I know. I need to start asking you some questions.

I’ve had to ask the housing minister a lot of questions lately, but I’ll get to the energy minister soon enough.

He talks about energy poverty, and that is a real issue, but most of the measures the government has brought forward to address that issue actually disproportionally benefit high-income households—including the original motion and the amended motion; including the $7 billion that we’re spending to subsidize electricity prices in Ontario. The FAO has done an analysis, and that disproportionately benefits high-income households at the expense of low-income households. When you look at carbon pricing, it’s the low-income households, according to the PBO, who receive more money back through rebates than they pay in to carbon pricing. So if the government’s concern—and I think this is a valid concern—is energy poverty, we’d be much better off having income means-tested programs and/or just doing what I’m suggesting: having programs in place that would help working-class, middle-class families be able to save money by saving energy. That is the most effective way we can address the affordability crisis and the climate crisis.

I know the members opposite have talked a lot about food inflation and how carbon pricing can connect to food inflation. But if you talk to food economists, do you know what they’ll tell you the number one drivers of food inflation are? The climate crisis—they usually say weather; they say there’s drought in most of the major growing areas in the world. Of course, there’s conflict in the Ukraine; that’s contributing. There is grocery-gouging; that’s contributing. But the primary driver is the fact that we have drought and floods in the major growing areas, which is driving up prices, because it’s a supply and demand issue. So if we truly wanted to address that affordability challenge, we would address the climate crisis, and we would do everything possible to protect local food supply chains. That’s exactly why we need to be building homes in communities that people want to live in, on land already approved for development, so we don’t have to pave over farmland to do it—so we can protect those local supply chains, so we don’t have a handful of wealthy, well-connected speculators cash in billions at our expense. And when we build those homes—and this is where we need to change the building code—we need to ensure that they’re energy-efficient, so that way, they can save money by saving energy; they can avoid paying HST; they can avoid paying carbon pricing, because they’re using less energy. It’s common sense. It’s basic economics. And by doing it, we benefit our economy by creating jobs; we make our businesses—especially if our commercial, industrial buildings are more efficient, we make them more competitive, more profitable, saving money, generating more prosperity; we ensure that renters and homeowners save money, because they’re saving energy. So it’s a win-win-win—oh, and by the way, we reduce carbon pollution, which is driving the climate crisis.

I want to close by saying to all members of this House—

Interjection.

I want to ask members what message we’re sending to young people. What message are we sending to young people? Because when I talk to young people, they have two major, major concerns. They have lots of concerns, but the two biggest concerns they have are, “How am I ever going to afford to own a home or even pay the rent, given the skyrocketing housing costs and the skyrocketing costs of rent?”

Then the second one is, “What’s my future going to look like because of the climate crisis?” especially after the summer we’ve been through this summer, Speaker, with smoke from forest fires causing bad air quality here throughout Ontario. As a matter of fact, the lung association was just here yesterday talking about lung cancer, and they’re saying that the number one driver historically has been smoking, but now it’s becoming air pollution, primarily driven by the climate crisis, which is then going to put pressure on our health care system, driving up costs for people.

Young people are asking about their financial future. According to Ontario’s Financial Accountability Officer, the climate crisis is going to cost an extra $26.2 billion this decade alone just for public infrastructure if we don’t start reducing pollution. Over the course of this century, we’re going to have an additional $4 billion a year in transportation costs due to climate-fuelled extreme weather events; an additional $1.5 billion a year for costs associated to public buildings.

Young people are saying, “How am I going to afford a home or pay the rent? “They’re saying, “How am I going to afford these escalating costs due to the climate crisis?” Last year alone, $3.1 billion in insurable losses due to the climate crisis. So young people are saying, “How am I going to afford all of this?-

Then, they’re looking at what we’re debating right now in this House, and they’re saying, “Why don’t you take real action; real action to save me money? Build a home I can afford and make sure it’s energy-efficient. Make sure that I have a heat pump. Make sure that I have good insulation and good windows and that I can significantly reduce my home heating costs in that home.”

Speaker, let’s build homes people can afford in the communities they want to live in, that are affordable, that are close to where they work so they don’t have to have long, expensive commutes. Let’s build those homes so they’re energy-efficient, so that we can address the real affordability concerns people have, young people especially, about what it’s going to take to heat that home, and we can address the real concerns they have about the climate crisis.

We can do both. We can do it in a way that benefits our economy and creates more jobs. We can do it in a way that addresses the affordability crisis and the climate crisis. That’s the debate we should be having in this House today, not a debate about sending a letter to the federal government to maybe possibly do something that, quite frankly, is just yet another attack on taking action on the climate crisis. Let’s solve the problem of affordability and climate. That’s the debate we need to have. Thank you, Speaker.