I want to introduce Sam Demma, who is here with us today. He is the incredible best-selling author of Empty Your Backpack—an inspiring young Canadian. Thank you for joining us in the people’s House.

I want to welcome four constituents from Huntsville today—great community builders as well: Jason, Chantelle, Molly and Madeleine Armstrong. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Remarks in Anishininiimowin.

I’d like to welcome to the Legislature Chiefs of Ontario director of justice Jackie Lombardi, Anishinabek Nation Regional Deputy Grand Chief Travis Boissoneau and also Amanda Kioke from Attawapiskat. Meegwetch for coming.

It is an absolute pleasure to introduce Mr. Arun Kumar from Sandeep Entertainment and Mr. Sharat Samudrala and Hema Samudrala from CutMirchi Media. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Speaker, my question is for the Premier. Yesterday, newly uncovered documents provided even more evidence that it was Conservative political staff, not civil service experts, who directed changes to municipal official plans that favoured very specific land speculators in Niagara, Hamilton, Halton, Waterloo, Peel, York and Durham regions.

It’s clearer than ever that the Premier was looped into decisions regarding urban boundary changes from the start. So I have to ask the Premier, were these specific changes made to benefit the Premier’s friends, just like the decision to remove sites from the greenbelt?

These revelations bring the Premier’s and the former minister’s testimony to the Integrity Commissioner into question. Why is there such a discrepancy between the Premier’s testimony to the Integrity Commissioner and what’s revealed in these documents?

Speaker, the Premier told the Integrity Commissioner that he had “no recollection” of meeting developer Sergio Manchia about removing his lands from the greenbelt. The Premier repeated that just this morning, but the documents uncovered yesterday tell a very different story. In fact, they indicate that the Premier did meet with Mr. Manchia on September 20, 2021—with the same Mr. Manchia whose staff members said the Premier “needs to stop calling.”

I’m going to ask again, why is there such a discrepancy between what the Premier testified to the Integrity Commissioner and the revelations in these documents?

I’d like to welcome to the Legislature today two constituents from the beautiful community of Wainfleet. We have Alfred and Ann Kiers. Welcome to Ontario’s Legislature.

I’m pleased to advise the House of the recent appointment of a new permanent table officer. Effective October 11, 2023, Julia Douglas has assumed the duties of senior Clerk, table research.

Please join me in welcoming Julia in her new role and responsibilities. Congratulations.

Applause.

Welcome, Dr. Malkin. We are delighted to have you here today.

I welcome to the House Jessie Saliba, who is also celebrating her 29th birthday today.

At the same time, we’re going to continue focusing, working with our municipal partners to make sure we get shovels in the ground and homes built for the people of the province of Ontario.

I am very proud to welcome to the House artist, musician, cancer survivor, and founder and author of Aggressive Positivity, my friend Limore Twena Zisckind.

My question is for the Minister of Finance. When meeting with local businesses in my riding of Thornhill, I’ve heard time and time again of the pressures the federal carbon tax is putting on our economy and especially on our local commerce.

Starting and growing a business is hard work. All businesses play a vital rote in our province’s economy. While the opposition Liberals and the NDP have no problem with a regressive carbon tax, it’s not fair or right that our businesses are being punished.

Speaker, can the minister please explain what impact a carbon tax has on our economy and our businesses?

I’ll tell the Leader of the Opposition why they can trust us. You can look at the economy, the 700,000 people that are working that weren’t working five years ago. Then you look at the housing starts, record housing starts and rental starts over 30 years. We look at the infrastructure, building the highways and the roads and the bridges and the transit. We’re spending $70 billion on transit, $30 billion on roads. When it comes to MZOs, there’s 234,000 people that have a roof over their head today that wouldn’t have a roof over their heads. There’s 5,000 seniors that can call long-term care home because of the MZOs that were asked by the municipalities to do. There’s 150,000 construction jobs that happened because of those MZOs.

It’s a tool that we aren’t going to stop using. We’re going to continue building homes. The 1.5 million homes, that’s our target. We’re going to continue doing it.

But do you know what I find ironic? No matter if it’s MZOs or OPs or whatever, guess who shows up to all the announcements? The NDP shows up to the announcements, standing beside me when we’re announcing a long-term-care home. This happened numerous times. I find it very ironic they vote against it, but they want to take the kudos when we actually get the long-term-care homes built.

Supplementary question.

Speaker, Ontarians are growing increasingly concerned that this government doesn’t understand the gravity of the situation they’re in.

Back to the Premier: They’re under a criminal RCMP investigation. Apparently, interviews are going to start this week. They’ve appointed a special prosecutor. The Integrity Commissioner and the Auditor General had to do comprehensive probes in order for the public to get a sense of the scale of this government’s dirty deals. This goes so far beyond the greenbelt. We’ve seen a clear pattern of preferential treatment benefiting the private interests of a select few landowners over and over and over again.

Speaker, to the Premier: How can Ontarians trust this government when a mountain of evidence shows they’re only in it for their friends?

To the Premier: Who runs this province? Is it the Premier, or has he outsourced the job to his speculator friends?

Speaker, to the Premier: Why is the Premier’s cabinet sitting on their hands while he is clearly giving preferential treatment to his insider friends?

This question is for the Premier. From official plans to the greenbelt to MZOs, we have a chaotic and speculator-friendly process driven by the Premier and his political staff. When discussing the Cherrywood lands owned by Silvio De Gasperis, Mr. Amato is quoted in these FOI documents saying the government should just do “what they asked for.” At another point, Mr. Amato says the speculator is getting an “unfrozen $3-billion asset.” On another point, he says the process needs to look “as clean as possible.”

If Ontarians can’t trust this government’s testimony under oath, why should anyone believe them at all?

In document after document, we have quotes like “they’re bringing it to the PO,” “in conversation with PO.” And PO, by the way, in case anybody doesn’t already know, is the Premier’s office.

Back to the Premier: If this is how the Premier’s office conducts business, when is the Premier going to come clean about his role in these shady backroom deals?

Where you’ll never be.

Interjections.

Just the opposite, Speaker: We’re not sitting on our hands. In fact, we are getting the job done across the province of Ontario. She talks about minister’s zoning orders. The Premier talked about it: Minister’s zoning orders will ensure that we have the largest long-term-care home in the country built in Mississauga. You know what else it will mean? It will mean the largest hospital in the country in Mississauga.

So, the Leader of the Opposition would like us to close down 600 beds for seniors. She’d like us to stop construction of the largest hospital in the country. She’d like us to put down the shovels on the social housing that is being built within the city of Toronto. She would like us to stop the subways that are being built. She would like us to stop the GO trains that are being built across the province of Ontario. And she would like us to stop building homes for people of the province of Ontario who have one dream. The dream is to come to this province, or if you’re already here, to get out of your parents’ basement so that you can have the same dream as everybody else.

We won’t stop. We’ll get the job done.

Surrounding the Leader of the Opposition are members who vote against housing; they vote against transit and transportation in their riding. It is a caucus that is divided, and the Leader of the Opposition will do anything to distract from the divisions in her own caucus. We will move forward on building a bigger, better, stronger province of Ontario because that’s what the people need, and we won’t let them down.

Speaker, the Gormley lands were never removed from the greenbelt. I know this quite well, because it is in my riding. I actually, begrudgingly, campaigned in two elections to remove the Gormley lands from the greenbelt, because the town of Stouffville is having such a difficult time raising the funds needed with respect to unfunded liabilities with respect to infrastructure, because it is entirely greenbelted. But the Premier, on both occasions, told me it’s not happening and rejected that greenbelt expansion.

Thank you to the hard-working member from Thornhill for that great question. Their local business owners are absolutely right: The carbon tax is driving up costs and making life more expensive for the people of this great province.

In fact, a recent study by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business found that more than 56% of businesses would need to increase their prices immediately due to direct pressures from the carbon tax. That means that it’s not just on the carbon tax, Mr. Speaker. It’s a tax on the truck drivers who bring in our food, it’s a tax on the farmers who grow our crops and it’s a tax on the local businesses that try to succeed in Ontario.

It’s not fair for the people of this province to continue with this punitive carbon tax, and that’s why we will continue to fight against the carbon tax, even as the Liberals and the NDP opposition members continue to vote to make life more expensive for Ontario families.

That’s why I was proud to have stood alongside the Premier today to announce that our government is once again taking action to support hard-working Ontario families and businesses by extending our gas tax cut. If passed, the 2023 fall economic statement will extend the gas tax cut to June 30, 2024, saving households an average of $260.

Mr. Speaker, this is just one more cost-saving measure championed by our government, putting money back in the pockets of Ontario families at a time when they need it most.

—because he’s proud to stand with two leaders, Prime Minister Harper and Premier Ford, who have taken a hardline stance against the carbon tax.

There’s no place in this province where that cost has had a greater burden. Think for a moment, when the Dryden Eagles want to play the Fort Frances Muskies, there’s 185 or 200 kilometres. It’s hockey, it’s basketball, badminton, all those sports, Mr. Speaker. Think of how much more money those schools have to pay to play each other. Gas is already more expensive up in northern Ontario. That 14 cents a litre is a big hit.

But let’s talk about energy, mining and forestry. A recent study at the University of Waterloo says this is a hit to Canada of $256 billion for forestry, mining and energy combined. As one of the largest producers or users in those three spaces, Ontario is exposed in three of its primary drivers for our economy. It’s time to scrap this tax.

Now, this government understood that. We put a reduction in fuel costs into the isolated communities in the last legislative session. The member from Kiiwetinoong, how did he vote against that, colleagues? These are carrying people and goods to his isolated communities. He voted against it, as did his other colleagues who have isolated communities in their ridings. They already have some of the highest costs for groceries, goods and, importantly, diesel fuel for the last remaining communities in northern Ontario who deserve an electricity corridor.

I know the Minister of Energy is listening hard to that. This carbon tax is very expensive for our isolated communities. It’s time to scrap the tax.

Thank you to the equally hard-working minister.

The carbon tax harms the health, wellness and progress of Ontarians. The regressive tax adds an artificial barrier to the affordability of essential items. It forces small businesses to increase prices, making them less competitive, and it places an unfair burden on our producers.

Ontario companies are struggling every day to stay competitive and viable in a global market due to high inflation. In this time of economic uncertainty and affordability concerns, let’s not tax Ontarians more. Unlike the opposition Liberals and NDP, our government believes in putting money back into the pockets of people by removing this harmful tax.

Can the minister please share his views on why we need to fight this carbon tax and provide support to Ontario businesses and families?