Thank you to the member from Chatham-Kent–Leamington for the question. It’s an important question, as the members opposite have continued to throw rural communities under the bus.

The previous Ontario Liberals refused to keep hydro bills down and instead allowed hydro bills to consistently rise, to the point where rural Ontarians were having to choose between heating their homes and feeding their families.

I want to address the people of rural Ontario. To them I say, don’t worry. Our government is saying yes to rural Ontario. We are keeping energy costs down. We are cutting the gas tax. We are supporting our manufacturing industry. And, yes, we are fighting the carbon tax with everything we have. Our government will continue to build and support rural communities across Ontario.

But Speaker, we are doing something about that. We’ve lowered the gas tax by 10 cents on every litre, and we are ensuring that resources can move across the province so that houses, roads and transit lines will be built. We are building Ontario at a rate that the Liberals simply could never have imagined.