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.

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?

Thank you to the minister. As we all know, small businesses are the backbone of our local economy, especially in my riding of Carleton. However, many local businesses are already feeling financial pressure due to higher costs associated with inflation and ongoing supply chain challenges.

I often speak with business owners who are concerned about the impact that the carbon tax is having on their business operations. Many of these owners are still struggling to recover and they worry about the impact increasing carbon taxes will have on their ability to continue operating. The opposition Liberals and NDP need to hear their concerns and support our small business owners by opposing this regressive and harmful tax.

Speaker, through you, can the minister please share what impacts the federal carbon tax increases have had on small businesses in our province?