I declare the motion carried.

Second reading agreed to.

I recognize the member for Orléans.

Further debate? I’ll recognize first the member for Orléans.

The Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs.

This is a party that has the opportunity to call the federal Prime Minister—a Liberal Prime Minister—not just today, but for the last number of years, and say, “Remove a tax from the people of the province of Ontario.” This is a member and a party that, when we took the carbon tax to court—Speaker, we took the carbon tax to court, along with our partners in other provinces, because we said it would cost the people of Ontario, the people of Canada, billions of dollars. It was that Liberal Party that stood in the way. Do you know what they said? They said that we were crazy to believe that the carbon tax would have that type of an impact on the people of the province of Ontario.

I say to the member—he talks about a motion—I say to the member: Pick up the phone, call your federal colleagues, and tell them to remove the carbon tax first. Tell them to remove the carbon tax.

The member knows full well that the provincial government can’t remove the harmonized sales tax. We actually don’t have the authority to do that. Do you know who does have the authority to do that? The Liberals. That’s who has the authority to do it. This member knows full well that if we wanted to remove the harmonized sales tax from heating and fuel that it would have to come from the federal Liberal government. This government here—

I am seeking the unanimous consent of the House to introduce a motion that, in the opinion of this House, the government of Canada, in conjunction with the government of Ontario, remove the harmonized sales tax on fuels and inputs for home heating.

As we know, we are facing an affordability crisis in our province that has been ongoing for some time. Families are having difficulty paying their bills. We’ve seen rents go up dramatically. We’ve seen mortgage rates and mortgage payments go up dramatically. We’ve seen the cost of buying groceries to feed your family go up dramatically. We’ve seen utility bills, like electricity, which is regulated by the province of Ontario, go up. As a result, families across the province are having trouble paying their bills. Families are being forced to make decisions about whether they serve their kids breakfast in the morning before they go to school or whether they pay the rent. They’re having to make decisions about whether they can put their kids in extracurricular activities—all because of the affordability crisis.

While the government of Ontario is committed to writing letters to the federal government, they have failed repeatedly to take actions that are within their purview to support Ontarians. The government of Ontario could introduce legislation to remove the provincial portion of the HST from home heating. They could go one further: In addition to that legislation, they could work co-operatively with the federal government to remove the entirety of HST from home heating. This would provide direct and transparent relief to families each and every month.

It’s fine to talk about a tax that is very difficult to see. For sure, the carbon tax has had an impact on families, affordability and on prices, but you can’t see it. You can’t see it every day, even though it’s there. HST on your natural gas bill, HST on propane delivery, HST on your electricity bill, if that’s how you choose to heat your home, is something that you see every month when the bill comes in. And if we can provide relief to families—$15, $20, $25 a month, in a way they can see—over the course of a year, that could be the difference between paying for soccer next spring or not. It could be the difference between feeding your kids before they go to school or not. It will make a real and observable and transparent difference in the lives of all Ontarians.

And this is action that the government of Ontario can take directly. They can introduce a law; they can pass a law. They’ve just done it. They did it with HST on new rental construction. They can do it for home heating as well, Mr. Speaker.

And so, in an affordability crisis, when families are having difficulty paying the bills, when they’re having to make hard choices between food or their rent or paying for a utility bill or putting their kids into hockey or soccer or other extracurricular activities, this is something that this government can do immediately to provide direct relief to families.

Mr. Speaker, I would urge everyone in this House to take off their ideological blinders, see the entire picture. Take the action that you were elected to take, to do the job you were elected to do. Get it done. We can provide relief to families right away, before Christmas.

I’m going to caution the member on the intemperate language that he’s using—and to conclude his remarks.

He’s screaming out: “You just passed a law.” We passed a law with respect to purpose-built rentals that—we tried for one year to have the tax on purpose-built rentals and harmonize sales tax on purpose-built rentals removed. For one year we asked the federal government to remove the harmonized sales tax on purpose-built rentals. You know who didn’t say a word? That group of Liberal MPPs, not one word. The 70 federal Liberal members of Parliament who sit in Ottawa didn’t say a word. This is so ironic: Two of the parties in this House—well, actually, the two parties in this House wanted to remove the tax on purpose-built rentals. We fought for it. We shamed the federal government into doing that. Do you know who didn’t say a word? This group of Liberal members of Parliament. Do you know who has the authority to do it? The federal Liberal government has the authority to do it.

So I say to the member opposite, if you want to pass this motion, the motion that you literally just rejected, you need to call the federal Prime Minister, the federal finance minister—the federal finance minister whose riding this is, if I’m not mistaken. This is the riding. That Parliament is not in session. I suggest the member leave the chamber for a bit, call the federal member of Parliament for his riding, the finance minister, and ask the federal finance minister to remove the harmonized sales tax from heating, because we will do the exact same thing because that’s what Progressive Conservatives do. But you don’t want to talk about that, right? Gimmick after gimmick after gimmick. We’ll not only remove the carbon tax, we’ll remove the harmonized sales tax, because that is what we have been talking about for years.

This is a Liberal Party that doesn’t believe in any of this. There’s nobody who believes that they actually want the harmonized sales tax. You just saw what happened. He thought we were going to say no. It’s all just a game for them. They say no. We bring forward a motion; they say, “No, we don’t really want it.” Then, they get up, they think they’re being all funny and cute, bring a motion forward, and then, their full-on expectation is that we’re going to say no, but, then, we call them out and say, “Yes. What’s the next step?” Well, the next step for us is—we’ve made it clear, provincial Premiers have made clear: Take the carbon tax off. Do you want to go further? Take the harmonized sales tax off. Call the federal finance minister and ask her to do it. She has a fall economic statement next week.

Next week, the federal government will be outlining their priorities for the people of Canada. The federal finance minister, next week, can pass the motion that I just brought to this House to have, first, the federal government remove the HST from home heating fuels. Do you know what the federal minister can also do? She can also say, “I’m removing the carbon tax.” We can do something really, really important for the people of the province of Ontario, and really for all Canadians.

But I bet you they are not going to do it, right? It’s because of the pressure that we have constantly put on, day after day. You’ve heard the Minister of Energy, every single day, answer questions from colleagues in this House, calling on the federal government to remove the carbon tax—day after day. Day after day, for over a week now, every single question from members of the Progressive Conservative caucus has been based on removing the carbon tax. They get all frustrated about it, right? The Liberals get all frustrated about it. I’m not going to attack the NDP, because they, for once, saw that we had to do something. They might not necessarily believe that we need to—

Interjections.

So let’s go that extra step further. You want to remove the HST? Great. Are any of my colleagues here against removing HST from home-heating fuel? No, because do you know what? You all said yes when we brought a motion forward to do it. Most of this House also said yes when we brought forward another motion to remove it from the carbon tax. Do you know who’s against that? The Liberals are against that. The NDP are in favour of it. Progressive Conservatives are in favour of it. Liberals are opposed to it.

And again, there is one person in this country—one person—we can pass this motion right now, and I hope we will, but even when we pass the motion, do you know what happens tomorrow? Nothing. Do you know why? Because there’s only one person who can actually make this happen, and that is the finance minister of Canada, the federal Liberal member of Parliament for this riding. That federal finance minister, next Thursday, can do this.

Now, we have been calling for this. To my understanding, as well, the NDP have also been calling for this federally, if I’m not mistaken. I know that federally, the NDP and the Conservatives in Ottawa have been calling on the federal government to do this very same thing for literally years. And at no time has this group of Liberals ever stood in this place and asked a question to do that, not once. In fact, they go the opposite direction.

So today, in a desperate, blatant move to distract from the carbon tax chaos that they have created, pitting one region against the other, they then tried to seek a motion after the House just literally dealt with it. We brought a motion forward at the conclusion of question period to call on the federal government to remove the portion of HST and carbon tax from home heating. The Liberals denied unanimous consent.

Then, the very same member pops up and delivers the same motion, thinking, “I’ve got them. There’s no way they’re going to do this. They’re going to say no, and then I can leave the chamber. Woohoo, I’ve done a good job and I can blame them.”

But do you know what? When it comes to cutting taxes and reducing fees for the people of the province of Ontario, every single time, Progressive Conservatives are going to say yes—every single time. Do you want to debate this until midnight? We will be here until midnight, like we were last night. We will be here until midnight on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and every single day until December 14, fighting for the people of the province of Ontario to reduce their fees, to eliminate the carbon tax.

And do you know who won’t be? Do you know who will never get up and ask a question? Do you know who will never get up and give a speech? It’ll be the Liberals. They had hours last night to debate this—hours—but they’re the party of gimmickry and stupidity.

Interjections.

We absolutely stopped that when we got elected in 2018. Do you know who has brought that back? A federal Liberal government, with a carbon tax that nobody can afford. And now we have a federal environment minister who threatened his own Prime Minister: if you do anything else to put more money in the pockets of the people of Canada, he will quit.

That’s where the Liberals are right now. Imagine this: You have a radical environment minister in Ottawa who is threatening the Prime Minister of Canada to quit a minority government if he puts any more money back into the pockets of the people of Ontario. That’s where the Liberals are at, Mr. Speaker, and this member knows it. So I say to the member that it has been clear. Progressive Conservatives have said since day one, when we stopped gouging people for electricity—this Minister of Energy has put more money in the pockets of Ontario than the Liberals did over 15 years of government. Over 15 years of governing, and this minister has done more.

We took them to court. They said we were crazy to do it. We said it would cost the people of Canada and Ontario, that it would hurt jobs. They said, “No, you’re wrong.” The Bank of Canada agrees with us, the budget officer agrees with us, and then here you are–when we are debating a motion to remove the carbon tax, knowing that they have been cornered. They never expected the NDP to—now, it shouldn’t have been a shock, because relentless pressure from Progressive Conservatives here and Conservatives here across the country forced the federal NDP to do the right thing and vote to scrap the carbon tax on not everything, but focused on what is hurting Canadians the most. And where were the Liberals? They joined up with a separatist party in Ottawa to block putting more money and making life more affordable.

Now, I’m not going to speak for the NDP, because I’m sure they will, but I don’t think the NDP’s position is that a carbon tax should be cancelled forever. But they have come to the recognition that life is very expensive right now, we believe in part because of the carbon tax. They obviously agree, because they want to get that off, to remove that. But at the same time, it is the policies of the Liberals which have brought us here: out-of-control spending, a Liberal legacy here and in Ottawa, which raises interest rates for the people of the country. We’ve said this time and time and time again.

On top of that, they put a carbon tax. On top of that, they increased taxes. On top of that, they stopped pipelines from being built across this country because they don’t want people to have access to cheap oil and gas. Do you know what you could have in eastern Canada? You could have natural gas going from the west to the Atlantic provinces. Do you know who has stopped that from happening? Liberals. Liberals have stopped that from happening, because they would rather import dirty oil from Saudi Arabia and give it a tax cut. Do you know why? All of their seats in Atlantic Canada were at risk, and they didn’t want to lose them. They don’t care about your affordability. They don’t care what the carbon tax is costing you. All they care about is their seats.

And to make matters even worse, they had a federal Liberal cabinet minister go on national TV and say that was their plan. And then she had the temerity to go on to say that if you only elect more Liberals, then maybe you, too, can get the tax cut. So it’s not about making life more affordable for people. It’s not about a change in attitudes on carbon tax. It’s not about the HST. It’s about electing Liberals. They will turn themselves and tie themselves in a knot, because all they care about and all they have ever cared about is electing Liberals. Nothing they have ever done has been about building the province of Ontario. Nothing they have ever done has been about building our country. All it’s about, always, is electing Liberals, because for them, getting into office is what it’s about. Accomplishing something never crosses their mind.

Now, imagine this, Mr. Speaker. The temerity of this member—I challenge the member to come out with me. We’ll get Chrystia Freeland on the phone. I don’t know what her number is; it’s certainly not 1-800. I will get on the phone with him, because it is his federal colleague. If he wants to call on that federal minister to eliminate the HST and the carbon tax in this Thursday’s federal economic statement, I’ll be happy to continue to essay for that. Welcome aboard, because that’s what we’ve been talking about for five frickin’—there’s a school that’s being built, I know, in North Bay that’s called Fricker. It’s in the community of Fricker, so I think I can say that. That’s what we’ve been talking about for five years, right?

The classic Liberals say, “Oh, oh, never thought that the Progressive Conservatives would want”—imagine the Liberals here, right? Imagine this. They get up on a motion to cut taxes and they think, “We got them. There’s no way he’s going to want to spend time in the legislative session”—it’s not that hard, right? We just passed the fall economic statement with nobody dissenting. Imagine. When is the last time a government—well, it has happened twice, and both on Progressive Conservatives. In the last session of Parliament, our budget we brought forward was passed unanimously. Right now, the fall economic statement passed 95 to nothing. Not one person voted against the priorities of this government moving forward.

What are those priorities? The same as they’ve always been: cutting taxes, removing red tape, helping build the province of Ontario. And 100% of the people who voted in this House agreed with that agenda, Mr. Speaker.

Look, as I’ve said, we are focused on putting more money back into people’s pockets. If that means cutting the HST, we call on the federal government to do it. We could pass that motion right now and we can deliver this over to Chrystia Freeland’s office. I know the Leader of the Opposition will probably join me in going over to Ms. Freeland’s office and demanding that it be in the fall economic statement.

It has taken them years to come to this conclusion, but they haven’t come to this conclusion because they had the best interests of the people of Ontario at hand, Mr. Speaker. They’ve come to this conclusion because they fear they might not win the next federal election. Well, that train has already left the station.

And now you have a Liberal Party who is going forward with a leadership race that literally nobody cares about or has interest in, but they’re hopping over themselves. You have two people who are running in that election—really, not even two; every single candidate in that election supports the carbon tax. Every single candidate in that Liberal leadership election supports having taxes on fuel. Nobody believes anything that comes out of their mouths when it comes to cutting taxes.

So I will gladly support this motion. I am very certain that Progressive Conservatives will pass this motion, because this is what we have been talking about since 2018. So I challenge the member, not only on this motion, but on the motion that we have before this House, brought forward by the member from Lanark–Frontenac–Kingston, to vote in favour of removing the carbon tax as well—and not just on home heating; on everything, Mr. Speaker. He will have many opportunities to do so, because I can guarantee the members of the Liberal Party that this side of the House is going to continue to focus on the carbon tax and the cost that it is having on the people of the province of Ontario. We will have many a motion where he will be able to rise in his place and finally show people that they actually care about the people of the province of Ontario. So I encourage him to vote—

Interjections.

You just passed a bill about housing.

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.

Great plan to level the playing field.

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.

That’s right; they don’t.

Further debate?

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.

I’ll come in the House now.

I will be sharing my time with the member from Beaches–East York today.

I want to thank the member from Timiskaming–Cochrane. I couldn’t disagree with most of what he had to say. And it really is about making life more affordable for people here in Ontario. It is about doing what’s within our own powers to do to influence affordability here. And there is a lot that we can do. And having a government that would just prefer to write letters—to write letters—instead of actually taking the power of government to be able to make a positive difference in people’s lives—and that’s what I think politics should be about.

Politics should be about working together to make people’s lives better. Is it always going to be perfect? No, it’s not. There will be days when it’s challenging and we disagree and we want different than the path that we’re on. But we talk about it. We actually come up with solutions by actually talking to each other and saying, “There is a way forward here. We can do what’s right for the people of Ontario and we can address climate change at the same time.” And we get attacked from both angles because we try and do both.

It’s important that we address climate change, but it is important that we actually make Ontario economically healthy for the vast majority of people. This is within our power here in the province. We do not have to look to the federal government to do something. There are things that we, right here in Ontario, can do.

I agree on cap-and-trade. It was a program that the Liberal Party did implement many years ago that was cancelled by this government. And if you look at it, the other provinces that are not subject to the carbon tax here, as we are in Ontario, it’s because they have implemented similar kinds of programs. So the fact that we didn’t have a carbon-reduction program here in Ontario—it ended up being cancelled—that’s what makes us susceptible to this carbon pricing.

There are many ways of reducing our uses of carbon in this country, in this province, but there are many ways to reduce emissions. And I agree, I think we should be putting far more effort in conservation. I think we should be putting far more efforts in energy retrofits. Okay? That’s where we need to go. Conservation is the way forward. Use less. And there’s a way that we can do it and we can get the people of Ontario on board to do exactly that: by helping them pay for energy retrofits. We know it makes a difference. We’ve seen programs. We have the data, we have the evidence, and we have the statistics that actually show that energy conservation is probably the most economical way to actually reduce emissions. Right then and there, we know. But we have nothing.

Some of the energy conservation programs that had been put into place by previous governments, when this government got elected, they cancelled them. They cancelled the rebates for electric vehicles. They cancelled charging stations. They cancelled renewable energy, when now, today, renewable energy from solar and from wind is actually cheaper. And if we had carried on and we had implemented those programs—if we had kept them—we would have been far further ahead.

We know that, right now, when it comes to affordability, people in Ontario are hurting, and I think people right across the country are hurting. Inflation hurts. We were lucky, actually, as a country, to come through COVID in a relatively good position compared to some of our G7 counterparts, who have suffered far greater inflation than Canada has. Canada still has the best debt-to-GDP ratio in the G7 countries. We have done good work. And now, just like the rest of the globe is dealing with inflation, people here in Ontario are dealing with inflation.

It’s so important that we have these kinds of discussions to determine what is the right way forward. Are we always going to agree? I’d say no, we’re not. But I think that working together with the federal government, instead of trying to wedge the federal government—if you went to the federal government and said, “Let’s work together on this and let’s make it better for the people of Ontario. You cut your part of the HST and I’ll cut my part of the HST, and we’ll make this happen, give people a break,” I think the federal government would be willing to have that conversation.

Will it be an easy conversation? No, it won’t. But is it a conversation worth having? Yes, it is. And so it’s not always about—I agree, I hate the sloganeering. I hate the sloganeering. I hate what politics has become, because it should be better.

Interjection.

Mrs. McCrimmon has moved a motion to amend the motion by adding at the end “for Ontario.”

The member for Kanata–Carleton still has the floor.

I’m reminded by my colleague—at the very beginning I said that I was splitting my time. Did you hear me? He thinks you might not have heard me, that I’m splitting my time with the member for Beaches–East York.

Interjection.

I think it’s really important to actually work together with various levels of government. There’s a saying, that it’s important for you to talk with people you agree with, but it’s even more important to talk with people whom you don’t agree with. And I think there is room to find common ground. That’s the thing with any kind of turmoil, with any kind of conflict: The first thing you have to do is find some common ground, and I think there is common ground. We all want Canada and all of our individual provinces to thrive. We want the people of Ontario and the people of Canada to be able to have a good life and live a good life and actually look forward to the opportunities enjoyed by our children and grandchildren.

That’s why we have to have these difficult discussions. We can’t just expect other orders of government to do all the heavy lifting they’re doing. We need to work together and, each of us, take responsibility and do whatever heavy lifting we can do. That’s what leadership is. Leadership is about working with a team and being able to find that common ground and be able to make things happen for people.

I think that it’s really important that we have these kinds of discussions. I’m really glad that this is an opportunity to have this, because we need to get all of this on the table.

Before I finish, Mr. Speaker, I have an amendment to offer. I would like to move to amend the motion by adding at the end “for Ontario.”

Anyway, thank you to my colleagues for listening. Thank you for the opportunity.

I’m sure we all would like to be eating lunch, but we are now here dealing with a very important issue.

I’ll start by giving you a bit of a quiz. Stegosaurus, triceratops, raptors, Conservative government: What would these all have in common? If your answer was “dinosaurs,” you are absolutely correct, and you will get a prize from me later.

You may get a prize if you actually get on board with the rest of the world and accept the fact that we are in a climate emergency and it needs to be dealt with. We are leaders, and we are here to lead, supposedly. But what I’ve seen for the past few weeks is, extraordinarily, games being played. I’m used to this; I was at city hall with some of the members here, and there was the shiny bauble—always the shiny bauble over here: distract, deflect. And I believe that the House leader even accused us of having, what was it, a desperate move to distract. These are the words of the House leader, that we over here, on this powerful side of the House, are just using this as a desperate move to distract.

Well, what is before us and has been before us in Ontario is an RCMP investigation, a criminal investigation, but are we talking about that? Are we talking about preserving our greenbelt? No, we are talking about a million other things just to distract the public. For the House leader to say that—they’re masters at distracting and deflecting and not doing our job to protect Ontarians, which is what this idea from the marvellous member from Orléans had to bring forward. That’s what Ontarians want to see.

We are in a climate emergency, and what are we doing about it? We’re fiddling while Rome is burning. We have seen—and we’ve been warned by the Financial Accountability Officer, by the Auditor General, by a million experts with a ton of reports sitting on the shelves collecting dust. We commission them, we ask for them, and they get delivered with powerful, important facts for us to read and learn and heed the advice of, and what do we do? We let them sit on a shelf instead of actually doing strong climate action.

If this government actually had an environmental plan, a climate action plan, we wouldn’t be here; we would actually be out doing the work. The work would be done to protect Ontarians instead of just arguing back and forth here, like a Ping-Pong game.

But no, this government’s solution to solving the climate emergency is electric vehicles. Okay, that’s helpful, but you haven’t secured the supply chain and you haven’t engaged Indigenous communities. And you have a report, the climate change impact assessment report, that got released in the dark of the night, stealthily, and that sits on a shelf somewhere, and a park that was already a park and just had a name on it. That’s the answer. That is the answer for Ontario’s climate emergency. That is how we’re going to keep Ontarians safe.

A while ago, I brought forth a private member’s bill that I thought was pretty benign for climate action, and many, many of the members over there supported it—said they did, and I believe them—on flooding awareness and emergency preparedness, and what happened? Even the environmental minister at the time was on board, but then at the last minute the rug got pulled out from underneath, because climate action does not matter to this government. That is going to leave us woefully behind.

If they’re worried about money now, we have been warned about the high cost of inaction. You’ve seen that already with this government. They’re so worried about this pollution pricing, but yet they don’t think twice about blowing money in court, fighting things they can’t win and that are ridiculous—again, dinosaur mentality. They don’t think about cancelled projects, all the renewable energy projects. Why are we not focusing in on renewables and conservation? It’s not rocket science. Come on. Education, as well—conservation, which you would know creates green jobs, creates sustainable jobs.

I have encouraged you in the past to grow a spine and to get behind strong, brave and bold measures. I’ve offered you transplants from my spine, but you have not taken me up on that. You just continue to be in the dark, heads in the sand, dinosaur mentality, and you’re not leading.

We could be doing strong retrofits, deep energy retrofits of our buildings and our houses. We could be investing in subsidies and giving out incentives for heat pumps. The entertaining member from Timiskaming mentioned insulation and energy audits of your homes. This is the way to save Ontarians money, if you really cared—because you know what? We can’t tackle affordability on a non-livable planet, right?

The member from Guelph mentioned this morning that we can deal and we should be dealing with the climate emergency at the same time as the affordability crisis. They are part and parcel together, connected. They are not separate. They are not in silos. And if you think that—I can’t even say it; the word “dinosaur” just keeps coming to me repeatedly.

You don’t have a plan. You have reports, this climate change impact assessment sitting on a shelf. We have heard nothing about it. What was inside it? Was it that damning, that alarming that you can’t reveal? Why not share it? Why commission it? Why say it’s one of your key planks for your climate action when it’s collecting dust, as we said?

The other thing the House leader mentioned was “the radical environment minister in Ottawa.” You know, if that’s his definition of radical—I mean, I don’t think—

Super radical.

I believe I have about a minute so I’ll try to be as quick as I can. Do I have the whole 20 minutes or I cut out one minute? Okay—