It’s always an honour to rise and speak in the House, and today I’m speaking on second reading of Bill 165, a bill that should really be called “keeping energy costs down for Enbridge,” because it’s certainly not keeping energy costs down for gas customers in this province.

What this bill is doing is forcing existing ratepayers, people who currently use methane fossil gas in their homes, to subsidize the hookup of new fossil gas infrastructure in our province, in order to support a company that had profits of $16.5 billion last year and whose CEO earns a nice salary of $19 million a year. I don’t think Enbridge needs a subsidy. I think the people of Ontario could use a bit of a break, but certainly not Enbridge.

What are the implications of taking the unprecedented step, for the first time in Ontario history, to overturn an OEB decision? What are implications for the people of the province? Well, Enbridge is going to save $250 million a year just up front. But what does that mean for existing gas customers in Ontario? Well, if you take this complete decision, according to Environmental Defence, Enbridge is going to save around $2 billion over the five years of this decision, which equals $600 per fossil gas customer in Ontario.

I just want the people of this province to understand what is happening here. Enbridge is getting a subsidy and it’s going to cost you—if you use fossil gas in this province—on average $600 a person. I think that’s a bad deal, at least for the people of Ontario. It’s a pretty good deal for the 19-million-dollar man and his company, Enbridge, but certainly not a good deal for the people of Ontario.

If there was no other alternative or no other option for people, or if developers had no other way of heating and cooling people’s homes, then maybe you could make an argument that such a subsidy for Enbridge costing ratepayers so much money would be justified. But it’s not. Because as the OEB decision—and I’ll remind you that the OEB decision was based on input from hundreds and hundreds of stakeholders, producing thousands and thousands of pages of documentation to justify this decision that it would actually be cheaper for people to heat and cool their homes with heat pumps. Not only is the government taking the unprecedented step of overturning this OEB decision, they’re actually doing it to disincentivize developers putting in technology that will be cheaper.

As a matter of fact, over the average life-cycle cost of a heat pump versus a gas furnace, those new home owners will have 13% lower costs. So we’re asking ratepayers to subsidize Enbridge for new home owners to have more expensive heating and cooling in their homes.

According to the OEB decision—if you actually take the time to read the decision—there will be no incremental cost increases for developers if they put in heat pumps and don’t do the initial gas hookups in the first place. So not only do we risk forcing new home owners to have a more expensive heating system, this bill will also force them to have a stranded asset.

Even this government, with its weakened climate targets, says we should be net zero by 2050. So my calculation is, it’s 2024, so 2050 is less than 30 years from now, and if we have any hope of being net zero, we cannot be heating our homes with fossil gas. So why is the government imposing a 40-year amortization schedule, which means they’re making calculations for gas furnaces way beyond 2050? By definition, they’re going to be forcing existing homeowners to have a stranded asset that will then cost them even more money to replace so we can meet our net zero targets.

This is also going to have implications for our economy. In 2022, the green energy transition, according to Bloomberg, resulted in investments around the world of $1.3 trillion, over half of that in low-cost renewable energy, primarily wind and solar because the prices have come down so much. That investment in 2023 rose to $1.8 trillion. That kind of growth is going to continue each and every year, moving forward.

I want Ontario to be a global leader in what is now a $1.8 trillion economic opportunity. According to Bloomberg still, about half of that investment is wind and solar. A growing amount of that investment is in electric vehicles—and I’ll say that finally Ontario is starting to catch up and make investments in electric vehicles—but a growing percentage of that investment is in alternative heating sources, like heat pumps. As a matter of fact, according to the International Energy Agency, heat pump installations are growing at double-digit rates around the world, no more so than in Europe, where we saw a 40% increase in heat pump installations last year.

As a matter of fact, the EU’s target is that 60 million additional heat pumps will be installed by 2030. So Ontario has an amazing opportunity to not only be a leader in electric vehicles, but to be a leader in manufacturing heat pumps. But in order to do that, we actually need a government that believes in a technology that’s going to save us money.

And I know some people have said, “These heat pumps, do they work in cold weather?” Absolutely they do, to minus 30 degrees. As a matter of fact, the countries in Europe that have installed the most heat pumps are the Scandinavian countries, which have a cold climate very similar to Canada.

Speaker, I want to close by saying: What are the implications of this decision? The government has spent the last few months opposing carbon pricing, a price on pollution, because they say there are other ways to address the climate crisis. Well, those other ways are through regulations and through investments in technology that result decarbonization. But the government is opposed to that too, because that’s exactly what this bill, Bill 165, does. It says that we are, as a province—even though the independent energy regulator says that the way to go is not in expensive gas but in lower-cost alternatives like heat pumps, instead of actually putting in place a regulatory regime that would encourage that, the government is opposed to that.

So I don’t know what the government’s for. They’re going to ramp up gas plants for electricity, increasing carbon pollution by 400%, even though we are at a time where the costs of the climate crisis are escalating. We see it each and every day, and the government seems to be opposed to any and all solutions.

I appreciate the member’s question. I believe in investing in the lowest-cost, cleanest solutions to our energy needs. I’ve been very clear: I support the rebuilding of Darlington and Bruce. We know that nuclear power is going to be part of Ontario’s energy mix for decades to come. Pickering, I believe, is a huge mistake. Of the 65 operating nuclear plants in North America, Pickering is consistently rated as the 64th poorest-performing plant. I don’t know who pours money into such a poor-performing asset, especially when the cost of wind and solar has come down so much that if we invested in low-cost renewables, it would cost us less for cleaner power.

That’s exactly why, of the $1.8 trillion being invested in the clean energy transition right now, over half—

But let’s stick to this particular bill. It’s just outrageous to think that existing gas customers are going to pay $600 more to subsidize a $16-billion company with a $19-million CEO. I remember when the government used to complain about the six-million-dollar man at Hydro One. Well, let’s talk about the 19-million-dollar man at Enbridge that they’re subsidizing.

On top of that, these new home owners are going to have a heating system that costs them 13% more. That’s what it says in the OEB decision.

I appreciate the member from Carleton’s presentation. Maybe I’ll help her answer the previous question: The OEB decision that Bill 165 would overturn would save existing ratepayers $2 billion, or $600 per household.

I want to ask the member how the member will explain to her constituents that your government has introduced a bill that will increase climate pollution at a time when we’re facing a climate emergency and increase their gas bills by $600.

I appreciate the member from Carleton’s concern for people who live in rural and remote parts of the province. Heat pumps would enable them to reduce their heating costs by 13% over fossil heating costs. PEI is offering free heat pumps for households that earn less than $100,000. Would the member support such a program in Ontario, so we could ensure that rural and remote households can have highly efficient, affordable heating?