It’s always an honour to speak in the House. I’ve got to say, it’s tough to follow the government House leader. On a performance level, I will never come close.

But I am quite surprised about the motion. We’re in support. We are in support. We have lobbied for a long time to take HST off of home heating. That isn’t new for the NDP. The thing that surprises us and disappoints us is that this Legislature keeps focusing on things that another government should do, and doesn’t focus on the things that it has the power to do itself.

This game-playing that’s going on here—quite frankly, Ontarians don’t care about the game-playing. They care that they’re getting to the point where they can’t afford to heat their house and eat at the same time. That’s what they care about. That is what they care about. All this “he said,” “she said,” “they said”—they don’t care.

They don’t, and they shouldn’t.

So this motion asking the federal government to remove the HST from home heating—it’s pretty straightforward, something we could support. We will support. Pretty simple. But what we really should be doing in this Legislature is looking at things that we could do immediately—immediately—to help people with their heating bills; help them to be able to afford the latest technology—heat pumps—so they can actually reduce the cost of heating their homes and reduce the impact on the environment, because that’s something that both squabbling parties over there, the Liberals and the Conservatives, have seemed to have forgotten.

Now, the Conservatives never really cared about the environment, and we know that. And you know what? I can respect that. They’re open about that. The Libs, they pretend to care. They really do pretend to care. But we’ll go back to the federal government. The federal government says the carbon tax is supposed to help the environment, and then they say, “But some people should pay more than others.” That’s defeating the whole purpose, because everybody has to buy in.

And just for the record, Speaker, we’ve never been in favour of the carbon tax. We are in favour of a program that puts pressure on the use of carbon to reduce the use of carbon throughout the province, throughout the country. We support cap-and-trade. And people say, “Oh, there’s no difference between cap-and-trade and the carbon tax.” That’s not accurate. I’m going to explain cap-and-trade from a dairy farmer perspective.

Interjection: Oh, no.

Some industries will have an easier time of making big changes, and they’ll have credits because their production of carbon will go down quicker than the quota they’re allotted. They will be able to, yes, sell those credits. And some industries won’t be able to adapt as quickly, and they might have to buy those credits. But overall, the production of carbon will go down. Because as governments, we have to worry about home heating, absolutely, but we also have to worry about what’s going to happen to our kids and our grandkids. So overall, we have to reduce the production of carbon.

Now, the funny thing about the current Conservative government talking about the carbon tax is that the only reason we have a carbon tax in Ontario is that they cancelled the cap-and-trade system. That’s the only reason we have a carbon tax in Ontario, because they can’t tell the difference, and they won’t tell people the difference. They use stickers on gas pumps, and they go to court because, perhaps, they don’t know the difference themselves.

Let’s all agree that the number-one issue in all our constituencies right today is affordability. Let’s agree. Let’s agree, okay? But let’s also agree that a big issue that is looking over the whole planet and Ontario is that the climate is changing and we have to look at what we can do to slow that down. Let’s all agree on that. Let’s all agree on that. So, let’s come up with programs that actually work.

Now, the federal Liberal government has basically said, “Well, we don’t think our program works because we’re making carve-outs.” So that tells you that the carbon tax program isn’t working—isn’t working. One of the things in the cap-and-trade program that the former government put in, that this government scrapped—there was a fault in it, a fault that we identified: that cap-and-trade wasn’t going to work for everyone either. Because some people in places like where I live, where there’s no public transportation, it’s really cold, there’s a lot of—it’s a great place to live, Speaker. I highly recommend Timiskaming–Cochrane as a place to live, but you have to like winter sports.

But there was a fault with cap-and-trade, and that’s why we proposed to take 25% of the proceeds from cap-and-trade and direct it to areas and sectors that would not be able to compete—

You know what? Guess what? Guess why Quebec doesn’t have a carbon tax.

Interjection: They have cap-and-trade.

It should actually be the Ford carbon tax. It should. It should be the Ford carbon tax, because that’s what it is.

Now, I listened to government members and ministers tell me that they’re doing these fantastic things—you know, green steel and electric cars. Great. Great. Put some horsepower behind those programs so you can actually show that you’re reducing carbon and then you will be able to get rid of the carbon tax. Put some work behind it instead of rhetoric. The Liberal Party—or the kind-of-Liberal Party, potentially-Liberal Party, maybe-never-again-Liberal Party—they’re all rhetoric right now too, but so are you. The Ford government on environmental issues is pure rhetoric. They’re following their federal cousins; “Axe the tax” is the only thing they can think of, and that’s what they’re doing.

They want people to think that the only thing that is going to make life more affordable is eliminating the carbon tax. That’s not true; it’s not. There are many things that could be done right now in this province by the current government—maybe by the next one if the current government doesn’t do it. Make actual changes so that things like heat pumps, things like super-insulating your homes, things like putting top-quality windows in so you reduce not just the use of carbon but reduce the price of heating for the people in this province. Make long-term reductions so that they can improve where they live, for those people who actually can afford to live here; so they can make long-term improvements on their energy efficiency; so that they can actually benefit.

Because there are ways, Speaker, to actually benefit, for people to benefit from making changes so that they burn less carbon. The biggest benefit is for their kids and grandkids—that’s the biggest benefit—but there is an immediate benefit too, and it’s called a lower heating bill. A lower heating bill—imagine that. Imagine if a government member stood up and said, “We are going to do this. We’re going to fund heat pumps. We’re going to fund insulation”—all kinds of things. Who knows what they can come up with? But that is not their answer.

Their answer is, “We’re going to send a letter to the federal government.” Send a letter. Put it in big block letters, because, you know what, the stickers didn’t work. And now they’re angry and confused when sometimes you’re not supportive of the letter, or you are supportive of the letter.

This government has been in power for five years—

Interjection: Five and a half.

Five and a half years—and they have, to their credit, fought against the carbon tax which they created for that whole time. So they create the carbon tax; they didn’t like cap-and-trade. Do you know what? Cap-and-trade wasn’t perfect. We tried to make it better. We tried. But they didn’t like it, so they cancelled it, knowing full well that cancelling cap-and-trade, cancelling any type of program to reduce carbon, was going to make the province fall into the federal carbon tax. They knew that going in, people.

Let’s make that clear: The Ford government cancelled cap-and-trade so that Ontarians would have to pay the carbon tax, so that they could complain about the federal government. Basically, that’s what it is. They’re helping Mr. Poilievre—who I don’t understand. I don’t understand this whole dynamic, because Mr. Poilievre doesn’t like the investment bank, because the Liberals created it. So the Progressive Conservatives go, “Oh, give it to us.”

And do you know what? Ontarians who can’t afford their heat and can’t afford their mortgage payments—and in my part of the world, can’t afford to drive to work—do you know what they all really want right now? What they all really need is a new provincial-sponsored bank. That’s what they want. That’s really what they want. That’s their top priority.

Interjection.

Let’s make this pretty simple and clear: We are in favour of this motion directing the federal government to take HST off heating. We’ve been in favour of this for a long time—2011? This has been a long-standing policy for us, especially in places in northern Ontario—all of Ontario, but this province is so big and so varied, many people don’t realize the challenges that people face. I don’t come from Toronto. I didn’t realize that there—coming from northern Ontario we think everything down here is just great, until you get here. And there’s huge challenges in Toronto—huge—but one of our biggest challenges in northern Ontario is no public transportation because of our distances per capita. We realize that.

But we’re a vital part of this province. You know they’re always taking about the critical minerals strategy and mining and stuff. Do you know where most of that comes from? It comes from northern Ontario, the future of this province. I think a lot of people will agree a big part of the future of this province comes from northern Ontario. But the people who live there face unique challenges, and one of them is the cost of living, which is higher. The day-to-day cost of living is higher, and the farther north you go the higher it gets. My colleague from Kiiwetinoong, when he gets the opportunity to speak on this, will detail the costs of living —I live in central Ontario, actually. For people who live in northern Ontario, the costs are astronomical.

So, we’re in favour of this motion. We hope that the government puts forward policies that they actually can enact to help people—that they actually show that the things that they talk about, the green steel, all the announcements they make regarding electrification. Let’s show us that they’re going to prove that they’re actually going to reduce the amount of carbon, and then we can use that proof to get off the carbon tax program. Wouldn’t that be—right? If you don’t like the federal carbon tax and you do want to do something to recognize climate change and do your part to control climate change, come up with a better program—come up with a better program.

There should be lots of horsepower on that side to come up with a better program. There should be lots of horsepower on that side to show that you can reduce your carbon output. There should be lots. But to date, the government’s focus has been on taking the federal government to court and losing and costing money and challenging the federal government on their right to put on a backstop program if the province doesn’t put one in. That was a loser right from the start. That was a loser right from the start. But that wasn’t, Speaker—I’m going to close on their first salvo, so after they cancelled the program that they had instead of fixing it, knowing full well that they were going to now force Ontarians to pay the carbon tax—and this will go down in infamy—their solution to pollution was stickers on gas pumps.