Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to introduce two constituents today—

But anyway, I want to introduce two constituents from the great Kenora–Rainy River riding: Henry Wall is here, the chief administrative officer of the Kenora District Services Board, and my favourite—no offence, Henry—Christy Radbourne, the director of education for the Keewatin-Patricia District School Board. We welcome them to this magnificent place.

In 2015, when I was Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources, we gave Canadians fair warning that this carbon tax was going to be the single biggest reason for increase in the cost of goods and services this country had ever seen. It has come to fruition—on a collision course with inflationary times.

Out in northwestern Ontario, I can’t help but say, with our friends from the district services board and school boards here today, that it costs more to fuel buses; it costs more to send kids from one school to another school some 215 kilometres away for a football game or a basketball game. When those ambulances go out much farther distances than other regions in this province, it costs more money. With gas at $1.70 a litre right now in Dryden and Kenora, and the deep freeze setting in of winter, I can’t help but think that we’re going to be bearing more and more costs as the carbon tax goes up and up.

Mr. Speaker, this ludicrous tax needs to go. Let’s scrap the tax.

The problem is, it has fallen on deaf ears. The federal government has no plans to eliminate the carbon tax on the cost of fuels to energize our communities up north or the cost of goods. It’s a ludicrous tax. It needs to go. Let’s scrap the tax.

Well, what the member and I can agree on is the fact that the federal government has introduced legislation that is problematic between Métis communities and First Nations communities across this country. Furthermore, it lacked the kinds of consultations with provincial and territorial governments, First Nations governments and, quite possibly, Métis governments. We don’t have a record of those consultations. We just know that we weren’t addressed with regard to it.

That said, it is not the style of this Premier or our government to be divisive. We understand the balance that we have to strike between the Métis communities and the First Nations communities, and we encourage the leadership of the Métis Nation of Ontario and the Chiefs of Ontario to get in a room together to have a discussion and look for solutions and opportunities in this important debate.