland protections, increasing the risk of flooding and putting soil and water at risk. This government is actively working against farmers in Ontario. I mean, I’ve never seen anything like it, when you sit down with a farmer and they just say, “What is going on at Queen’s Park? Who is driving the bus?” Because we’ve now seen this government have to backtrack and reverse on so many of your policy initiatives, and nobody—nobody—in this province believes that you were doing it to increase housing.

Interjection: Not a soul.

So, all of these measures, which are actively working against farming, working against agricultural productivity, moving those farms further and further away from city centres—not in the best interest, Madam Speaker.

The government could have listened to its own Housing Affordability Task Force and made it easier to build homes within the existing urban boundaries. This would have been something that is a great idea, quite honestly. We all want it. We know that’s where people want to live. This narrative that has been espoused by the Minister of Municipal Affairs—the new one, the government House leader—that immigrants want to live out on the greenbelt: Immigrants who are coming to this country have enough challenges. They need to be close to transit, close to employment and close to education, and that’s what they’ve told us. So that informed our argument on many fronts.

Protecting the greenbelt and irreplaceable farmland is clearly not a priority. Instead, the government ignored the vast majority of the task force’s recommendations, wasted a year giving preferential treatment to favoured speculators, enriching them by billions while putting food and farms at risk. It is hard to be a farmer in Ontario, and this government keeps making it more difficult, disrespecting the work that they do.

After the vice-president of OFA warned that government policies were sacrificing “some of the finest and most productive farmland in the province” to Hamilton’s urban boundary expansion—our members fought hard against that—the other member in Hamilton said, “It isn’t being farmed.”

If Ontario farmers can’t make a living, it means higher food prices. But this motion won’t do anything to stop this government’s relentless attacks.

Really, that entire process has now clearly been articulated.

Now we have a criminal investigation from the RCMP. I was here when the OPP were investigating the Liberal Party on several fronts; I think at one point, there were four active OPP investigations—but an RCMP criminal investigation is a place that this Legislature has never been before. So it is precedent-setting that this government’s policies and actions run counter to the public interest. It is our job, as the official opposition, to hold the government to account and to make sure that every dollar that is directed from this place—that that return on investment goes to the people we’re elected to serve.

I hope that the government members are listening. I hope that you are as interested as we are in addressing the price gouging that’s happening in our grocery stores; the preferential treatment to some of these large grocery chains, as I mentioned with Maple—and their expansion into privatized health care is not in the best interest of the people we’re elected to serve.

So here we are debating a motion that will not address those cost pressures. While the government has well within your own purview, your responsibility, maybe even your mandate letters—we don’t know; they’re still in court. But if that were to happen and we were to look at your mandate letters, I hope that there would be some common ground, where we would be addressing the increased costs of basic necessities.

We also regard health care as a basic necessity.

We also regard housing as a basic necessity. When the Minister of Municipal Affairs stands in his place and says, “We must address the need for more rental properties”—how could you say that with a straight face, when just as many people are getting renovicted from those rental spaces?

Interjection.

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

I’m pleased to be able to rise today and speak to motion 69 and understand the government’s genuine concern for people by writing this two-sentence motion asking somebody else to do something. In my opinion, maybe it’s worth the paper that it’s written on, because it’s in a big book here right now. But honestly, folks, really?

First of all, you know how impractical what you are suggesting is. You know that it’s neutral. It’s great politics—sounds good—but when you start digging in, not so good. If you really were concerned about affordability, you would return rent control. People can’t afford to pay their rent. And when they do pay their rent, they can’t afford to buy their food, carbon tax or not, whatever you’re trying to do.

You know it’s not going to work, but you do like to say, “Hey, we’d like you to do something. We’d like you, this government over here, to do this,” or, “It’s their fault,” or, “They did this thing.” Five and a half years, no responsibility for anything—incredible.

But here, I want to help you. I do. I want to help you. Here’s how you could help: return rent control. Make sure people have enough money to buy their groceries. That would really help, and you can do that. The minister can do that. We talked about that this morning. The member from Scarborough–Guildwood mentioned that.

If you can’t do that, if you’re unwilling to do that, why don’t you just raise social assistance rates? The people who are most impacted by grocery price increases—I spent 22 years in the grocery business. I go into grocery stores all the time. It’s hard, so you’re right in that part of it. But the action you’re suggesting is, let’s be clear, abdicating any responsibility.

If you can’t do that, if you can’t do rent control and raise social assistance rates, let’s try something else maybe a little easier—a little easier for the government to swallow, apparently. That’s not a food joke but it just ended up happening. What about the Ontario Child Benefit? One year ago, we said you need to raise the Ontario Child Benefit. For those families—and there are a lot of families that are captured by that—it would help them pay for groceries. Fifty, 100 bucks a month is going to help.

You could’ve done that. You’ve done nothing. You didn’t even entertain it. Why not? I don’t understand. Given your genuine, deep, abiding concern with people’s ability to buy their groceries, I just can’t understand why you haven’t increased the Ontario Child Benefit. It’s something I think we could all agree on. I think it would be fair. But you know what? Now’s our opportunity. We have an opportunity here today. You have an opportunity here today.

Speaker, I would like that the motion be amended by adding at the end: “And that, the government of Ontario, move to raise the Ontario child tax benefit.”

Speaker, I would like to ask for unanimous consent for this motion to be considered by the House.

As a matter of fact, it was shorter than your motion. It was shorter. But I’m going to tell you one thing: This motion is worth way more than the paper that it’s written on. And it’s important to families and it’s a serious thing. I know I’m chiding you and I know I’m smiling, but it’s serious. Think about this—think about this when you go back to caucus, think about this when you go back to cabinet. Think about it.

Okay, let’s try for something else. You can throw me an idea from behind or over there if you’d like, I’m good. Hey, why not give a tax credit to families who are trying to put their kids in extracurricular sports, or something after school so they’ll have a bit more money to pay for the groceries because they’re trying to make sure that their kids have the activities that they need to be healthy, and they can have the food to be healthy. Why not that?

I’m not going to put forward another amendment on that because I want you to remember the last amendment. I want you to remember the last amendment, because you can do that. You can do that in the fall economic statement. You’ve got a couple of days to figure it out. It’s going to help a heck of a lot of families.

Okay, so, it’s clear, to me anyway, that it doesn’t look like the government wants to take any real action, any kind of meaningful thing that they can do. They don’t want to pick up a hammer or a screwdriver or anything—to do anything to help families with their grocery prices. I spent 22 years in the grocery business. I know how it works.

If they’re so concerned about grocery prices—I mean we saw the bread-fixing thing. We know that happened, and it wasn’t just bread. There’s more stuff in there. I go into a lot of grocery stores because I like to, because I love what I used to do, so I know how the prices are. So I really don’t understand why the Premier, the Premier for the people, the little guy, isn’t running to write—well, actually, if he started with writing, I think there’s too much letter-writing and motion-writing going on here—but if he wrote the grocery CEOs and said, “Get your act together. Stop putting it to the people of Ontario. Stop doing the things that you’re doing and profit-taking and think about what’s happening to families right now.”

Maybe he could write a letter to the Competition Bureau, maybe he could dig a little deeper. But you know, the stuff on the surface, that’s so easy. Writing a 12-word motion that says, “Hey, you, over there. You need to fix this thing, and we’re not even going to tell you how to do it.” With all due respect to the member, I understand the politics and I understand why you’re doing it, but you know what? It ain’t putting food on anybody’s table. Whether it passes or whether you write the letters that you write—you know, write the Governor of the Bank of Canada—tell him to do something and he’s going to totally ignore you. Come on, guys, this is a serious place. We need serious motions. We need serious things like raising the Ontario Child Benefit.

So, think about this, if you leave this debate today, if there’s only one thing you remember, one single thing is that if you raise the Ontario Child Benefit, you’ll be putting food in front of children right away, not writing a motion that is essentially meaningless.

And demovicted.

It is heartbreaking to see what we saw here in the Legislature this morning—to have a very callous response to a 92-year-old woman being evicted.

There is so much more that this government can be doing to make the lives of Ontarians better, not more difficult.

As I said, there is no carbon tax on groceries, so the government is going to be sending a motion to the federal government to ask them to do something that they can’t do.

But the provincial government, the Ford government, can invest the carbon taxes that you are collecting on the food agri-business, on the agri-industrial sector, and put that money back to those stakeholders. They’re looking for a partner to reduce their greenhouse gases. They’re looking to this government to show some leadership on this front, and if you were to do that in a very strategic and targeted way, we would be very supportive of that.

Further debate?

We’re back to the debate.

It’s a great pleasure to rise to speak to this motion about the government abdicating its responsibility to do anything whatsoever to assist families in their desperate time of need during this economic crisis.

As we know, this government has failed for the last five years—

Second-best.

The member from Orléans.

We’ll recognize the member from—

Centre.

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?