Good morning, everybody. It’s a pleasure to be here to have the opportunity to debate this fine motion and amendment to it. As many of you have heard me say, when I speak and when we look at the types of resolutions that we look at to fix the various problems that we try to fix, I always like to begin with looking at what is it that we are trying to solve and what’s the problem we’re trying to solve.

Well, obviously we’re dealing with some significant cost increases across the board. People are dealing with inflation. They’re struggling to be able to put food on the table. They’re struggling to be able to pay their rent. They’re struggling with being able to buy their groceries and heat their homes and put gas in their cars, or struggling to be able to get a bus pass. The struggles just are quite significant.

We are the government, and the reason why we are the government is because people have a lot of problems and they have elected us to fix those problems, because when the coalition of the Liberals and the NDP were in power, they caused all these problems. While they were causing all these problems, the people saw how terrible they were at effectively managing anything, so they decided to elect some people that they thought were going to be a lot better at managing things. I think the people have spoken, Madam Speaker.

Interjection.

So it’s incumbent on us as members in this House to recognize what the people of this province—all across this province in every single riding and every corner of it—what they are saying and what they’re concerned about. Right now, one of the principal concerns is affordability. It’s a basic reference. So, again, back to the question, what is the problem we need to solve? And the problem is affordability. Now, the nature of the motion that is before us and the amendment to the motion is to call upon the federal government to do something. So in this case, we’re calling upon our brothers and sisters in the—

Interjections.

And so, again, I ask, what is the problem we’re trying to solve and how will this amendment or this motion address that? I challenge myself because in order to answer that question, you have to get to the root, right? You must come to the root, and the root, ultimately, as the amendment is addressing an HST issue, the motion is addressing a carbon tax issue—which is all, again, aimed at how do we fix this affordability problem.

Well, you have to ask yourself what each one of those taxes—what they were all about. The HST, obviously, has been around for a very long time. The GST before it was around for a very long time. The carbon tax is a recent issue, and it comes about for very different reasons, so let’s focus there as a starting point.

The carbon tax: My understanding—I stand to be corrected, Madam Speaker—is, somehow, a tax that was contemplated, envisioned, would solve certain environmental problems. They would produce people’s environmental impact. It would protect the environment. Okay—in theory, I can understand how that works. But in so doing, we’re taxing businesses on just about everything we do—literally, quite frankly, everything, whether it’s your food—you know, we’re hearing people talk about what it costs to run a fan, to dry our foods off before we can put them out to market so they don’t rot or mould.

We’re talking about how much it costs me to fuel gas in my home, and I don’t even use that much. My own home—I burn a lot of wood. I just had my three sons and myself getting ready for the winter. We’re prepping our woodshed. We’re getting everything set. My wood cost has gone up $10 a cord and they’re telling me it’s because of the cost of fuel. All of these costs just keep on growing and growing and growing.

Me heating my home with wood is a little bit more environmentally friendly than using natural gas. Now, I’ve got to pay more money for that. Okay, I can understand that. But is it going to fix the problem? Is it going to fix the grander issue of protecting the environment? Those costs are just getting pushed on to me, the end user. The cost of that bologna sandwich is just going up, but the person who is paying for it is that end user. I used to bring my kids to Subway a lot after soccer practice. We used to always go to Subway; it was a thing. Until I went to Subway recently and a sub cost me, and a diet Pepsi—it was like $18, for one. I mean, you multiply that out by the whole family and I’m thinking, that’s a really expensive lunch, right? That’s a really, really expensive lunch. Why am I paying that price? It’s because of all of these costs going up, and I’m just paying for it.

So, is the environment getting protected? Did anybody stop doing anything to hurt the environment because they had these taxes? No, they’re just paying more money to do the business that they’re doing, and they’re making me pay for it. It’s a really challenging situation that now I’m just paying for and you’re paying for and the member for Niagara is paying for and all of his constituents are paying for—but again, are his constituents seeing any changes in the world? Are they seeing the impact of the carbon tax fixing the environment? I’d love to know if the member actually sees a change in the environment because of all the extra costs his constituents are paying, for basic items like a fried egg in the morning.

Interjection.