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.

Further debate? The member from Guelph.

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.

Before I get into my prepared remarks here, the member from Guelph spurred me to do a little bit of research. We can’t correct anybody’s record here in the Legislature, but I just want to put this on the record for myself: A 2023 report from the Parliamentary Budget Officer says the average Ontario family is set to lose $478 based on the carbon tax. So I thought I’d just put that out there for everybody who’s watching or who might be listening, and to make sure that the member from Guelph is aware that that indeed is the case. That’s right from the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s report this year, 2023.

Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise in the House this afternoon and join the debate on motion 69, the motion introduced by my friend the member from Chatham-Kent–Leamington. I just want to go back to the premise of the motion, and that is, “That, in the opinion of this House, the government of Canada should take immediate steps to eliminate the carbon tax on grocery items.” This is a motion that I wholeheartedly support.

During my remarks today, I’ll focus on initiatives aimed at lowering the cost of the carbon tax on food, how skyrocketing food costs won’t come down if you add another tax to producers and consumers, and a historic look at how this House has tried to protect Ontarians from these taxes in the past.

We know the federal carbon tax is driving food costs higher than they already are, and what is shocking is that we may not actually know how much it is truly adding to grocery bills.

Thankfully, there is some good news coming out of Ottawa, if you can believe that, colleagues. A Conservative bill, Bill C-234, would remove the federal carbon tax from on-farm uses of natural gas and propane, which I’m going to talk a little bit about here, because it’s very important as to why these items need to be exempt from the carbon tax. Farmers use these fuels for processes such as grain drying or heating their barns. These uses are not currently exempt from carbon tax laws. This bill, which is now before the Senate, was supported by the entire House of Commons—colleagues, if you can guess, who didn’t support it, though? The Liberals. I know it’s hard to believe.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer, who we’ve talked a little bit about here today, analyzed Bill C-234, and what they found is that farmers would save—this is a staggering amount, colleagues. Having natural gas and other heating fuels exempt from the carbon tax for on-farm use would save farmers $978 million between now and 2030—almost a billion dollars back into the pockets of farmers. And we all know that hard-working farmers reinvest that money into their businesses; it’s no surprise. Anybody who has had an opportunity to travel the province and speak with farmers knows this.

In the words of Dr. Sylvain Charlebois, the senior director of the agri-food analytics lab at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Bill C-234 is just a start. The professor shared an op-ed titled, “The Hidden Cost of Carbon Taxes and How it Will Impact Food Retail in Canada.” The article begins with a very concerning point, and this is the point that I was getting to make earlier: We may not have an idea how much carbon tax increases will impact food security. That’s really what we’re talking about here today—food security and food affordability. The professor wrote, “On April 1, the carbon tax will be set at $65 per metric tonne. We are slowly marching towards a carbon tax of $170 per metric tonne, by 2030”—which is just around the corner, whether we like it or not—"which is more than double what it is today. Yet so far, not one study has looked at how the carbon tax will be impacting food affordability in Canada. Not one.” So we know that it’s going to drive up the price of essential goods like food. We know that this will impact vulnerable people the hardest, but we do not know how big the impact will be. Quite frankly, that’s a recipe for disaster. The Liberals’ approach to feeding Canadians has been all stick and no carrot.

To quote Professor Charlebois again, “According to a report from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB), more than $8 billion will be collected from small business through the carbon tax by the end of fiscal 2023, and as little as $35 million will be given back as credit in the form of programs. Many small businesses, especially family businesses, are in the food industry.”

So what will happen if the federal government goes with the status quo? And to quote the professor one more time, “Food processors, artisan shops, and restaurant owners need more and better support or else, by 2030, the carbon tax will have the potential to become a ... more significant driver of food inflation than climate change itself. That’s right, the policy to penalize polluters could hurt citizens more than climate change, the very thing we are all trying to mitigate.”

So this is very concerning. The price of food has already increased dramatically over the last few years, and you don’t need to look far to see the impact of food inflation. Kim Wilhelm, the interim CEO of the Food Bank of Waterloo Region, said in a recent article that over 1,000 students used the food bank just this August. That is, roughly, a 150% increase since last year.

Another telling stat is how much they are spending on food at the food bank. Pre-pandemic, the food bank would spend about $200,000 on very specific food purchases. Now they estimate, by the end of this year, they will spend about $2 million on those same purchases. So what happens when that $2-million bill goes up by another unknown amount, Madam Speaker?

I want to go back in time a little bit to 2008. The Dark Knight had recently been released in theatres; a young Justin Trudeau still had a political future. Prior to the federal election, the McGuinty Liberals moved a motion calling on federal party leaders to commit to treating Ontario fairly. For context, this was during the time that Stéphane Dion’s Liberal Party was championing a carbon tax, back in 2008. The federal member from Thornhill moved a motion to amend that as following: “fairness in Ontario’s taxation policies so that people already overburdened by taxes in this province are not subjected to the proposed carbon tax.” That was a motion on the carbon tax that was being introduced in Ottawa. And the Liberals, of course—can you guess, colleagues? What did they do? They voted down the amendment.