And passed on to the homeowner.

—carried by the homebuyer.

So now you are saying it’s passed on to the homebuyer, okay. Because previously, you weren’t saying that. But then again, we just had the critic responsible for energy in question period actually concerned about the cost of natural gas for people in Ontario and the critic for labour from northern Ontario just saying that everybody should basically rip out their natural gas and go with an electric heat pump. So they’ve been spinning over there, and they don’t know exactly what their position is.

Speaker, I think it’s important that we take a moment before we get into the broader debate to be clear about how ridiculous the argument is that the home builder or the developer is going to carry the upfront cost of this and it’s not going to be passed on to the consumer. Let me give you just a few real-world examples of much it could cost to connect a new home, business or development to the natural gas system if you had to pay up front.

In the GTA, connecting a new recreation and wellness centre could see an upfront connection charge of about $128,000. On a new 39-home subdivision—actually in your riding, the Minister of Labour’s riding, in Campbellford—it would cost about $357,000 up front. That’s more than $9,000 a home. A recent restaurant project in southwestern Ontario would see an upfront charge of about $18,000. There’s even one other example here that I’ve got: A recent three-building condominium here in the GTA would see an upfront connection charge of approximately $1,065,000.

This bill, Bill 165, would keep costs down by allowing those costs to be paid off over 40 years, amortized over 40 years, instead of all up front. That’s a big win for the taxpayer. It’s a big win for the business owner. And, more importantly, it’s a real win for the homebuyer—that new homebuyer that’s trying to enter the market.

There’s only one party in the Legislature that actually cares about keeping the cost of new homes down and that’s the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario. Because at a time when Ontario, like the rest of Canada, is already grappling with high interest rates and inflationary pressures along with the impact of terrible federal policies like the carbon tax, we can’t in good conscience take any action that would raise prices on the backs of those first-time homebuyers and moms and dads, like me, who want to get their kids out of the house and into their own home and start building their own equity, or those younger moms and dads, unlike me, who are looking for more space for their growing families. Speaker, we definitely can’t let it stand in the way when we had well over 200 requests from Ontario municipalities to expand access to natural gas in their communities.

Now, I go to the ROMA, the Rural Ontario Municipal Association, conference every year, and AMO, the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, every year. And my very, very capable parliamentary assistant here, Mr. Sarrazin, from eastern Ontario, sits and listens to municipal delegations where they’re begging us for natural gas expansion projects in their communities because they want to have this low-cost, reliable, affordable energy in their communities for their constituents and for new homeowners. As a government elected with a mandate to rebuild Ontario’s economy and keep costs down for people and businesses and build the homes our growing province needs, we simply can’t stand for that cost being borne by those new homeowners. That’s why Bill 165 will allow us to reverse the specific part of the OEB decision, protect future homebuyers and keep shovels in the ground at a time where we’ve got a goal to build 1.5 million homes by 2031.

Speaker, reversing the decision alone isn’t enough if we don’t address the issues that got us to this place. While the Ontario Energy Board makes hundreds of decisions every year—the OEB is making all kinds of decisions on rate applications every day and, to their credit, almost all of them have been without issue. This one particular issue, though, did raise some concerns about public engagement in the decision-making process. In fact, in the decision itself, one of the commissioners—the dissenting commissioner—noted that the decision on natural gas connection costs was reached without input from key stakeholders, like the people that build homes, like construction companies, like the contractors, like the farmers that were going to be able to access natural gas in their communities, the people and the businesses who actually build the homes, the farmers in this province.

The same commissioner—Commissioner Duff is her name—also noted that this decision, which could have significant impacts on electricity demand, was reached without any input at all from the Independent Electricity System Operator, the IESO. To quote from that dissenting commissioner, “Is the scenario of no-new-gas-connections, replaced by construction of all-electric developments, feasible? For example, would electricity generators, transmitters, distributors and the IESO be able to meet Ontario’s energy demands in 2025?” She answers her own question. “I don’t know,” she says. The commissioner said, “I don’t know,” Madam Speaker.

Let me tell you, as Ontario’s Minister of Energy, that was quite a concerning quote to read in the dissenting opinion, especially when our government is focused on a pragmatic approach to supporting the electrification of home heating and transportation and manufacturing, with a focus on keeping energy costs down and energy reliable. The other three parties in the Legislature don’t care about keeping the costs of energy down. They’re very ideological in their approach to the energy sector and electricity. We’re not. We’re relying on organizations like the Independent Electricity System Operator to give us the pragmatic advice that comes from operating the electricity system in Ontario. Every decision that we’ve made has been a very pragmatic decision. The Clean Home—

Interjection.

That makes a lot of sense, Madam Speaker, this Clean Home Heating Initiative using hybrid heat pumps for customers that are natural gas customers. Because what it’s going to do is have that hybrid heat pump that is operating on electricity most of the time, but when the temperature does hit minus 15 or minus 18, or minus 20 sometimes overnight—or even colder up in Kiiwetinoong; it gets very cold up there in northwestern Ontario—then your backup will kick in. In this case, the natural gas furnace will kick in.

This is a very, very pragmatic approach, and the CHHI, our Clean Home Heating Initiative, is operating in a number of municipalities across the province: in Durham, in Barrie, in St. Catharines, in Sault Ste. Marie. It’s a program that we’ve been expanding, and taking a very pragmatic approach. Maintaining access to natural gas also ensures reliable access to heat, as I mentioned, on those coldest days of the year.

Another part of that pragmatic approach was the establishment of the Electrification and Energy Transition Panel. This panel is advising me. It’s advising our government on the highest-value short-, medium- and long-term opportunities for the energy sector to help Ontario’s economy prepare for electrification and the energy transition. While the OEB was aware that the Electrification and Energy Transition Panel’s report was to be released around the time of their decision, the OEB decided to go beyond their role as an energy regulator and make major energy policy decisions without waiting for the government’s response stemming from the panel’s final report. That’s unfortunate, because the panel’s recommendations and our government’s response will have a significant impact on the sector and Ontario’s planning decisions.

We brought in experts for a reason. The panel was chaired by David Collie, the past president and CEO of the Electrical Safety Authority of Ontario. Other panel members were Chief Emerita Emily Whetung of Curve Lake First Nation and Professor Monica Gattinger, director of the Institute for Science, Society and Policy, a full professor at the school of political studies and founding chair of Positive Energy at the University of Ottawa. David, Monica and Emily conducted extensive engagements with key energy stakeholders and Indigenous partners across four streams from March to July 2023. In the end, more than 200 stakeholders, Indigenous partners and communities, government departments and agencies, and members of the public provided input to that panel.

In the end, all that work resulted in serious and well-thought-out recommendations. For example, a key recommendation of the electricity panel—Ontario’s Clean Energy Opportunity is the name of that report—was for the government to issue a natural gas policy statement providing clear direction for the long-term role of natural gas in Ontario, something that we intend to do, because, as laid out in their report, natural gas will continue to play a critical role as a source of energy in the province for at least the short and medium term. That recognizes the fact that any major shift away from this fuel source—which supports more than 70%, as I mentioned, of our home heating needs—would require a significant buildout of our grid that couldn’t be accomplished quickly.

Just take Quebec: Quebec uses mostly electric heating. Over the past few years, Ontario has had to step in to supply electricity from our natural gas generating stations on the coldest days of the year to keep the heat on at homes in Quebec and businesses in Quebec. We don’t want us to be in the same position, where families have to worry about if the heat will turn on or not. Under our government, we won’t be.

Given these important observations, there’s no doubt that the OEB decision is out of touch. No one could think that going from a 40-year period to zero years and adding thousands of dollars to the price of a home during a housing crisis is a pragmatic or responsible approach. As a matter of fact, it’s a completely irrational approach to go from 40 years to zero. Even one of the OEB commissioners in the decision, in a rare dissenting opinion, recommended only reducing the horizon to 20 years.

Given these concerns, our government saw an opportunity to continue our work, originally started back in our first mandate, to modernize the Ontario Energy Board. In 2019, my predecessor, the member for Kenora–Rainy River, Minister Rickford, took steps to enhance trust and transparency in Ontario’s energy sector by restructuring the OEB’s governance and operational framework. That was part of the work under the Fixing the Hydro Mess Act.

Today, we’re continuing that work and responding to the concerns raised in the December 2023 decision by proposing legislative changes that would ensure major OEB decisions with far-reaching implications on our constituents—like on natural gas connection costs—don’t happen again without adequate stakeholder consultation and without all the facts about government policy priorities.

Specifically, the Keeping Energy Costs Down Act requires the Ontario Energy Board to conduct broader engagement when conducting both natural gas and electricity hearings. If passed, it also gives the government the authority to reintroduce regulations to require the OEB to notify and invite participation or testimony from specific stakeholders or economic sectors. For example, if we know a decision is going to have a major impact on a particular sector—like transit operators, low-income service providers, the construction industry or a particular government agency like the IESO, the Independent Electricity System Operator—we could require the OEB to notify them and invite their participation.

These changes would also provide the government, through the Minister of Energy, with the authority to require a separate hearing, more formally known as a generic hearing, on any matter of public interest that could arise during an OEB proceeding. This would further ensure that Ontarians’ voices are heard on matters that will affect their families, businesses and communities.

To further protect customers, we’re also proposing to make regulatory changes that would prohibit customers from being required to financially contribute to the construction of certain gas transmission projects. These proposed changes would preserve the historical treatment of natural gas transmission projects under OEB jurisdiction when those projects are specified by government direction. Access to reliable and affordable energy has been critical to landing historic international investments over the past six years, and maintaining the current approach where customers are not required to make upfront payments will ensure Ontario continues to attract critical investments in sectors like the greenhouse sector and the automotive industries in southwestern Ontario.

It wasn’t that long ago when I was the energy critic, Madam Speaker—from 2015 to 2018—and I would talk to the folks from the auto sector all the time. As a matter of fact, Sergio Marchionne, who used to be the CEO of Chrysler, said famously that, under Premier Wynne and the previous Liberal government, Ontario was the least competitive jurisdiction, not in Canada—the least competitive jurisdiction in North America and the world to build cars.

I was the Minister of Economic Development in 2018-19 when we were setting about making sure that Ontario was a competitive place and open for business again when I took the call, in the first four months in that role in government, from the CEO of General Motors Global telling us—the Premier was on the call with me—that after 100 years of building cars and trucks in Oshawa, they were going to be shuttering that plant. I remember specifically the words from the CEO at GM. He said, “This is nothing that your government has done. You’ve inherited an absolute mess. We have full confidence that you’re going to fix the situation, make Ontario a competitive place to do business again, and we’ll be back.” I’m happy to say that we’ve done exactly that and the trucks are rolling off the line in Oshawa, Ontario, again at that General Motors plant.

All of the amendments that we brought forward would enshrine the good principles that have guided sound decision-making for these last number of years and protect against uncertainty. They’re also going to provide reassurance to communities and to businesses that they can rely on the energy system in Ontario, something they previously couldn’t do. Access to reliable, affordable energy is critical to our province’s growth, and these changes are going to help ensure that Ontario remains that attractive place for businesses to invest and families to call home.

Bill 165, the Keeping Energy Costs Down Act, doesn’t stop there. We also proposed to streamline the leave-to-construct process for small energy projects, making reliable and affordable energy options available to communities, homes and businesses in a more cost-effective and timely manner.

Today, anyone looking to connect a new home to Ontario’s natural gas system with a pipeline must obtain a leave-to-construct approval from the OEB if the expected cost of the project will be $2 million or greater. The OEB reviews the application and grants leave to carry out the project if it’s deemed to be in the public interest to do so.

Over the past couple of years, we’ve heard concerns from mayors, councils and agricultural organizations across the province on this issue. I know my colleague the parliamentary assistant has heard these as well at places like ROMA and AMO. They’re concerned that even the smallest projects to connect something like a new home no longer receive the exemption as originally intended.

The changes we’re proposing would allow the government to prescribe conditions in regulation to exempt small projects from leave-to-construct while maintaining the crown’s obligation related to rights-based consultation with Indigenous communities, ensuring that opportunities remain for their input into proposed new projects.

Specifically, if the bill is passed, the government intends to introduce regulations to streamline the leave-to-construct process by exempting small pipeline projects that cost between $2 million and $10 million, provided the crown’s duty-to-consult obligations with Indigenous communities, as I mentioned, have been met. These changes would improve the timelines for pipeline construction and expansion by cutting red tape and expediting the installation of natural gas to rural, remote and underserved communities, helping to support a reliable and cost-effective provincial energy supply.

Speaker, I want to stress that both the government of Ontario and the OEB are committed to ensuring that Indigenous communities have a continued opportunity to bring their views forward and inform any decision that may impact their rights or interests. But these are small projects, for the most part. It’s like relocating gas lines to support transit projects, or connecting a single home or small business or a new condo building, moving a gas line for municipal waterworks and those types of projects.

Project applicants would continue to contact the Ministry of Energy early in the planning process and provide the ministry with a description of the proposed project, including the need for the project, its terminal points, characteristics such as the length and diameter of the pipeline and the proposed route. Along with any additional information requested, the Ministry of Energy will assess whether the proposed project triggers the duty to consult. Where it is triggered, the OEB would then determine whether the crown has adequately discharged its duty to consult prior to granting such applications.

I also want to be clear that for all projects, whether there’s a leave-to-construct proceeding or not, proponents will continue to require authorizations from Ontario ministries and municipalities, including permits and other approvals relating to technical, safety and environmental requirements needed to support the construction of the pipeline.

To ensure the board meaningfully implements the changes outlined in the legislation, I intend to appoint a new chair for the Ontario Energy Board later this winter or early this spring. They will fill the role formerly held by Mr. Richard Dicerni, who passed away last year, just a few weeks after he stepped down from the position of chair.

Before I continue, I just want to take a moment to recognize the late Mr. Dicerni. Richard was a very, very distinguished public servant, who had served provincially and federally under all political stripes—including here in Ontario as Deputy Minister of Energy—before becoming president of Ontario Power Generation back in 1993. Richard had served Ontario and Canada very well during his 25-year career in public service and most recently as chair of the Ontario Energy Board, supporting them in their transition to the new governance structure, focusing on recruitment and organizational governance. He sadly passed away last summer, August 11, 2023.

On behalf of all of us, I want to express our deepest condolences to his wife, Carole Swan, and his family, including his son Patrick, who continues in his father’s footsteps. Patrick serves as an assistant deputy minister and executive officer at Ontario’s Ministry of Health.

I also want to take this opportunity to thank our acting chair, Glenn O’Farrell, who stepped up to fulfill this role on an interim basis following the sudden passing of his colleague. Glenn’s leadership has been appreciated as well, especially as he continues this work until a new permanent chair is appointed.

When the new chair is appointed, I will expect them to continue the hard work of their predecessors and ensure that the board conducts appropriate consultation in line with the proposed legislative requirements before reaching decisions, and to reinforce the government’s priority of supporting affordable, reliable and clean energy for all Ontarians.

Should this legislation be passed, and our new board chair is appointed, the government intends to introduce a natural gas policy statement, as I mentioned earlier, a recommendation of the Electrification and Energy Transition Panel to provide further direction to the Ontario Energy Board. At that point, we would return the issue of natural gas connection costs to the energy board for a new hearing.

I’m pleased to share that our approach has already resulted in early support from across the province. Catherine Swift, president of the Coalition of Concerned Manufacturers and Businesses of Canada, said, “This decision would have the effect of discouraging badly needed new home construction, especially regarding affordable housing. The decision would also discourage developers from using natural gas, one of the most efficient and cost-effective energy sources, in new housing developments.” The government’s approach “demonstrates a practicality that is sorely needed in many of our energy policy discussions today.”

The Ontario Greenhouse Alliance, which represents Canada Flowers and Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers, said, “This legislation will ensure that Ontario’s energy transition is practical and inclusive of a broader range of economic and social impact considerations....

“In the legislation is equally important direction to ensure that future Ontario Energy Board decisions provide opportunity for a broader range of engagement and testimony from sectors and stakeholders that will be impacted by OEB decisions.

“The challenges of agriculture and food production around the world—providing safe, affordable, sustainable and secure agriculture products—means providing more of Ontario’s greenhouse products to consumers here at home and around the world.

“I’d like to thank the Ontario government for this legislation and ensuring a fair and managed approach to Ontario’s energy transition.”

The CEO of the Ontario Real Estate Association, Tim Hudak, said, “The OEB’s bad move to upend Ontario’s long-standing approach to finance infrastructure like natural gas over time puts new neighbourhoods and desperately needed new homes in jeopardy.

“Ontario’s ambitious housing supply goals necessitate new utility connections and infrastructure, including natural gas, to address the rising affordability crisis.

“OREA is in full support of the Ontario government overturning the OEB decision by whatever means necessary, including via legislation, to ensure Ontario can build the homes we need to house our population, both today and in the future.”

These are just a few of the examples that you’ll hear throughout the debate. But as you hear more, I think you’ll hear one central theme emerge, that being that our government is taking a pragmatic approach to the issue of home heating and the role of natural gas in our system more broadly, an approach that advances a reliable system, that advances an affordable system, one that is maintaining and building on Ontario’s clean energy advantage. That approach also reflects the work that we’re doing as a government to ensure a reliable supply of electricity and that it continues to be available for all Ontarians as demand continues to grow across Ontario.

At the start I mentioned how the incredible economic growth we’re experiencing as a province, alongside an ever-increasing move toward electrification for our homes and businesses and vehicles, and the fact that our population is expected to increase by millions of people by the end of this decade, is impacting our demand for electricity. In fact, for the very first time since 2005—20 years ago—Ontario’s electricity demand is rising. That’s right: For the first time in 20 years we’re experiencing increased electricity demand growth. It’s because of all of the reasons that I talked about earlier: the massive investments that are being made in our province and all of the new homes that we’re building.

In fact, expert analysis from Ontario’s IESO—the Independent Electricity System Operator—shows that electricity demand could more than double by 2050. Think about that for a minute: could double by 2050. That means our entire current supply, which includes all of the nuclear and hydroelectric capacity that we currently have, would need to double to meet the anticipated demand. That represents the biggest build-out of our grid since Sir Adam Beck created our hydroelectric system over a century ago.

That’s why we’re taking action now, and have been for the last couple of years: to ensure that we have the energy. And we know that we’re going to need that energy down the road, so we put these principles in place.

And while we’re already building new projects like the energy storage systems, government and those in the energy sector need to start planning for other major projects immediately so we have new, clean, zero-emissions projects ready to go when we need them.

That’s why, last summer, I released Powering Ontario’s Growth, laying out our plan to provide families and industries with the reliable, low-cost and clean power that we need to power Ontario’s future. It sets out the key steps that we’re taking to provide reliable, low-cost, clean power as our economy grows, as we electrify transportation and industry and we build those new homes. Powering Ontario’s Growth builds on the key strengths of our system in Ontario: our diverse supply mix, made up of nuclear, hydro, natural gas, and intermittent renewables, and soon, the battery storage facilities that will make our system that much more efficient. It also builds on the significant action that we’ve already taken to meet demand through the end of the decade with major projects and procurements, and that includes a $342-million expansion of energy efficiency programs and the largest energy storage procurement in Canada’s history. And it builds on Ontario’s international leadership in nuclear power and SMRs, on our legacy as the birthplace of the Candu reactor—still the safest, most reliable reactors in the world today—and on our reputation as a world-leading source of life-saving, cancer-fighting medical isotopes.

Nuclear power makes up more than half of our current electricity supply. And as a source of affordable and clean power, nuclear energy is why Ontario is able to maintain one of the cleanest electricity grids not just in Canada or North America, but in the entire world. That’s why expanding our province’s nuclear fleet is a key component of our plan to meet future demand. Through Powering Ontario’s Growth, we’ve begun the planning and licensing for three additional small modular reactors at the Darlington new nuclear site to round out the SMR fleet there to four units in all, increasing our supply of clean, non-emitting, reliable baseload power—1.2 gigawatts of new power. That’s enough to power 1.2 million new homes.

A Conference Board of Canada study estimates that construction and operation of four SMRs would increase Canada’s GDP by almost $14 billion and sustain, on average, approximately 2,000 jobs per year. And building four units provides more opportunities for Ontario companies to make investments to expand their operations to serve the growing SMR market both domestically and abroad. These companies are in all of our ridings. There are over 220 companies in our nuclear supply chain, all doing amazing world-class work.

By being North America’s leader in SMRs, we have the potential to grow the 65,000-person-strong nuclear sector that we have here in Ontario as well as drive economic growth and export opportunities that would allow us to be a potential supplier of products, services and expertise across a global market.

We have had visitors from around the world coming to Darlington, to tour the site. I always say, when I have an opportunity to speak about the SMR program, that the world is watching what’s happening at OPG in Darlington. And I could tell you, we’ve had visitors from all around the world: from Poland, from Estonia, from the Czech Republic, to the United Arab Emirates, to Australia. They’re coming from everywhere because we are in the pole position.

We had the governor of Indiana come up, as well, and I told him we were in the pole position. He’s looking forward to the Indy 500 that’s coming up a little bit later on this spring.

In addition to our SMR expansion, we’re working with Bruce Power to begin pre-development work for the province’s first large-scale nuclear station build in more than 30 years. As part of that project, Bruce Power will start community consultations and conduct the environmental assessment for federal approval to determine the feasibility of siting up to 4.8 gigawatts—that’s 4,800 megawatts—of new nuclear generation on its current site of Bruce C. That’s enough generation to power almost five million homes.

Recently, I was at Bruce for the launch of its request-for-information process to evaluate new nuclear technologies that could demonstrate value for ratepayers, stimulate the Ontario economy and be constructed within a timeline that meets Ontario’s clean electricity demands. Initiating this early planning will ensure that the province has a reliable, low-cost and clean option ready to power the next major international investment, all the new homes that we’re building in the province and those industries and sectors across the province as they grow and electrify.

This new supply will complement the extensive work already going on in the sector, and that includes the significant progress that has been made on refurbishment projects at Darlington and the major component replacements at Bruce. The refurbishments of these Candu reactors at Darlington and Bruce, which have been on time—actually, ahead of schedule—and on budget, represent the largest clean energy projects in Ontario, securing a steady supply of emissions-free baseload power.

Just last month, I announced that our government is supporting Ontario Power Generation’s plan to proceed with the next steps toward refurbishing Pickering Nuclear Generating Station’s B units, securing another 2,000-plus megawatts at that site.

Madam Speaker, the world is watching. They’re looking to Ontario to leverage our expertise as they make decisions on their own nuclear projects, including their own SMR deployment, to help them achieve energy independence, clean the air and meet their climate goals. That was apparent during my recent nuclear trade mission to France and the United Kingdom, and COP 28 in Dubai. Through meetings and events, I caught up with many of the jurisdictions who are looking to Ontario to inform the development of their own SMR programs, like Estonia, Poland, the UK and many others. In fact, Estonia’s Fermi Energia has chosen GE Hitachi’s SMR technology, the BWRX-300, for deployment in Estonia, specifically citing the Darlington SMR project as a factor in their selection decision.

It’s clear that there is recognition globally that nuclear power is essential to achieving net-zero goals and long-term energy security, particularly in the face of Russian aggression and the unprovoked attack of Ukraine. In Dubai, we saw 22 countries, including Canada, sign an international resolution to triple global nuclear capacity by the year 2050, and I also signed a partnership agreement, along with my colleague the Minister of the Environment, while in Dubai, making Ontario the first subnational jurisdiction in the world to join the Net Zero Nuclear initiative to help the world deploy reliable, affordable, clean nuclear energy, to provide energy security for countries around the world.

With Ontario already well ahead of the curve, with decades of experience with our Candu reactors and years ahead of the world on SMRs, we have an incredible opportunity to export our expertise, our experience and materials from our world-class nuclear supply chain, helping to create even more jobs here at home. And while I know not every party in this Legislature supports our nuclear workers—just a week ago, the energy critic from the NDP and the MPP for University–Rosedale said in a flyer for a town hall meeting that “nuclear is harmful to the environment and human health”—our government will always stand with our nuclear workers, who do so much for our province.

Beyond nuclear energy, Powering Ontario’s Growth is also committed to continuing our competitive approach to procuring a diverse set of resources to meet our growing capacity and energy needs, an approach that has already delivered early successes. The IESO’s first medium-term request for proposal re-contracted five facilities, representing more than 700 megawatts of capacity, at about a 30% savings compared to the previous government’s contracts.

We’ve also achieved impressive results with the province’s recent expedited long-term request for proposals, which kicked off the largest clean energy storage procurement in Canada’s history, an achievement for which I was very proud to receive the Friend of Energy Storage Award from the team at Energy Storage Canada. Through this procurement, the IESO has already secured contracts with 15 energy storage facilities, acquiring a total of 880 megawatts of capacity. And Indigenous participation in this procurement was significant, nine of the 15 contracts having at least 50% Indigenous ownership. I’m looking forward to seeing similar success stories with the first long-term RFP, the LT1 procurement, which is currently under way.

Just to keep in mind: This competitive approach is drastically different than the Liberals’ Green Energy Act, which awarded handsome, lucrative, way-over-market-price feed-in tariff contracts. You will all recall the 80-cent-per-kilowatt-hour solar contracts that were awarded during the Green Energy Act. Those contracts continued to be signed year after year, after the price of electricity was tripling in Ontario under the Liberals’ watch.

On top of all of these things that we’re doing, including bringing a competitive approach to procuring the energy that we need, we’re also investing in low-carbon hydrogen projects that will promote sustainability in the sector and contribute to our clean energy economy. We’re proceeding, again, with the competitive procurement of non-emitting energy resources to meet demand and support the operation of our grid. We’re building out our transmission system to distribute electricity to new areas of the province, all over the province, so that everybody can participate in our growing energy sector. We’re increasing energy efficiency programs in the electricity and natural gas sectors.

Just like with home heating, natural gas generation is part of our pragmatic approach to keeping the lights on, an approach reinforced by the Independent Electricity System Operator, whose natural gas phase-out study that I asked them for said, “Natural gas generation plays a crucial role in the reliability of the electricity grid. It provides a range of services that no other resource today can provide on its own, including producing large amounts of power to meet high demand and running for extended periods when other resources are not available.”

In short, while most of the time Ontario can meet its electricity generation needs with nuclear and hydroelectric and biomass and renewables, we need to face reality. Sometimes the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow, which is why natural gas is needed to meet those peaks and to keep the lights on when demand surges and ensure we don’t have to resort to emergency actions like rotating blackouts.

I was in Edmonton about a month ago now, stepped off the plane, and it was minus 42 degrees Celsius. I don’t know if you remember how cold it was in Alberta during that weekend. Their system operator, the AESO, was sending out bulletins to the residents of Alberta—kind of like we do our Amber Alerts here in Ontario—advising the residents in Alberta to conserve their electricity immediately or they were going to experience brownouts and blackouts.

Why did they have to do that? Because the wind fleet that they have did not show up. It was so cold, the wind turbines couldn’t turn, so they needed Saskatchewan’s natural gas and British Columbia’s natural gas to keep the lights on in Alberta and keep their residents warm. Natural gas comes back to save the day again in Alberta.

Ontario’s existing natural gas plants are doing the exact same thing right now. They’re the insurance policy to keep the lights on. I think, as a matter of fact, down at the Portlands generating station right here on the waterfront in Toronto, when it was built, it was strategically placed there to keep the lights on in downtown Toronto on the hottest and coldest days of the year. We know all too well what can happen if those plants are removed too quickly.

It was last summer when a large crane—not the bird, the piece of mechanical equipment—came into contact with a high-voltage transmission line, disconnecting the Portlands plant down there. The disconnection caused an extensive, hours-long power outage in downtown Toronto that disrupted the lives of millions of families and businesses that work here every day. Imagine if you live on the 50th floor of one of these condo buildings here and the elevators are out, which they were for hours.

The fact is, there is currently in the province no like-for-like replacement for natural gas. That’s why the IESO has concluded that natural gas generation is needed to maintain system reliability. In the end, thanks to our early planning, Ontario is well positioned with enough electricity to power growth in the near term. And, as our panel report has pointed out, we’ve got to be careful to pace the rate of increase in electricity demand with the rate at which new supply can come on stream. That’s why our government has done so much to prepare for the latter part of this decade and beyond.

Madam Speaker, as Ontario plans for a prosperous future and an energy system that continues to deliver power that is clean, reliable and affordable for all of its citizens, Bill 165, Keeping Energy Costs Down Act, is critical to our success. It recognizes that we’re working in a complex landscape with distinct regions. We are a massive, massive province. We have unique communities and organizations across this massive province that are facing unique challenges, but they’re also facing unique opportunities. And the legislative changes that this bill proposes are going to enable us to cut red tape. It’s going to enable us to get transit and homes built faster and without additional financial burden on customers. These changes will improve Ontario Energy Board processes, ensuring that the public has more input into OEB decisions, and will ensure those decisions are made with clarity on future government policy priorities to protect ratepayers.

Again, just imagine hearing this case without getting feedback from the Independent Electricity System Operator as to whether or not there’s enough electricity planned or in the system to ensure that we would have the electricity and the energy that we need to keep our residents warm each and every winter, and allow for our air conditioning to turn on in the summer.

Finally, Bill 165 is going to preserve customer energy choices by ensuring that natural gas remains an available and affordable option for all consumers.

Madam Speaker, when our government took office, we made a promise to put people first and make life easier and more affordable for families and businesses while sending a clear message that Ontario is open for business. We’ve seen the results of the work that we’ve done. Ontario is open for business. It is a powerhouse in North America. It is the economic engine in our country, once again, after years of Liberal policies that drove hundreds of thousands of jobs to other jurisdictions in North America and elsewhere in the world. The Keeping Energy Costs Down Act is going to allow us to continue to build on that promise, Madam Speaker, and ensure that Ontario is that economic powerhouse.

It’s interesting listening to the energy minister talk about the past and the history. I will say that when the Liberals were in power, the PCs used to criticize their politicization of the electricity planning and their disregard for evidence and professional independent analysis. And yet here we are, 2024, the first time ever overruling an Ontario Energy Board decision designed to protect homeowners and ratepayers in order to benefit a fossil fuel giant.

Kent Elson, a lawyer from Environmental Defence says that this legislation, and the choice of the title of this bill, is “Orwellian.

“It should be called the keeping Enbridge profits and energy bills high act....

“The OEB decision would have cut capital costs covered by gas customers by approximately $600 per customer.... Reversing the decision will certainly raise energy bills.”

Why did you not title this bill the pushing energy costs up act in Ontario?

Questions?

Thank you to the minister for his lovely remarks to kick off debate this afternoon. I just want to highlight to my colleagues in this place here that the NDP is again not standing up for young people who don’t have a home. They’re arguing for the current homeowners. They are not fighting for those who live in their parents’ basements or those who may have a child on the way who are looking to move into a bigger place—a townhouse, for example.

I know the minister alluded to it a bit in his remarks, but, obviously, I represent rural Ontario, and I was wondering if he could elaborate—I know Minister Calandra and myself and the associate minister are looking to keep costs down on homes. How much would this decision by the OEB cost rural Ontario?

Once again, we see the NDP trying to find any way possible they can to oppose a piece of legislation, even one that makes as much sense as this one does, Madam Speaker.

This is necessary in a housing crisis to assuring that we can keep shovels in the ground and build the homes that we’re talking about building.

A recent condominium development here in the GTA would see an upfront connection charge of approximately $290,000. I don’t know who the opposite member thinks is going to pay that, but it’s going to be the person who buys that condo or lives in that condo—$290,000. A three-building condo development in Toronto would see an upfront connection charge of approximately $1,065,000. Who does the NDP think is going to bear the cost of that? It’s going to be that homeowner, the new homeowner, and we have to step in to ensure that we’re protecting the homeowners of the province.

Speaker, just to be totally clear, Premier Ford wants to raise your gas bill. That’s what this is about. Premier Ford wants you to pay more month after month, year after year. That’s what this is about. He has decided to protect higher profits for Enbridge by taking more money out of your pocket and the pockets of millions of others across this province. He’s protecting his buddies at Enbridge, and he’s sticking you and all the other customers of Enbridge with the bill, and that bill is going to be about $300 per customer over the next four years.

So if you think you should pay more on your gas bill, you should support the minister. And if you think you shouldn’t be stuck with that bill, if you think Enbridge should be the body that actually coughs up the few billion dollars that are going to be necessary, then you should oppose this bill that’s been brought forward.

I don’t know how to make it any plainer. I don’t know how to make it any plainer: He wants to raise your gas bill; he wants you to pay more so that Enbridge makes more money. That is what this is about. He wants to reverse the decision the Ontario Energy Board made in December to protect you from higher gas bills.

Now, it’s the job of the Ontario Energy Board, the regulator, to look out for consumer interests when energy companies apply to raise their rates. That’s their job. That’s their mandate. They are told, “Look out for consumers. Look out for the public. Make sure they aren’t gouged, they aren’t ripped off, they aren’t pillaged, they aren’t silently stolen from. Look after those customers. Whether they’re electrical utilities or gas utilities, protect the customers.” And that’s what they did. They did their job.

And now, the government is horrified that people are going to be protected from higher gas bills. They’re horrified that Enbridge will not continue to make the crushingly huge profits that they have been making, and they want to reverse that.

Enbridge is a multi-billion-dollar company. And frankly, there’s a bigger Enbridge that runs gas transmission lines across North America and there’s the smaller multi-billion-dollar corporation here in Ontario—not exactly on the edge of poverty; companies that have a few bucks available if they wanted to actually help customers. That isn’t what we’re dealing with here. What we’re dealing with here is a company that wants to squeeze every last penny out of you.

This bill will strip you of protection from Enbridge’s attempts to gouge customers across this province. The minister doesn’t have to do that. The Premier doesn’t have to do that. The Premier could protect you, could protect your family and protect families across this province. He knows that people are having a tough time. We have those debates, those discussions, here in the Legislature all the time. People are pushed hard. They’ve got rising rents. This government won’t protect them from rising rents. They’re having a tough time with mortgages. They’re having a tough time with grocery bills. You’ve got major retailers that have been engaged in squeezing people, squeezing their suppliers, squeezing the customers. He knows that people are having a tough time staying afloat, and yet—and yet—today what we’re doing is debating a bill that would protect the profits of Enbridge and raise the gas bills that people have to pay. It will take money out of people’s pockets. That’s the reality.

I have to say this: I’m saying that I’m impressed, and not in a good way, that the minister kept a straight face while he made that speech. That was extraordinary. I am impressed—not in a good way, but I am impressed.

Let’s go back a little bit. Just before Christmas, the Ontario Energy Board announced a decision that would make Enbridge Gas responsible for the cost of expanding its gas system and protect almost four million customers from hundreds of millions of dollars in higher heating bills. This is a very important point. Enbridge has investors; it has cash flow. If it wanted to put the money into those new connections and collect from those customers over 40 years, they could do that. They don’t have to take the money out of your pocket or your pocket or my pocket. They could do it out of their own cash—no sweat. But, instead, they wanted it to come from the existing gas customers. The Ontario Energy Board, whose job is to protect customers from gouging, whose job is to protect customers from being taken advantage of, said, “No, we’re not going to support this increase that’s going to cost $300 per customer over the next four years. We’re going to say, ‘Enbridge, it’s yours. It’s yours.’” And the very next day, the minister announced that they—this government—would be taking steps to reverse the decision of the Ontario Energy Board, the regulator that they put in place.

Now, I have to say, for those who are around for a while, I used to refer to the Ontario Energy Board under the Liberals as the glove puppets. You had the Minister of Energy’s hand there stuck up an energy board regulator and saying whatever the minister needed to have said. I was astounded that this regulator, this board, actually stood up for customers, stood up for consumers—astounding. They actually did their job. They read their mandate. They listened to the evidence and they said, “Damn, we gotta protect people.” Of course, this party that used to attack the OEB for not standing up for customers realizes that, “Boy, if they stand up for customers there are going to be some pretty heavy-duty private interests that are going to be really cranky.” So that’s why we have this bill before us today.

Now I want to go back a bit further. There’s a subsidy that gas customers do not even know they’re funding. If you talk to most people, they look at their gas bill and they see “gas” and then they see “distribution,” the cost of getting it through the pipes to their house. They don’t know that part of those rates is paying the cost of expanding the system. They think, “No, I just want to pay for the pipe that comes to my house. Why do I have to pay for these investments that you’re making that you’re going to make money off of?” That isn’t where their heads are at. I tried this out on my nephew at Christmastime. I said, “Do you know you’re subsidizing these new expansions?” He was outraged. He said, “Why? I just want to pay for my gas bill. I just want heat, that’s all. They want to expand, they can pay for it.”

I have to say, the independent energy regulator decided to put a stop to this subsidy because it raises energy bills for existing gas customers and for new homebuyers. This is not a wonderful gift for them. It sets them up for higher costs in the years to come and it also increases financial risks for the whole of the gas system.

Ending the subsidy would save gas customers over a billion dollars over the next four years in avoided pipeline subsidy costs. That comes to about $300 per customer. There are about four million customers on the system. Of course, that billion dollars doesn’t include the interest and the profit payments that go to Enbridge. So I’m talking the bare minimum, right? I’m just talking the minimum number that was cited by the Ontario Energy Board.

What ending the subsidy would do, aside from protecting existing customers from being gouged, is that it would encourage developers to install electric heat pumps in new homes instead of gas, which would provide cheaper heating and cooling for new homebuyers. And that is based on a variety of studies showing the reality of comparing the cost of capital and operating for gas-centred systems with capital and operating for heat pump systems.

So ending that subsidy would be a win, a win, a win and a win. It would lower energy bills for existing customers—wildly popular—and lower energy bills for new homeowners because they would be getting a less expensive system. It would lower carbon emissions—and actually, I think that matters. And it would avoid even more costs down the road to convert away from fossil fuel heating in the houses that were built with heat pumps from the start.

But there is a loser in all this. I have to be clear. There is a loser: Enbridge Gas. They would lose a lot of money. Frankly, they can afford it. They’re not exactly on the ropes. They’re doing well. I would say that if they are not making super gazillions of profits, but just billions in profits, they can probably survive, but many, many tenants and homeowners are having a tough time surviving. So our task, I believe, is to protect those tenants, those homeowners and not protect these multi-billion-dollar, multinational corporations.

Now, Enbridge is lobbying hard to stop that decision, to overturn that decision, and it has launched two challenges. Its court challenge boldly complains that the decision will mean “Enbridge Gas has no right or ability to invest and earn a return on capital for new customer connections.” In other words, it’s going to reduce their profits. Actually, I don’t think the OEB said you couldn’t invest; you just couldn’t invest with money provided by your existing customers. If their investors wanted to put money in, hey, there’s no barrier to doing that. They could go ahead. Now, there are questions they would ask, and frankly, the consultants who they quote in their submissions to the Ontario Energy Board raised big red flags about the potential for a lack of return in the future on those investments.

Minister Smith is trying to pass this legislation, the bill before us, to overturn that decision. The government of Ontario has decided to stand with Enbridge and its lobbyists, using the argument that change will reduce housing supply and affordability. But developers can just forgo gas and install heat pumps instead. If they have a customer who really wants gas, they can do that, but everyone gets an electrical connection in any event. So why wouldn’t you take the opportunity to install an electric heat pump and forgo that extra cost of putting in gas? And even if you didn’t want to go there, why do people around this province have to subsidize this? Why do people in Kingston or Ottawa, Hamilton, London, Windsor have to pony up an extra 300 bucks over the next four years to subsidize this multi-billion-dollar corporation?

You don’t have to take my word about the fact that this is not going to affect the cost of housing. I’m glad I went to public school in Ontario. It gave me at least one skill: I can read; sometimes I can do math—although people challenge me.

Ian Mondrow is a partner at the law firm Gowling WLG, practising in the area of energy regulation policy, and he wrote an op-ed that was published in the Globe and Mail. He can see that leaving the regulator’s decision in place would protect current gas customers and new home owners. Now, this is not the NDP research department—and, frankly, you should know that that is an excellent department. I’m just saying that they’re not ideologically ours; Gowling is not known as an NDP firm. But I’m going to quote the op-ed from this lawyer who specializes in energy regulation policy:

“While including gas connection costs to developers up front would marginally increase the cost of a new house, an offsetting rate credit recognizing the upfront payment would lower ongoing gas rates, resulting in a wash for homebuyers. The other choice would be to forego gas servicing in favour of electric heat pumps, thus lowering the operating costs of the house—a win for homebuyers.” The member from Perth–Wellington was talking about new home buyers. Well, you’ve got someone who specializes in energy policy saying this would be better for new home buyers. “Either choice would reduce Enbridge capital costs, and potential stranded assets, in the range of $1 billion over the proposed five-year gas rate plan period, significantly reducing delivery rates and customer risk.”

Two associate professors, Brandon Schaufele and Adam Fremeth of the Ivey Business School, wrote a post about this as well: “The government’s decision to override the OEB should have virtually no effect on affordable housing in the province.”

So if this bill passes, this ain’t going to make housing any cheaper. It is not going to be to the advantage of homebuyers. In other words, the government’s action will make you pay more and will not help new homebuyers, but it will mean higher rates for your gas bills. The Premier wants you to pay more. The Premier wants to raise your gas bill. Don’t get confused. Be very clear and plain about this. The Premier wants you to pay more.

Now, gas is no longer the cheapest heating source. Investing in gas pipelines for heating is financially foolish because they will become obsolete and a massive cost to all current and future customers as we stop burning gas to heat our homes and other buildings. Even the minister was talking about electrification of home heating. He knows it’s coming. What that means, over the next few decades, is that fewer and fewer people will be burning gas, and the people who leave the system will not have to carry the burden of the cost of those pipes that are in the ground, but the ones who stay will be stuck with it. There are cheaper alternatives to what’s been before us.

The OEB recognized that, like rotary dial phones, like Blockbuster Video, natural gas furnaces are coming to the end of their time—not tomorrow, not in 2025, but over the next 20 years, cheaper alternatives such as home heat pumps are undermining Enbridge’s market for home heating. The minister said exactly that. We’re going to be electrifying our homes. So the OEB ruled that Enbridge can’t spread the cost of hooking up new homes over decades or charge it to current gas customers like you, like the people who are watching this, like the people in this room who actually are still Enbridge customers. They’re going to be stuck with this cost. That’s what the Premier wants to do. He wants to increase your gas bill. The OEB said that Enbridge or new home developers have to take the risk, not new home buyers or current Enbridge customers. It recognizes that this would likely mean many more people installing the cheaper heat pumps to provide heating.

It was interesting to me that, again, the minister said he’s got a heat pump. He said when it gets really cold, the electric furnace backup in the installation comes on. Fair enough. I’ve got a heat pump at home. I’ve never been cold; I’m assuming the backup comes on when it gets really cold. But he didn’t say he was freezing in the dark. He said the system worked. If he had been freezing in the dark, believe me, all of you would have heard it. You would have heard the descriptions of the frozen bowl of water for the cat in the kitchen. You would have heard about the need to bundle up the kids and whisk them off to a hotel somewhere. No, he’s totally comfortable at home because he’s got the backup right there. Most of the time, the heat pump—probably all the time because the newer heat pumps are good down to minus 30—they’re totally fine in our climate.

I’m going to go back to Ian Mondrow about the question of how we can actually deal with the issues before us. Because passing legislation to reinstate a subsidy that’s completely out of step and risks financial disaster down the road doesn’t make sense.

The minister, in his statement, in his speech, said that the decision of the OEB would increase the cost of energy, increase the cost of a new home, and the facts do not support that claim. When you look for those facts, when you round them up, when you put them together and you compare them to the minister’s statement, they are not related; they’re not distant cousins. There is no blood relation between the facts and the minister’s statement. It’s just not there.

I’m going to go back to the energy-regulator lawyer from Gowling, Ian Mondrow, who had this to say about the claim by the minister. He writes in a more formal style than me but I think he’s quite good: “Early the following day after the release of the OEB decision, Ontario’s Minister of Energy released a statement expressing that he was ‘extremely disappointed’ with the OEB’s decision.... The minister asserted that the OEB’s determination on this point ... ‘could lead to tens of thousands of dollars added to the cost of building new homes, and ... would slow or halt the construction of new homes, including affordable housing.’” Well, good God. That’s a scary thought.

The lawyer, Ian Mondrow, goes on: “If those facts were true”—and I like the “if”—“then the minister could well have a legitimate and immediate housing policy concern. The facts as determined in the OEB’s decision do not, however, support a ‘tens of thousands of dollars’ increase in home costs, and it does not appear that the decision will in fact ‘slow or halt the construction of new homes.’ The conclusions expressed in the minister’s statement”—and, frankly, his speech today—“are inconsistent with the facts relied on, and determinations made, by the OEB’s three-member expert panel of commissioners as a result of the comprehensive hearing process undertaken.”

I want to say a few other things about the area of charges. I’m speaking to you gas customers who are going to get stuck with a higher bill if this legislation passes. One is that claim that gas heating is the cheapest option. Numerous studies now show that, when you compare the combined costs of equipment and energy, heat pumps provide cheaper heating than gas heating. Just look at putting in a heat pump or putting in a furnace or an air conditioner—those capital costs and then the cost over the lifetime, it’s cheaper to go with a heat pump.

In fact—and the minister referenced this in his speech—Enbridge, which keeps spreading the claim about gas being cheaper, is now facing an investigation and hearing at the Competition Bureau for false advertising.

Well, the OEB, in its own decision, said it was going to cost about $4,400, but they were looking at a cul-de-sac in the GTHA when they were using that analysis. We know and you know, certainly, being from Perth–Wellington, just how much more it’s going to cost to get that extra line out to your home or to the farms that are—boy, they’re starving for more natural gas in your community. I hear from them all the time at ROMA and AMO. It’s going to cost them tens of thousands of dollars more.

That’s why we won’t let this stand. That’s why we’re coming back with our natural gas policy, so that the Ontario Energy Board will be able to reconsider government policy and ensure that they’re hearing from the proper people, including the Independent Electricity System Operator, home builders, contractors, farmers and those who will be impacted by these additional costs that are heaped onto them as a result of this misguided decision.

In Niagara, where my colleague is from, a new business customer would see an upfront connection charge of approximately $53,000. That’s $53,000 more that they would have to pay up front instead of amortizing this over a 40-year period. Anybody who thinks that going from 40 years to zero years is rational is completely irrational—it just is. A recent restaurant project in Niagara would cost approximately $13,000 more up front. So it’s going to have an impact on the residents in Niagara, just as it would right across the province.

We have an opportunity, particularly in our greenhouse sector, to be a world leader. We already are, but we have an opportunity to grow that even more. And providing them with the ability to amortize the cost of pipelines up to 40 years makes a heck of a lot of sense and will increase our GDP dramatically.

The dissenting commissioner’s opinion, Allison Duff, was very, very clear as well: that the OEB commissioners didn’t hear from the stakeholders that they needed to hear from. They didn’t hear from the farmers, they didn’t hear from the home builders, they didn’t hear from the contractors, and most importantly, they didn’t hear from the system operator that manages our electricity grid. So we’re going to put this back in the OEB’s court once we set our natural gas policy.

Next question?

I’d like to thank the minister for the introduction.

This bill, Bill 165, reminds me quite a bit of Bill 23. With Bill 23, this government said that removing development charges would automatically trickle down and pass over cost savings to new home buyers. We know they didn’t put any metrics in place. They didn’t put any guardrails in place. And we see a lot of the same thing here with Bill 165. Apparently, they think that this money is going to go—but really, the effect of this bill is quite something else. In fact, I believe that this bill would properly be entitled keeping Enbridge happy while customers pay more.

This bill allows the government to approve a gas pipeline that the OEB has deemed as not in the public interest. Why would the government force consumers to pay for a project that is not in the public interest?

I’m glad that the minister, in his speech, which I thought was very impressive and spoke to a lot of the issues at stake with this legislation—he mentioned farmers. And I think in my community of Niagara West, where I have a massive greenhouse sector, I have a massive amount of traditional agricultural and dozens and dozens of commodity groups—they need access to natural gas to ensure that they’re drying their corn, that they’re able to heat their greenhouses in the winter, that they’re able to provide the food that all of us rely upon. So I’m wondering if he could talk a little bit more about that.

I have already heard about concerns around the cost of connecting to natural gas and the infrastructure costs in some of my communities. If this legislation hadn’t been brought forward, how much more in costs would have been passed along to those who want to buy groceries?

As my colleague expressed, it’s shocking, the thought that a multinational corporation that makes huge amounts of money by squeezing cash out of homeowners and tenants might mislead people. I know it’s incomprehensible to many here but, in fact, it could well be true.

The National Observer reports, “Enbridge has a new fight on its hands as Competition Bureau Canada officially launches an investigation against the gas giant over allegations the company is misleading customers about the role of gas in the energy transition.

“Specifically, Enbridge has promoted new gas hookups as the cheapest way for Ontarians to heat their homes, while branding natural gas as ‘low carbon’ and ‘clean energy.’”

That’s being challenged by the environmental organization Environmental Defence.

The National Observer reports, “‘Enbridge’s dishonest marketing is duping people into’” installing new gas hookups and spending thousands of dollars on new gas furnaces and other appliances, “‘falsely claiming it’s cheaper than heating with electricity, which is just not true,’ said Environmental Defence program director Keith Brooks in a statement.” It’s good that the Competition Bureau has agreed to investigate Enbridge.

“The complaint filed by Environmental Defence, Ontario Clean Air Alliance, the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment and a group of Ontario residents” in September, “accuses Enbridge of falsely claiming gas is the most cost-effective way to heat homes. Enbridge has made this claim online and in communities it has pegged for expansion in an attempt to increase its customer base.”

Environmental Defence summarized the situation this way: “Enbridge is misleading consumers into connecting to its gas system using false and misleading representations.... Enbridge is telling potential customers that gas is the most cost-effective way to heat their homes and suggesting”—and this I find totally entertaining—“that it is ‘clean energy’ and ‘low carbon.’ None of these representations are true.” That lack of honesty about what’s real and not real when it comes to home heating is something that people should keep in mind.

But the other issue—and this is a big one because, as the minister has said, we’re moving away from gas heating in our homes: People get caught paying as gas heating fades away. People are increasingly deciding to save money and protect the climate by switching from gas to electric heat pumps. As this process expands, the cost of the gas grid for those who stay with gas is going to increase, and new gas lines, installed to service new customers, will increasingly not have customers to serve. That was a finding by the Ontario Energy Board.

We’ve had these transitions before. This is not unique or novel in the world. Most of you have not followed energy history. I am a strange person; I actually look at the history of energy in this province. About 1958 or 1959, the TransCanada pipeline came through to Ontario from Alberta, bringing natural gas. This opened a whole new way to heat homes that was cleaner, more convenient and probably cheaper than coal. From 1960 to 1970, the portion of homes that used coal for home heating went from 30% to 1%. Within a decade, 30% of Ontario homes no longer used what had been a very popular fuel.

So I want to say to people here that you can have a very rapid transition from one technology to another, frankly, probably, with very little in the way of government programs in this case. People looked at, “Hey, we can spend all this money on coal, or we can go with an option that we don’t have to shovel, that is more convenient, that is just a flick of a switch on a thermostat in the wall. I’m going to go with gas”—a decade. And I have to tell you, just in that same report I looked at, that 1% at the end? Man, they were spending a fortune, because the whole of the coal delivery infrastructure shrank and became a much more expensive fuel to get. I don’t know why those 1% held on, but they did.

We’re facing a situation in Ontario where as we move away from gas home heating, something that the minister has said we’re doing, people who stay on the gas system, who get sold on to the gas system, are going to be stuck with much higher bills, and the pipes that are put in the ground are going to be paid for by those who can’t afford to buy a new heating system, ones whose furnace is eight years old. They’ve got about a 15-year lifespan. If your furnace is eight years old, you’re not going to get rid of it and buy a new furnace. Mostly, people can’t. They only buy when they have to, and they will get stuck with those higher bills. That’s a risk for homeowners and tenants. That is a problem that people are going to face in the future.

Frankly, continuing the subsidy from the existing consumers—and remember, Premier Ford wants to increase your heating bill. He wants to drive up your gas bill. He wants you to pay more so that he can create deeper problems for you in the years to come. I want—

Interjections.

No, you don’t say.

Sorry to interrupt the member. The side conversations on the government’s side are getting very loud. I ask that you keep it quiet or take it outside the chamber.

Please resume.

There’s another reality. A number of you who are gas customers—in fact, almost four million of you who are gas customers—know that around 2022, the price of gas went up dramatically. Now, what was happening in world events at that time? Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the disruption of the supply of natural gas to Western Europe, and frankly, you had a situation where the world market was setting the price.

We in Ontario pay a much lower price than people do on the world market. But something that you need to know—a few things you need to know. One, about 60% of the gas we use in Ontario comes from the United States. It used to come from western Canada; it’s coming from the United States. And in the United States, there are large numbers of liquefied natural gas export terminals that are shipping that gas out. In fact, recently, there was a pause put on a few of those in part because industrial manufacturers in the United States were saying, “These exports are killing us. They are killing us. You need to stop exporting all the gas, because it’s changing our cost picture.”

Well, in 2022—and I remember this, because (a) I got a bill, and (b) my constituents came to me about it—a big spike in gas prices. If you will remember your gas bill, about half is the cost of getting the gas to your house; that’s the pipes in the ground. The other half is the gas, and that other part comes from the price of gas out on the open market.

I want to say to all of you that although it’s unpredictable as to whether or not we will see other spikes—and I have to say, wars happen and disruptions of energy supplies happen, and if I knew what the price was going to be, I would be running a side deal in gas futures and making a lot of money, so I won’t predict that. But I will predict this: the potential for great volatility. That is a huge problem for people, the inability to be certain what it’s going to cost them in the year to come to heat their homes. That is an issue, and to the extent that we stay with gas or expand the use of gas in this province, we expose more and more people to the volatility of those gas prices. That is not a good thing.

I had said at the beginning, and I want to say this again: The OEB didn’t say you can’t have a gas connection to a new house; it wasn’t a ban on gas. If Enbridge wanted to install new gas connections to new homes, they could do it with the capital that’s provided by their investors, and they could try and recover it over the next few decades. But I have to say, they understand the volatility of the world; they understand the uncertainty of the world and the potential that within two decades or three decades, you’ll have a dramatically smaller market for gas heating in this province—again, I follow the minister’s statement talking about electrification of heating—so that it may not be a good investment for those people who are backing Enbridge. No, they want to put the burden on you. They have asked the Premier to put the burden on you, the customers of Enbridge Gas, the multi-billion-dollar risk.

So Premier Ford wants to raise your gas bill. He has decided that higher profits for Enbridge Gas are more important than protecting you. He wants to increase the money that goes to Enbridge, and he wants to take that money out of your pocket. He’s protecting his buddies at Enbridge and sticking you with the bill, and that’s about $300 for each gas customer over the next four years. And that’s why we’re debating this legislation today, legislation to allow the government to overturn a decision by the energy regulator, the body set up to protect you, the customers, from the actions of utilities that want to squeeze as much money out of you as they can.

Speaker, high price is certainly at the heart of what we’re dealing with here—no getting around it. It’s an issue that people have very immediately on their minds. They go to the grocery store; they try to buy something electronic; they have to pay higher rents; they’re paying their energy bills; they’re squeezed.

However, there are other issues here, even if they’re not as top of mind as cost of living. The reality is the world is getting hotter. Weather is getting more extreme. It’s getting more unpredictable. Those climate changes are affecting the price of food, of insurance and a variety of other things. They are increasing the cost of operating government because they’re causing more damage to infrastructure. Drought and higher temperatures are reducing food production in many places, and we see the impact at the grocery store.

It’s not just climate change that’s affecting us at those grocery stores. There are retailers—big ones—that are taking the opportunity to squeeze as many pennies out of people as they can. But the reality is that as the world gets hotter and our climate more unpredictable, food prices will increase. As insurers face higher claims from catastrophic weather events, they pass the cost on to their customers. I’m sure many of you have seen those higher insurance bills.

I’ll just say there are three jurisdictions right now where the rise in those bills has led to some really dramatic changes: Louisiana, Florida and California. Many insurance companies are leaving those jurisdictions because they can’t charge premiums high enough to cover the replacement cost of the houses destroyed in extreme weather or in wildfires. Those places are having to provide a very limited state-sponsored housing insurance, where an awful lot of the risk is left with the homeowner and where those states are not happy that they’re having to provide that insurance, because I’m sure it doesn’t actually pay for itself.

As we get hotter, as weather becomes more extreme, people are not going to be able to afford the premiums that insurance companies will charge to protect their homes and their property. This is not a distant problem; this is a problem happening today in the southern United States and which will make its way north into Ontario and into Canada. Already in Canada, the insurance bureau has said something like a million homes are facing the potential of losing home insurance because of flood risk.

So we’ve got a situation where day-to-day life is going to become more and more difficult. In order to stabilize the climate and protect us all from rising food costs and to make sure that things like insurance are affordable, the world is engaged in an effort to reduce carbon emissions by 50% by 2030. To do that, we have to move away from fossil fuels like gas. That means many things, but one of them is that when we have a chance to reduce future gas burning—from heating, for example—we should take it. We’re in a situation now where new homes, if they get a heat pump rather than a furnace and an air conditioner, can actually have lower-cost heating and cooling than if they went down the gas route. The OEB recognized that in its decision.

Happily, this would mean lower costs for homeowners. Let’s assume that Ontario actually does build one million new homes over the current decade. Given that so far the targets are not being met, I think there are real questions about that. Let’s just say you didn’t reach 1.5 million but you reached a million. We have about four million homes in Ontario now. If all new homes were gas-heated, then we would face a very large new source of carbon pollution in Ontario. I don’t know how the government would meet its very weak target of a 30% reduction, but we would be making the world hotter and we would be paying for it out of higher gas bills. That’s what this legislation means.

Premier Ford wants to raise your gas bill, take more money out of your pocket and make the world hotter, more volatile and more difficult for all of us. That’s what we’re debating today: the whole question of whether we will protect customers, whether we will let the Premier increase your gas bill or not. He’s protecting his buddies at Enbridge Gas and he’s sticking us with the bill, and we’re talking about $300 over four years. Anyone who wants to pay an extra 300 bucks to help Enbridge Gas, please put up your hand. I’m sure that when the vote comes there will be a chunk of people in this room who will stand up and say, “Yes, I want to pay more and I want to help Enbridge.”

Now I’ve talked about the direct cost and the, let us say, absence of facts in the arguments made by the government in the minister’s presentation, but I also want to talk about the impact of effectively restoring the previous situation where the Ontario Energy Board is just a glove puppet for the Minister of Energy—not a good thing.

It’s bad news to change the law so that all future energy decisions or regulations through the Ontario Energy Board will be made in the same way the Premier made his decision about the greenbelt or about Staples or about privatizing health care: out of public sight, by politicians on a massage table or in Vegas or at a wedding party where they’re celebrating and drinking wine with lobbyists. Do we want that to be the way decisions are made around energy?

Let’s look at how the decision was made by the Ontario Energy Board on protecting people from higher Enbridge rates. Again, I’m going to go back to the excellent article by the energy lawyer Ian Mondrow:

“At 6 p.m. on December 21, the OEB publicly issued a comprehensive decision on an application by” Enbridge “for approval of Ontario gas distribution rates commencing January 1, 2024. The decision is the result of a thorough public hearing process, which involved more than a year of review, thousands of pages of company and expert evidence, a comprehensive oral hearing and a thorough process for submissions by” Enbridge, “OEB staff, and a number of informed, indeed expert, customer and public interest intervenor representatives. The comprehensive, well-written and fully reasoned decision is 147 pages long....”

So what do we have? We had a public process that people could attend or follow. I followed it for the last year. Thousands of pages of evidence were introduced—I have to say, I didn’t read thousands of pages; I read quite a few hundred, but not thousands. Interesting stuff. The consultant for Enbridge—two consultants. One consultant, their economic consultant, talked about the threat of a death spiral for this particular utility, because as the cost of heating by gas went up, more and more people would leave the system, and as more and more people left the system, those who were left behind would pay a higher fee, and more and more people would leave.

So, real risk to the system—how do you manage that? Part of the way you manage it is, you actually focus on repair rather than expansion, so you control your costs. That’s something the OEB was very interested in.

Again, you had a public process. You had people who were trained in adjudication and had familiarity with the energy system listening to presentations by those who had expertise with energy, who were hired as consultants to give information. These were not lobbyists who were wining and dining the board. They weren’t taking the board out for lunch, getting them drunked up and then sending them back into the room. No. They were trying to present evidence so that, in fact, you could have a rational assessment of the options before us.

What does the Premier want in the place of a public hearing with evidence that could be challenged by numerous intervenors and by adjudicators themselves?

Well, first of all, this bill gives the government power to overturn the key decisions within that OEB order that’s under discussion. This gives the government the power to increase your gas bill, to take money out of your pocket and put it into the pockets of Enbridge investors so they get richer. That’s what this is about. The government wants to have the power to make Enbridge richer and you poorer. It allows the minister, with the approval of the Lieutenant Governor in Council—that’s the cabinet—to direct the Ontario Energy Board that the construction of a new natural gas transmission line is in the public interest.

Normally, the Ontario Energy Board would hold a hearing to determine whether a proposed project is in the public interest—does it actually do what it should do; will it put a financial burden on the other customers; is there a justification for this that allows an investment of the money that’s taken out of the ratepayers’ pockets?

This provision in the act would oblige the Ontario Energy Board to grant leave to construct without a hearing. In other words, we go to energy decision-making by lobbyists and members of the government’s cabinet, or maybe just by the Premier’s staff—I’m not sure which; only the RCMP knows for sure who makes these decisions. It means that the ability to actually have decisions or proposals reviewed in public, with evidence presented, considered, challenged and adjudicated doesn’t have to happen anymore. It’s just lobbyists bringing home the bacon for their clients, and that bacon is you and me paying more out of our pockets to make Enbridge richer. It allows the minister, with the approval of the cabinet, to overturn any OEB order that either refused to approve a gas transmission line or required the beneficiaries of the expansion to pay upfront capital costs. In other words, if the OEB determines that a gas pipeline project is not in the public interest, then the cabinet can force the OEB to let it proceed anyway.

At this point, you have to ask: Why do you have a regulator? Because, frankly, they’re just scenery. They’re a mountain picture painted on a wall. They are of no consequence, because the real decisions will be made by lobbyists, cabinet members and the chiefs of staff who report to the Premier and those ministers.

There are other ways that Bill 165 would allow the Premier to force gas customers to pay costs that the OEB would otherwise not allow. Currently, no one can construct a new gas pipeline in Ontario unless the OEB determines this expenditure is in the public interest and grants leave to construct. This rule seeks to ensure that expenditures are properly scrutinized so gas consumers are not forced to pay for costly, uneconomical projects. So by deciding to allow politicians to make that ultimate call as to whether or not a gas line is in the public interest, instead of an independent regulator, there’s a risk—man, sometimes I really understate. This politicizes the energy regulation process. It just says, “Nope.” Thoughtful consideration—may I even say, just businesslike consideration—is out the window; it’s who has got the pull, who knows who and who can actually get the decision that you need.

There is an example of a previous government that operated this way: the Liberal government. For those who weren’t here when they were in power—

Supported by you.

We would tag-team going after them, yes. We used to go after them. We would go after them in committees, we’d go after them in the House, because we knew they politicized the process. And you guys are following that road—sorry; this government, Speaker, is following that road of politicized energy decisions. The outcome is not good.

So not only does the current government want you to immediately be stuck with a bill for a massive subsidy to Enbridge Gas—and I’m talking $300 per customer over the next four years—it also wants you to be stuck with the cost of future projects that the OEB, the regulator, might dismiss because they hurt the interests of gas consumers. The process of hearing evidence in public by a board of people with experience and a mandate to protect the public interest is replaced by a process where the best lobbyist, as I said before, brings home the bacon—your bacon—to whatever company wants access to a subsidy from you. This is not well received in many quarters and, frankly, is contrary to advice that the government has received. I’ll go to the advice first, and then I’ll go to comments from other quarters.

In its recent report, Ontario’s energy transition panel, appointed by this government to look at the transition—frankly, again, to the minister’s comment, a transition away from gas home heating to electrification of home heating; the minister made that clear—made a recommendation that is inconsistent with Bill 165. They recommended the OEB “should conduct reviews of cost allocation and recovery policies for natural gas and electricity connections, as well as natural gas infrastructure investment evaluations to protect customers and facilitate development of the clean energy economy.”

Well, this isn’t protecting customers. I didn’t hear the minister say once that when we change this, it will mean that the rate reduction that the OEB mandated will be maintained. No, no. The rate reduction the OEB maintained is out the window. Customers will not be protected. You can go all around the mulberry bush, you can do the ring-around-the-rosie, you can be the jack in the jack-in-the-box—whatever. It ain’t protecting customers. It means higher bills. That’s what this legislation delivers. Their own electrification panel recommended the OEB make the kind of decision that the OEB made, and that’s the one that this government is working hard to reverse.

Other organizations in the energy field had comments like this: Adam Fremeth and Brandon Schaufele from the Ivey Energy Policy and Management Centre wrote—again, Ivey school is not your left-wing hotbed, right? It ain’t. They wrote, “Overriding an independent economic regulator is a big deal. It is not something that should be done lightly. The government’s decision explicitly undermines the OEB and threatens credibility of future energy investment in the province.”

Note that: “future energy investment.”

When you have a government that operates in a way that is capricious, that is not open, that is not rules-based but is influence-based, then—it’s not true with all investors; maybe some think they can get that influence and get what they want, but a lot will say, “Ehh.” You put money into that province, you don’t know if you’re going to get it back. You don’t know if actually you’re going to get a return on your investment. You could be side-swiped by someone else who’s got more powerful lobbyists. I think their comment is a good one.

“Moreover, it’s not obvious that this move is in Enbridge’s long-term interests. Once a precedent to effectively overrule a regulator is established, there’s little to stop future governments from using the same tactic to different ends, perhaps against natural gas infrastructure.”

Interesting comment, very interesting comment.

Do you have rules-based, law-based regulation in Ontario, or do you set it up so it’s influence- and lobbyist-based? I think that’s the choice before us. We know what the government has proposed. Not only do they want you to pay more on your gas bill—320 bucks over the next four years—they are also setting up a situation where you don’t know what the rules are. The rules are whatever the lobbyists and the influencers can make happen.

I’m going to quote Mr. Mondrow again, energy regulation policy expert at Gowling: “Minister Smith would be well advised to consider the wisdom of the energy panel’s recommendation and leave the matter of further consideration of new energy connection cost recovery policies with” the Ontario Energy Board. I don’t know; he seems to know regulation. He seems to know energy policy. “Leaving this in the hands of the independent regulator would maintain transparency, consistency, public accountability and a thoughtful and reasoned balancing of interests. That, after all, is the reason for an independent energy regulator.”

I think that’s a pretty good summary. Why do you have a regulator?

The logical last step in this bill, really, is dissolving the Ontario Energy Board, because frankly, you realize they’re of no use to you. They’re an impediment to you, actually, just dictating what energy policy will be, based on what lobbyists and other influencers want to do. Those lobbyists—Enbridge—want to take money out of your pocket. They want to raise your gas bill.

Adam Fremeth and Brandon Schaufele from the Ivey Energy Policy and Management Centre also noted “the government’s decision to override the OEB should have virtually no effect on affordable housing in the province.” In other words, they fundamentally disagree with the Minister of Energy in his arguments that he made earlier today.

Now I’ll quote an environmental organization. Environmental Defence wrote, “This legislation would be bad for new homeowners”—true enough—“bad for existing gas customers”—yes, because they’re going to pay more—“and bad for the environment. The only one that benefits is Enbridge Gas.”

Richard Carlson, energy director at Pollution Probe, said, “The OEB was clear, correctly in my opinion, that the energy transition is under way and there’s uncertainty about the future of natural gas use in the province.”

Also, “As far as I know, the government has never intervened this directly in trying to alter an OEB regulatory decision, and that should be incredibly concerning to everyone.”

I think those are all fair comments. You have a government that, in order to look after its friends at Enbridge, is going to rewrite the law to make the regulator irrelevant and make sure that you pay a higher bill. No wonder people are concerned.

I want to take just a few minutes, because I don’t have a lot of time left, to comment a bit on the other items that came up in the minister’s speech earlier today. The minister said he wants to protect consumer choice. Well, frankly, consumer choice hasn’t changed. People can put in gas furnaces if they want. Developers can put in gas furnaces if they want. There are two options. One is that the investors, who receive billions of dollars from their investment in Enbridge, can put in a little more money to pay for those hookups and pay themselves back over 20 or 40 years. If they think that Enbridge Gas will still be in the home heating business in 40 years, they could do that. They could charge money to a new homeowner, if the new homeowner actually wanted that, but I would say if the new homeowner actually looked at the economics of a heat pump versus a gas furnace, they would go with a heat pump because it’s a better deal—no getting around it.

To say that he’s protecting consumer choice—not the case. Consumer choice isn’t being removed. What’s being removed is the subsidy paid for by all the other gas customers—just to be clear, $300 per customer over the next four years. Not a good deal for those who are customers.

This OEB decision would increase costs: I’ve already gone through the evidence—not the case. In terms of homeowners, the OEB determined it would be a wash, a very minor change one way or the other, and frankly, other commentators have said it wouldn’t be of great consequence.

Predictable energy environment: Well, I have to say, I noted earlier about the fact that increasingly we will be integrated into the world market for natural gas. To the extent that we stay with gas, our costs become more and more unpredictable. We don’t know what’s going to happen. Frankly, to say that it would be predictable doesn’t make sense. I think you’re far better off setting up a situation in Ontario where people depend on energy generated in Ontario—electricity—rather than depending on gas imported from the United States. Again, about 60% of our gas is from the States, and we are competing with others around the world who might want to buy that gas at a much higher price. If you’re talking about predictability, a predictable energy environment, you want to move away from fossil fuels and you want to move away from natural gas.

He talked about a common-sense approach. Well, I think a common-sense approach is that existing gas customers don’t get stiffed with a bill—$300 over the next four years—to make Enbridge richer. Frankly, the common-sense thing to do would be to look at the OEB decision, which was a very reasonable decision based on an awful lot of evidence, and say, “Yep, that makes sense.” The best deal for new homeowners is to direct them towards an electric heat pump. The best deal for existing gas consumers is not to charge them more money, not to raise their bills. That would be the common-sense approach.

Let me see. There were some—oh, yes, I just have to note the minister’s satisfaction with his own home heat pump: that he didn’t freeze in the dark, that it kept him warm through the winter. Hey, that’s great.

Interjection.

Not us. We used to work with you.

No, I thought the point was really good, that he was endorsing it, that it worked and it worked well. I think that’s what we need for people across Ontario, something that works well that they can afford.

Interjection.

He wants to keep heating costs down. Well, look at the evidence. The evidence is that to keep heating costs down, you go to electric heat pumps. The technology is changing rapidly.

One thing that people should be aware of is that in the United States, the Inflation Reduction Act that’s in place now is investing heavily in advancing the technology for heat pumps so that heat pumps that already are quite functional at minus 30 will be even more efficient, more effective in the years to come. Places like Norway—Norway, people know about it, near the Arctic Circle—60% of the households have heat pumps. That’s how they heat themselves—60%. Finland, pretty close, around 50%. Sweden I don’t have the number for, but my guess is it’s in that range. They seem to be able to function, and they’re up by the Arctic Circle. If you want to be practical about cost, if you want to be practical about a system that gives you a more predictable kind of heat or energy basis or security, go to heat pumps.

He was talking about how this decision would discourage developers from using cost-effective and efficient gas. Well, frankly, it would encourage them to use cost-effective and efficient heat pumps. They’re going to put in an electricity line anyway; let’s face it. So if you’re putting in an electricity line, don’t worry about the gas, unless you’ve got a customer who really wants gas. Then you can offer it to them. It isn’t barred by anyone. If Enbridge believes what it says in its filings, in its claims, it’s certainly happy to invest in it. They can do that. They don’t have to come to us, the other gas customers, to pay for it.

Also, the pragmatic approach of the government to energy: Interestingly, the Electricity Distributors Association and the Royal Bank of Canada, who are not noted, again, as particularly radical organizations, both said that when it came to dealing with the immediate crunch in Ontario for meeting demand, it was far more cost-effective and far faster to invest in conservation and efficiency—both of them—and not just faster and more effective, but substantially cheaper. This government has totally ignored that advice. The Independent Electricity System Operator has said numerous times that energy efficiency is cost-effective. It is a great deal. That minister is ignoring the electricity distributors who, frankly, know a fair amount about electricity in this province, and the Royal Bank of Canada, that has an interest in this matter. His own organization, the IESO, has talked about the value of conservation and efficiency in terms of low cost and the ability to deliver quickly the sorts of reduction in demand so that we don’t have any power shortage. So I can’t say that his approach is really that pragmatic.

And just briefly about difficulties in both Alberta and Texas for failure of electricity systems in deep cold: In the most recent problem in Alberta, two gas plants went off-line in the middle of that crunch—two gas plants. They couldn’t be depended on. And in storm Uri in Texas, when they had those blackouts, again, it was the gas system that couldn’t handle the cold. The pumps for the gas systems were frozen. So in both cases we’re talking about problems with the gas infrastructure; that was the biggest issue.

I’m going to wrap up, Speaker. Don’t forget; this is really plain: The government wants you to pay more on your gas bill. It wants to raise your gas bill. It wants to ensure that Enbridge has higher profits. It wants to take money out of your pocket to the tune of 300 bucks over the next four years. Everything else is just smoke. All the other arguments are strange-looking scenery and don’t bear on the guts of it. This government wants to raise your gas bill. That’s it.

The OEB didn’t say, “No. You can’t put your money in and supply people with that 40-year loan.” Go ahead—no sweat. But you can’t take it from the existing gas customers. They are tapped out. So I say to you right now, your government should go to Enbridge and say, “Look, you’ve got big pockets. You put the money out. You try and collect it over 40 years.” Because 25 or 30 years from now, that system will have shrunk dramatically, and whoever is left holding the bag is going to have very big expenses, and I think Enbridge knows that.