As the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Energy as well as the MPP for Glengarry–Prescott–Russell, it’s my privilege to echo Minister Smith’s remarks on the importance of the Keeping Energy Costs Down Act and what it means for Ontario families and businesses across the province.

In particular, I’d like to start with the changes to the leave-to-construct process that are proposed in today’s legislation, which are critical for Ontario’s municipalities—and this is especially true for rural communities like the one I represent.

As it currently stands, anyone looking to build a new home or business and connect it to a reliable, affordable natural gas supply in Ontario must get a leave-to-construct approval from the Ontario Energy Board if the expected costs of the pipeline project will be $2 million or above. However, this existing exemption, which has been in place for more than 20 years, is causing major delays for cities and towns all over the province.

Minister Smith and I have heard many concerns from municipal leaders in every corner of the province who want to make sure that new housing is built and who want to get their constituents off more expensive and emitting forms of energy like home heating oil. And they put forward a clear ask. It was pretty clear, specifically in support of raising the current leave-to-construct cost threshold.

I had the pleasure of attending the Rural Ontario Municipal Association—ROMA—conference last month, where I was able to hear the frustration first-hand from many municipal leaders. During this conference, I met with the South Central Ontario Region Economic Development Corp. They are a non-profit corporation owned by the counties of Brant, Elgin, Middlesex, Norfolk and Oxford and represent just under one million residents in the southwestern region of Ontario. This group of municipalities’ message was clear: that they support our government’s direction in modernizing the leave-to-construct process and recognize that the $2-million cost threshold established in regulation in 2003 is outdated and does not reflect the current costs associated with infrastructure projects today. The steps we’re proposing here today will update this threshold and support our government’s objective of building 1.5 million homes across Ontario, helping to expand transit, cutting red tape, and lowering the cost of access to our affordable, reliable and resilient natural gas system.

I also had the pleasure of meeting with the Eastern Ontario Wardens’ Caucus during last month’s ROMA conference. The Eastern Ontario Wardens’ Caucus is the voice for 103 rural municipalities representing approximately 800,000 constituents. The Eastern Ontario Wardens’ Caucus region spans over 50,000 square kilometres; for a reference point, that’s about the size of the province of Nova Scotia. They continue to see significant growth throughout this region, which brings with it increased pressure to develop the gas pipeline network.

Under the current leave-to-construct threshold, municipalities represented by the Eastern Ontario Wardens’ Caucus are seeing significant delays in getting natural gas to development sites. It’s just a fact that gas pipeline project costs in Ontario have significantly increased due to higher labour and material costs over the past 20 years, just like they have across Canada, and $2 million is no longer a meaningful threshold. Ontario is constantly growing and we need to ensure that every sector in this great province stays modern to ensure that we continue to keep shovels in the ground and create jobs.

Meredith Staveley-Watson, who is the manager of government relations and policy of the Eastern Ontario Wardens’ Caucus, reached out to the Minister of Energy’s office directly to highlight the importance of modernizing the leave-to-construct threshold. Madam Staveley-Watson states, “Modernizing these outdated regulations would reduce delays and costs for economic development initiatives including new industries seeking to locate in Ontario and create jobs ... transit projects, community expansion projects, housing developments, connections for low carbon fuel blending (e.g. renewable natural gas, hydrogen) as well as residential and business customer connections.”

While the opposition may wish to ignore the fact that Ontario’s economy is growing, our government understands how important this modernization is to Ontario families and businesses. To help modernize Ontario even further, if passed, the Keeping Energy Costs Down Act would allow for the development of regulations to exempt small pipeline projects that cost between $2 million and $10 million from leave-to-construct.

The Eastern Ontario Wardens’ Caucus also highlights this point of increasing the cost threshold to $10 million as it would closer align Ontario with other Canadian jurisdictions, like British Columbia, where the thresholds are $15 million for electricity and $20 million for natural gas. Ontario cannot stay in the past and we need to modernize so we don’t get left in the dust.

I was also honoured to meet with the Western Ontario Wardens’ Caucus, who also expressed their support for this threshold increase. The Western Ontario Wardens’ Caucus is a non-profit organization representing 15 municipalities, 300 communities, 250,000 businesses and 1.5 million constituents across rural western Ontario. The Western Ontario Wardens’ Caucus aims to enhance the prosperity and overall well-being of rural and small urban communities across the region, which have seen significant growth in the past decade, once again bringing additional pressure to build out the gas pipeline network.

Much like the previous organizations I mentioned, the Western Ontario Wardens’ Caucus recognizes that Ontario’s outdated regulations are causing the current leave-to-construct threshold to apply far more broadly than intended when it was established more than two decades ago. In fact, the Western Ontario Wardens’ Caucus have told us that rural western Ontario could lose out on significant opportunities for economic development in their region due in part to the current threshold which was never updated by the previous government.

While the opposition may wish to lose jobs and economic opportunities, our government understands that these lost economic opportunities are simply unacceptable. This is why Ontario needs to act now to modernize the Ontario Energy Board’s leave-to-construct process in order to bring reliable and affordable energy options to communities, homes and businesses in a more cost-effective and timely manner. We simply cannot lose any more jobs and economic opportunities in Ontario. These leave-to-construct changes proposed in today’s act will help to promote and protect economic development and job creation opportunities, especially in rural municipalities across the province.

When meeting with the united counties of Leeds and Grenville, Mr. Speaker, they discussed how their municipalities are facing delays and problems in ensuring natural gas expansion into commercial and industrial parks, as well as some residential areas. There are significant economic development implications to these delays and, of course, we know the only real solution is to improve the necessary infrastructure.

Like many rural communities, economic development in eastern Ontario and the united counties of Leeds and Grenville has been historically driven by a competitive tax structure, the availability of serviced land and an educated workforce. We know that today’s economic development efforts, however, require a more comprehensive and collaborative strategy, particularly in our post-pandemic era. That’s why our government is focused on supporting a broader regional network of infrastructure to reflect and support the reality of business, industry supply chains and trade. This is true in all rural communities across Ontario, like the united counties of Leeds and Grenville, who are constantly in competition with larger urban markets for commercial and industrial business.

Mr. Speaker, I hope it is well known that natural gas in Ontario is more affordable than any other sources of energy, such as oil and propane. Expanding natural gas makes the cost of living more affordable for all constituents but significantly for rural residents, especially those in northern Ontario where even high-efficiency heat pumps may not be an option on the coldest days of the year.

Not only is natural gas more affordable, expanding natural gas will also increase economic development and job opportunities within communities. Currently, natural gas plays an important role in meeting Ontario’s energy needs in that it’s currently the primary heating source for 70% of homes in the province.

The legislation our government is introducing today will make it easier to develop and connect to natural gas pipeline projects, which is not only essential for heating, but also contributes to overall energy efficiency and improving the quality of life for residents.

Ontario’s natural gas expansion initiative has made it more affordable to bring natural gas to underserviced rural communities. Specifically, the township of Huron-Kinloss expressed that the expansion has provided residential and commercial ratepayers in that municipality with a choice in how they meet their energy needs in an affordable manner. The clerk from Huron-Kinloss states, “The township has benefitted from natural gas expansion initiatives of the province, making it affordable to bring natural gas to underserviced rural areas. This has provided residential and commercial ratepayers with choices in how they meet their energy needs in an affordable manner, and helps to provide heat sources during even the worst winter storms.”

I would like to thank the township of Huron-Kinloss for their support for these types of initiatives to continue in a sustainable manner that makes it affordable to all citizens. This is why I urge all members to vote for the Keeping Energy Costs Down Act as natural gas is needed across Ontario, specifically for our rural constituents who rely on this affordable energy. Our government understands that it’s more challenging for rural customers to transition to natural gas, as it currently stands. That’s why Ontario is focused on bringing regulations forward that allow equal opportunity to natural gas supply that is built in a sustainable manner.

And it truly spans across the map. Another community that expressed natural gas as their top concern is the township of Warwick. As a municipality that currently has only some portions serviced, their local government often hears from residents and businesses expressing their interest in having access to both natural gas and three-phase hydro. Like many small rural communities, power and service availability are key drivers of economic development. Without these services, they simply can’t compete with other communities who offer these amenities.

I also met with the municipality of Red Lake, which is a northwestern Ontario municipality, not far from the Manitoba-Ontario border. This small community is poised for significant economic growth over the next decade as a result of several nearby mining projects. However, they do not currently have the capacity to provide the needed natural gas and electrical power service to support these projects or support the additional housing and services that will be required for the influx of workers and new residents that will be coming to their community.

Similar natural gas concerns were brought forward in my meeting with the township of Conmee, where natural gas is unavailable, as well as in the municipality of Oliver Paipoonge, where other energy sources like wood, electricity and propane are very expensive for heating and where residents are experiencing issues with insurance companies becoming increasingly reluctant to insure properties that use wood for heating.

Finally, I wish to talk about my riding, Glengarry–Prescott–Russell. My constituency office hears every day from my constituents how important affordability is, specifically how important affordability and reliability are when it comes to energy.

I was so honoured to hear from the township of East Hawkesbury, which, for those who don’t know, is one of the last communities before you hit the province of Quebec. Mayor Kirby expressed the need for the threshold change. He states:

“That these outdated regulations are causing the leave-to-construct to apply far more broadly than intended when it was established over 20 years ago. Due to increased regulatory and cost pressures, as well as inflation, virtually all gas pipeline projects are now greater than $2 million, rendering the threshold meaningless. That roughly 0.5 kilometres of pipe in urban settings now often exceeds the $2-million threshold. That modernizing these outdated regulations would reduce delays and costs for economic development initiatives including community expansion projects, housing developments, connections for low-carbon fuel blending (e.g. renewable natural gas, hydrogen) as well as residential and business customer connections. That based on OEB’s performance standards, this proposal would save approximately 507 months of regulatory process in addition to the time needed to undertake Indigenous consultation and environmental review and prepare an application to the OEB.”

I have barely touched on every community that has expressed the need for keeping energy costs down. Similar concerns were also shared during meetings Minister Smith and I had with municipal leaders during last year’s Association of Municipalities of Ontario, AMO, conference.

Our government knows that the Keeping Energy Costs Down Act is a step in the right direction to preserve customer energy choices, by ensuring that natural gas remains an available and affordable option for customers. Our government understands that supporting new projects in municipalities is critical to helping not just communities to grow, succeed, and thrive, but Ontario’s economy will prosper as well.

As we plan for a prosperous future, we must ensure we have an energy system that can deliver reliable and affordable power to all Ontarians, including those in small rural communities such as the ones I have talked about today. I urge the members of the House to think of every Ontarian across this great province and support the Keeping Energy Costs Down Act.

Questions?

Je veux te donner un break de l’anglais. Je vais te poser une question en français.

On a l’organisme de règlementation, le conseil d’énergie—en d’autres mots, l’« energy board »—qui nous dit qu’il faut commencer à s’éloigner du gaz naturel. Votre gouvernement préfère donner encore plus d’argent à Enbridge. En d’autres mots, ça va nous coûter encore plus cher, les personnes qui sont sur le gaz. On sait qu’il faut s’éloigner de ça.

Pourquoi, à la place, vous ne dites pas à Enbridge :« Vous voulez les avoir? Payez pour vous rendre là. » ? Pourquoi est-ce que c’est encore les contribuables qui—il faut qu’ils payent encore plus? Aussi, ce que vous pouvez faire comme gouvernement, vu qu’il faut s’éloigner de ça, parce qu’on n’a rien qu’à voir ce qui se passe avec nos hivers et nos feux et tout ce qui se passe avec l’environnement—pourquoi ne peut-on pas mettre des incitatifs aux « heat pumps » ? Pourquoi pas donner un incitatif pour commencer à faire le transfert vers les énergies vertes? Ça, ce serait un plan qui respectait l’organisme de règlementation. Pourquoi votre gouvernement aime mieux donner de l’argent et encore enrichir les proches—

Juste pour dire que notre gouvernement, premièrement, a été élu grâce à notre plan d’amener de l’électricité abordable et fiable en Ontario. Puis, toutes sources d’énergie—c’est une de nos priorités. Je dois dire que votre gouvernement, qui est contre l’expansion de gaz naturel—je me demande des fois si vous vivez dans la même province que nous, parce que toutes les municipalités de vos circonscriptions sont venues à notre gouvernement pour demander plus de gaz naturel. Aussi, comment est-ce que votre gouvernement a voté contre l’énergie nucléaire, qui représente présentement environ 75 % aujourd’hui? On se parle, là : l’énergie nucléaire, c’est 50 % de l’électricité produite en Ontario en temps réel maintenant—

To the member across, thank you very much for your presentation.

The Enbridge Gas plans were reviewed by the Ontario Energy Board. It was a plan that looked at what was going to be happening over the next five years. The board then argued that the company’s proposal would lead to an overbuilt and underutilized gas system. They wanted to move the company forward to ensure that they were going to meet the needs of the future by moving away from fossil fuel towards renewable energy.

Minister, what in this bill actually does that for the homeowners and the future taxpayers of Ontario? How do we protect them from undue and unnecessary costs that this bill will actually bring upon them because we’re still using outdated technology?

Thank you to my colleague for this question. Of course, like me, he knows how important it is, because we had every municipality coming to us for delegations. We hear from all across Ontario the need to increase the natural gas in Ontario.

We’ve seen these projects now these days. I know a lot of farmers in my riding who want to have natural gas for their grain dryers. Now they’re asking for a price to bring natural gas, and it costs like $2 million to do one kilometre in a concession. We have the same policies or rules from 20 years ago, so I think it’s time to revise that and make it easier for people to have access to natural gas in the province of Ontario.

Of course, we all know that a couple of months ago, your party voted against increasing our nuclear fleet in Ontario. But I think we’ve got a great plan and we’re sticking to it, and I think Ontarians are pretty happy with what we’re doing when it comes to energy in this province.

When we heard the minister talk about his heat pump—I also have a heat pump at home, but some of these days when the temperature in the afternoon goes from minus 5 to minus 25, that heat pump just won’t do the job. You need the electric backup or you need a natural gas backup, especially in rural municipalities when sometimes the grid is not that reliable because you’re really in a rural region and we’ve got power outages. You can live with a generator and natural gas, but you won’t be able to do that with a heat pump.

That’s the reason why we think it’s important to have natural gas be part of our plan to bring affordable, reliable and clean energy to Ontario. That’s the reason why we see companies coming back to Ontario manufacturing.

I want to thank my colleague for his excellent comments, echoing the minister’s comments that we have a pragmatic approach here in Ontario. I would like the member to speak a bit about the difference between gas as a heating source as opposed to an electricity source. It makes up less than 8% of our electrical grid, yet we know that it makes up almost two thirds of our heating requirements across the province.

I’m wondering if the member could please speak to the ongoing role that natural gas is going to play in this province moving forward.

It’s a pleasure to rise today to speak to this bill, the protecting profits for Enbridge act. I’m beginning on a note of humour because we’re getting to that point in the afternoon where it can become difficult to listen to debate, particularly debate that doesn’t make a lot of sense.

I heard it from the parliamentary assistant just now, who’s my neighbour in eastern Ontario from a riding I love and grew up in, that the member himself, like the minister, enjoys the use of a heat pump. My question is, if it isn’t not great for the member and the minister, what is stopping the province from giving that option to every single apartment building, every single home, every single business, every single farm in the province of Ontario?

Let me tell you something, Speaker: I am a proud New Democrat, and one of the founders of the New Democratic Party, one of the modern exemplars of the values I’m very proud to stand behind here in this part of the House, was J.S. Woodsworth. What Woodsworth used to say at the House of Commons is, “What we desire for ourselves, we desire for all.” We’re not happy when we’re doing okay, because we’re aware of the fact that we all do well when we all do well. We all do well when everybody is given an opportunity to be their best self.

What this bill does brazenly—and I’ve had occasion in the last six years to see a lot of brazen pieces of legislation—is say, “I don’t care about evidence. I don’t care about independent regulators. I don’t care about what the rest of the world is doing in the energy sector. I am going to listen to Enbridge’s consultants, Enbridge’s lobbyists and the chief of staff to the minister” who, as I understand, used to be a lobbyist for Enbridge. “I’m going to listen to that advice and not the advice that could make Ontario a cleaner, greener, more prosperous place for generations to come.”

You know, Speaker, when I hear the disconnect from reality over there, it makes me think of the great playwright Bertolt Brecht, who wrote a reflection on authoritarianism—authoritarian logic like I’m hearing over there. He once wrote in a poem called The Answer:

... that the people

Had forfeited the confidence of the government

And could win it back only

By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier

In that case for the government

To dissolve the people

And elect another?

That’s what we’re dealing with here. It’s not the first time we’ve seen this government say “meh” in the face of evidence. There’s a big graveyard of former regulators and people entrusted to give advice to this particular government. What about the Ontario child advocate? What about the Ontario Environmental Commissioner? What about the French Language Services Commissioner? What the former member from Lambton–Kent–Middlesex; what about Mr. McNaughton? Do they listen to anybody over there when controversy broaches itself in their caucus, or are they only interested in what Enbridge is trying to tell the province of Ontario in this moment? And that is that the monopoly they have, the agreement they have signed with the province of Ontario and the profits they generate from it matter more than making the energy transition which is right in front of us.

I’ll be charitable to the government too, because there are elements of the province that can see it that work for this government, and they’re doing it. I’m thinking about the IESO, the Independent Electricity Systems Operator, which I’ve heard both the parliamentary assistant and the minister say were not involved in the OEB decision. Incorrect. Page 5 of the 147-page report says very clearly the IESO deputed. Their evidence was gathered toward it. Their opinion was not the one accepted by two thirds of the OEB. So, we can make up our own arguments, but we can’t make up our own facts, all right? The fact of the matter is, the IESO deputed to this process. The advice they gave the OEB was not persuasive.

But the question here, Speaker, is this: When the OEB, which is an independent body of this Legislature, gives a 147-page decision and tells us, as legislators in this place, that we are at risk if we give Enbridge the right to bilk ratepayers $300, that we will be designing, in their words, “an overbuilt, underutilized gas system”—now, that is not to say that this is a system that can change overnight. When I hear members opposite saying that, they’re technically correct. But that’s not the debate we’re having. That’s not the debate we’re having.

The debate we’re having is, what is the future? The 1.5 million homes I hear the members opposite talking about all the time. Well, let’s do a thought experiment. One expert who did actually contribute to the OEB’s study said that if we decided to build those 1.5 million new homes and we decided to heat them with methane gas, that would result in over 100 megatons of carbon pollution over the lifetime of that new infrastructure. Just for reference, Speaker, that is two thirds of Ontario’s total emissions every year. It’s the equivalent of driving 22 million cars. Ontario at the moment has just over nine million cars.

So if the government wants to please Enbridge and allow them to increase the gas bills of Ontarians to fund their infrastructure plans, which are not borne out by evidence, that has a consequence. In my community right now, people in Ottawa Centre are faced with the—I mean, you have to laugh, Speaker, because you don’t want to cry all the time. But we in Ottawa are really proud of our festival called Winterlude. We’re proud of the great canal skateway that we have, biggest in the world. Well, it was biggest in the world. It didn’t open at all last year. Didn’t open at all last year; we’ve had five days of skating this year. And who is one of the principal sponsors of Winterlude back home? Enbridge.

Many of us have asked the National Capital Commission, “Why are we doing this? Why are we working with a company that is pressuring this government, that is pressuring other governments to embrace forms of electrical generation that are counterproductive to our climate goals?”

Mon honorable collègue a parlé des collectivités rurales et nordiques. J’aimerais bien qu’il confirme si j’ai bien compris la décision de la Commission de l’énergie de l’Ontario en ce qui concerne la tarification d’Enbridge Gas. Je pense que cette décision ne s’applique pas au programme pour l’expansion de l’accès au gaz naturel. C’est-à-dire, cette décision ne s’applique pas aux programmes qui s’agissent de l’accès au gaz naturel dans les collectivités rurales at nordiques. Est-ce que mon collègue peut le confirmer?

Next question?

Further debate?

It’s not electrical generation; it’s heating.

I hear the member opposite talk about heating. Well, if you look at gas-fired electrical, if you look at heating, we are talking about effectively the same thing. Methane emissions are 80 times the potency of normal CO₂. It is difficult to dissipate from the atmosphere. At some point, you have to reckon with the evidence. Maybe read the 147-page report, instead of just criticizing it.

The point of the matter is this: If we give Enbridge what it wants—if we allow the baby to cry and scream, and we give the baby whatever it wants; if we work for Enbridge, and not for the people of Ontario—and if we say to the people of Ontario, who many people in this House have said are struggling and hurting, “The 300 bucks is on you and not the company whose parent organization made $46 billion in aggregate sales last year,” who do we work for? Who do we work for? What do the seats in this House matter? Because the real decisions, as people have said in this debate already—the member for Toronto–Danforth said it already—are not made in this chamber. They’re made in the antechambers. They’re made in the hallways when the chief of staff for the Minister of Energy, who used to work for Enbridge, gives that gentleman advice.

So I’ve got to tell you, Speaker: It’s hard for me to sit and listen to this, because I want to believe that we want to drive an evidence-based approach to policy in this province. I want to believe that we want to actually make every single person better off by the decisions we make here, and that, frankly, is not what Enbridge is asking us to do.

Enbridge just wrote the city of Hamilton a letter—I’m sure my colleagues from Hamilton will be talking about that this afternoon—claiming that they receive no public subsidy, claiming that they get no beneficial arrangement like electricity and that those of us who are scrutinizing this bill are not representing the facts. So let me say this, Speaker: When you sign a contract with the province of Ontario to have a monopoly on the transmission of gas in this province and the Ontario Energy Board signs off on your return-on-investment target—which is 10%; 10% is what Enbridge is allowed to shoot for every single year—you have the support of the province, you have the backing of the province and you have, as the member from Glengarry–Prescott–Russell said, 70% of homes heated by gas at your disposal that you can raise rates on, provided the OEB lets you do it.

But this time they didn’t. This time they didn’t. After a year of listening to experts that included home builders, owners of rental properties, environmental organizations and subject matter experts, they came to the decision that was delivered on December 21, 2023. There were 10,000 pages of evidence, and a day later, the Minister of Energy stands up and says, “Well, this is the wrong decision. I’m reversing it.” I wonder how much research went into that. Was it a year of deputations, pouring over documents and science, or was it a couple of phone calls from a lobbyist that influenced that situation?

Particularly, it’s so frustrating hearing in debate today that the minister himself enjoys the benefit of this technology in his own home. Give me a break. If it’s good enough for you, it’s good enough for all the people we work for. That should be the goal of the province of Ontario.

I want to salute, actually, while I’m here, the IESO, for their work in trying to follow upon the example of the province of Prince Edward Island. In Prince Edward Island, if your household income is $72,000 or less and if the value of your home is $320,000 or less, the province of Prince Edward Island will buy you a heat pump, because they’re trying to encourage people to get off of very expensive home heating fuel.

We’ve heard a lot of that in our country. The Prime Minister, who I’ll talk about in a moment, got into some hot water over the heating carve-out and created a huge debate in the country. But the province of Prince Edward Island actually did something about it. They did something about it. They actually helped homeowners get access to the technology that the minister enjoys, that the parliamentary assistant enjoys, to help them defray their costs.

And I want to think that is a very fascinating thing, Speaker, because guess what political party is in power in Prince Edward Island? It’s the Conservative Party. And guess who the next most powerful presence is in the province of Prince Edward Island? Let me give credit where it’s due: It’s the Green Party. And maybe, just maybe, there were some discussions in that august House that led to evidence-based decisions.

The IESO is starting to do the same thing. Right now, through its program entitled the Energy Affordability Program, they are announcing to the province of Ontario that you can apply to have access to a heat pump. If the number of people in the home is one or less, we’re talking about $67,000 a year; two or less, $95,000 a year. They’re starting to roll out this technology.

But, Speaker and members of this House, has anybody seen an advertisement about this? Have you seen an ad about this program anywhere in the province of Ontario? Because I understand that if you go to the Los Angeles airport, you’ll see ads promoting how wonderful this government is, but I haven’t seen a single ad promoting this terrific program; this very reasoned, smart public policy program that would give renters and homeowners relief from their energy costs—not a single ad. Why? I think it’s because Enbridge is driving the energy policy at the moment.

I hope members of this caucus show up to their next meeting and ask the Premier and the advisers, “Why aren’t we promoting the energy assistance program? Why aren’t we getting heat pumps into buildings?” It would be interesting to see if we see new ads in a couple of weeks; I’m not going to hold my breath, Speaker.

I know this from the target set by our local officials in the city of Ottawa: They have said that if Ottawa wants to move seriously on its climate emissions for the heating of buildings, we should set a goal of 20,000 conversions a year moving to heat pumps or geothermal heating/cooling systems. Right now, we’re at 600, so we need a huge ramp-up of capacity in the very occupations so many of us in this building talk about all the time, because we love them: the skilled trades. We need those folks dispatched to not only retrofit existing buildings, but when new buildings are built, that we build them with the right tech that will make sure that we have clean air.

Some 45% of my city’s emissions come from buildings, so we have set that target, and we’re nowhere near meeting that target. We need a province that will do in Ontario what is being done in PEI, what is being encouraged elsewhere. Other provincial grids are very different. British Columbia’s grid is 88% hydro, 4% gas; Manitoba’s grid, 97% hydro, less than 1% gas. Here in Ontario, it’s 27% gas, and likely to increase, given what I’m hearing from the members opposite, as we refurbish the nuclear stock.

Is that actually the plan? I ask that question not only from an environmental perspective; I ask that question from the perspective of the women and men responsible for maintaining Enbridge’s pipeline infrastructure. Do you know that there’s no requirement right now, under existing regulations, for Enbridge to disclose any compromises in its pipeline infrastructure, underground or above ground? Nothing compels them to report to the province that there are leaks in the system. I think that should be a massive concern.

Do you know who raised that with me, Speaker? Not environmental groups; Unifor, the union whose members work for Enbridge, maintain the pipeline infrastructure and have told me directly they have significant concerns about the lack of money Enbridge puts into maintaining the existing pipeline. It’s their members who breathe in the gas, it’s their members who are directly exposed, so they have an interest in doing what I think is climate work: maintaining the integrity of the gas pipeline systems that we have, instead of telling Enbridge, “Yes, you can soak ratepayers more. You can soak them more to build more pipeline.”

Because that is how Enbridge makes money. Under their arrangement with the province of Ontario, with the monopoly they have, they don’t make money if gas costs more or if there’s a higher volume of gas in the pipe. Enbridge makes money when there is more pipeline built. But this House needs to make sure that the pipeline that is built works well and functions and doesn’t make people sick. But if we get all of these pieces right, Speaker—if we promote the programs the province of Ontario already has operating; if we follow the example of even other Conservative governments, like Prince Edward Island—we could be part of a global energy paradigm revolution that’s going on.

The member for Toronto–Danforth talked about Finland. We could also talk about Poland, which of all the EU countries has gone through the biggest transformation in embracing heat pumps. And why? So they can get out of the clasp of Gazprom and Russia. They want energy independence. It makes a lot of sense.

I look at the EU as a whole as a model for the rest of us. In the last year alone, there were three million heat pump units installed in the EU—three million. That has reduced over four billion cubic metres of natural gas. That is eight million tons of CO₂, which is equivalent to the yearly emissions of Greece as a country. That is progress.

But that’s not what we’re debating in this place. We’re not debating progress. We’re debating whether or not we want to do Enbridge a favour. We’re debating whether or not we want to make sure that they can keep soaking ratepayers, and nobody in this House says otherwise. We’re debating whether or not we can overturn an independent body whose job it is to give this province, and this government in particular, advice on the right decisions.

I get that the Minister of Energy does not like Mr. Patrick Moran and the decision that he mediated as chair in the recent OEB decision. We’re all entitled to our opinions. But as I’ve said already, we are not entitled to our own facts. The facts are leading us in one direction: warmer weather, more forest fires.

I hear from the latest information I get from the province of Alberta that wildfire season has actually already started to begin in parts of Alberta. I haven’t seen my family in interior BC in a long time; we have plans to see them. My wife and I were wondering over the weekend as we got ready, are we even going to go? Is the air going to be choked with smoke, as friends from up north will say?

What is the legacy we’re leaving for our children in handing Enbridge a gift with this legislation? It’s not a very progressive one. There have been Progressive Conservative governments in this province that have built hospitals, that have built schools, that have built positive things that have helped people. I think about the legacy of William Davis. But all this bill does is overturn independent advice and do a solid to Enbridge. I actually think not only being bad legislation, it’s a terrible stain on the record of the Conservative Party too, given that other Conservative governments in our very country are taking a different direction.

There is still time for this bill to be pulled from the House. There is still time for the government to declare actual action on climate emissions. There is still time to do what the federal government frankly isn’t doing. I haven’t had a chance to talk enough about them; maybe I will in questions. The federal government introduced legislation called the greener homes act. They had to cancel it a year early because of how popular the program was. They created a Hunger Games in Canada for people wanting to make their farms, their businesses, their homes more efficient. A $2.6-million program on a budget of $497 billion—woefully inadequate.

The province of Ontario can do better. We must do better. We have to follow the evidence. We have to stand by the facts. The facts in this case say we have to say no to Enbridge.

Questions?

What I’d say to the member opposite is the main reason he can cite that first figure is because Ontario as a province decided to phase out coal in our electrical system. It had absolutely nothing to do with the actions of this particular government—absolutely nothing.

Now, the innovations in the private sector he talks about in steel, those are real as well. But again, that has nothing to do with these guys. These guys have a job; their job is to set targets and to encourage us to assemble the facts to get there. They can’t just wait and wait for the market to solve problems. They can’t just hope that previous decisions will make their current numbers look good. They need to stand with the policy and the resources that we have in the province of Ontario and give people a way to make their homes cleaner, their cars cleaner and their businesses cleaner; and they’re failing.

I appreciate the member’s comments about following facts and evidence, so I’d like to introduce some evidence that was submitted by our Auditor General in May of last year. We’ve reduced our greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 by 27%. We’re 90% to our target. We’re leading the country. When we green our steel production and we get our small modular nuclear reactors online, we’ll be at about 35%. That’s a fact.

I’m impressed that you read the decision, but I’m wondering if you read E.B.O. 188, which is the policy which dictates how the regulator is to decide rate changes. And 2.2 says, “Specific parameters of the common elements include the following:

“(a) a 10-year customer attachment horizon;

“(b) a customer revenue horizon of 40 years from the in-service date of the initial mains.”

Will you admit that this is a departure from the status quo, that our gas bills today incorporate a 40-year window, and that the regulator has departed from that practice, contrary—

Next question?

Keeping Energy Costs Down Act.

I would be interested on hearing the member’s take on why he believes the government is so forceful on this when they blame the Liberals for doing the exact same thing.

I think the only way I can answer my friend from Hamilton is to say that this is a case of regulatory capture. I mean, it’s not only here in the province of Ontario. This Greener Homes Grant I was talking about before: The federal government embarked upon this piddling $2.6-million experiment. Guess who was the co-sponsor of this initiative, who you have to work with to get that into your home? Enbridge. Enbridge helps vet the applications for the Greener Homes Grant. What sense does that make?

Yes, we have to work with Enbridge, because they are the agents for those ratepayers, but there has to be a regulator. It’s a private company. It has a private interest. Some 90% of the situations in our city where people replace their home heating and cooling situation are when they break down in the wintertime. What do we think the rep says at the door? “Welcome to your new gas heat pump.” We need something that’s independent, that gives people good choices that are affordable; and this government is not doing that.

The fact of the matter is that the profitable places for Enbridge to expand to are the ones near major urban centres: the plans they have for Windsor; the plans, I’m sure, they have for suburbs around Toronto and Ottawa. That’s who they care about. We’re not surprised by the fact that Enbridge’s priorities line up for their bottom line.

Where we do get surprised and a little uppity is when we start making decisions in this House for a company that made $46 billion last year, whose CEO makes $19 million a year, while people are starving and having a hard time feeding their kids. We should be standing up for them, not for Enbridge. This bill is a disgrace for the province of Ontario.

The good news is that it’s not too late for us to chart a different course. We could actually promote some of the programs we already have, which I talked about. We could tell Enbridge, “No, you’re not going to get your handout. We’re not going to sign up on your corporate welfare. We’re actually going to make sure that when we give assistance, it is to the hard-working people of Ontario who make this province the great place that it is.” That isn’t Enbridge. Enbridge has a contract with the province of Ontario that they’re required to fulfill. It’s not even clear to me that they are fulfilling it, when I hear about issues of compromises in the pipeline, people getting sick in communities around pipelines where there are leaks. The fact that I haven’t heard anything from this government about those health and safety concerns bothers me.

We are going to pass this specific bill to make Enbridge richer. I think it’s wrong.

We don’t require Enbridge to tell us if there are any problems in the pipelines. And by doing that, we’re not protecting the workers responsible for maintaining those pipelines; we’re not protecting the community around the pipelines. Those pipelines aren’t going to go anywhere. We need them to be safe.

I’ll end on a positive note. The people of Ontario, who work hard, deserve nice things. They deserve a heat pump in their building and home. They deserve access to good public transit. They deserve the opportunity to have clean air, clean water and healthy communities. But this bill does a favour for Enbridge, and it doesn’t do a favour for them.

We should rewrite the bill. We should make sure Enbridge pays for its mistakes. End of story.

Thank you to the member from Ottawa Centre for his remarks this afternoon. He mentioned, who do we work for? Speaker, in this place, we’re members—the member opposite believes that we’re legislators, which we are. It’s a legislative assembly. They’re harping on the fact that, as a Legislature, we’re taking a policy decision to correct a mistake—very weird line of thought. But we’re legislators, everyone. So we can legislate, great, wow—so ironic.

But my question—he’s referring to the report. I appreciate he read the report. My question is—and I’m going to quote—do you support this finding? “I do not support a zero-year revenue horizon for assessing the economics of small volume gas expansion customers. I do not find the evidentiary record supports this conclusion.” This is from Commissioner Duff, in the report you’re quoting.

When will you allow natural gas expansion to places that don’t have it, to get it?

I want to thank very much the member for Ottawa Centre for that. I really want to focus on the part of this bill that is so egregious. I mean, the title of this bill is—

The very fact that, as you have stated, Enbridge is a for-profit multi-billion-dollar corporation. Their CEO makes, what, $19 million a year. This government would have us believe that Enbridge has the interest of average people at heart. It’s unbelievable. So the very fact that this regulated monopoly, this huge corporation, that has no interest and no plan for helping us with climate change—the only thing that protects us from them is a regulator, and this government has kneecapped the regulator. I find that unbelievable.

Could you speak to this political interference that this government has embarked on when it comes to this and judicial appointments in the province of Ontario?

I would like to also bring in the fact that this province has something like 40,000 abandoned oil and gas wells across this province that are a significant source of methane, that blow up in communities—we’re talking about some communities in the southwest that are represented by PCs, and here they are, not learning the lessons of that. They’re continuing to put infrastructure in the ground that has already shown itself to be risky and that they have absolutely no interest in regulating.

Can you talk a little bit about the risk to people that this expanded infrastructure poses—