The member opposite is heckling me about heat pumps or something. What I’m saying is that people should have choice, and the people who are paying for natural gas in their house—people like me. I have a natural gas furnace. I have a natural gas fireplace. I don’t want to pay for Enbridge to have more profit. I’m going to pay for what I get and that’s all. That company is doing okay. They can get their hand out of my pocket and put it in their pocket and pay for the expansions they want to make.

Natural gas is no longer the cheapest heating source; it’s financially foolish. Now, this creates a cycle as well, because as people move away from natural gas—the same way people moved away from oil in the past, people are going to begin to move away from natural gas, and as they move away from natural gas, there will be fewer and fewer ratepayers. There will be fewer and fewer people using natural gas, and the cost of natural gas will go up; it will climb. There are fewer and fewer people paying for it.

When I was 15 or 16 years old, my parents had an oil furnace with this big oil tank, and I remember they would do the math and try to figure out how much we needed. If it was a cold winter, we would come get a little bit more oil because it was so expensive, but we didn’t fill it up; we got a little bit more because the cost was so high compared to everything else, and eventually, that cost forced us to abandon oil completely. And that’s what’s going to happen to these ratepayers.

The Conservative government is telling people for natural gas to get in there—and if they need to, if people want to, they can, but saying you should, recognizing that independent organizations are saying, “This is going the way of the dinosaur.” This is a gas source that came from the dinosaur, but it’s going back the way of the dinosaur. People are moving to new technologies. They’re moving on, just like we always have in the province, and that cost is going to amplify for these people. The government’s own expert electrification panel noted “growing indications that it is unlikely that the natural gas grid can be decarbonized and continue to deliver cost-effective building heat.”

So this isn’t just us sitting around coming up with this in a backroom. What we’re doing, as New Democrats, is, we’re listening to experts. We’re listening to the Conservative government’s own expert electrification panel. We are listening to the OEB. We’re listening to independent voices telling us stuff. We’re not making up our facts and choosing the ones we want. Independent organizations have no stake in the game, aside from being experts. We’re listening to them and making good decisions. Quite frankly, that’s what the government’s role is to do—listen to good voices and make good decisions.

It’s cliché to talk about the eagle and the owl, but the idea is, the owl is supposed to make wise decisions, and the eagle, representing the opposition, is supposed to help make improvements. It’s really tough if you’re not making wise decisions in the first place—a lot of heavy lifting on the eagle’s side.

Our neighbours like New York state and Montreal are prohibiting gas in new construction. The world is moving on, like I said. Passing legislation to reinstate a subsidy is completely out of step and risks financial disaster down the road. The Ontario Energy Board made the right decision. It’s based on evidence. I want to highlight that: It’s an evidence-based decision to lower energy bills.

The Ontario government is on course to make the wrong decision, based on backroom lobbying, to raise your energy bills. That’s what it comes down to.

We don’t want people on natural gas to have to pay more so that Enbridge can have more profit because apparently $16.507 billion isn’t enough for them.

What we’re saying for people who are having a hard time making ends meet is that Enbridge should keep their hands out of their pocket and the Conservative government shouldn’t be helping them take money out of your pocket.

I am almost at the end—two more paragraphs.

Over the years, we’ve seen government bend under public pressure and reverse decisions like opening parts of the greenbelt for development. And so, they have bent to pressure. I think this is going to be rushed through as quick as they can so the public doesn’t find out about this, but when the public finds out they’re going to be paying more and not getting anything for it, they’re going to be outraged, especially when they’re having a hard time making ends meet. I’m outraged that this is happening. I cannot believe the backlash when people find out what’s going to happen with this—that they’re paying for a billion-dollar company to be subsidized.

Where’s the subsidy for the person at home? Where’s the subsidy that we brought forward? We brought forward a subsidy so people would have heat pumps and access to them, like they’re doing in the Maritimes, and they voted against that. They said, “No, no. You’ve got to stick with Enbridge. Enbridge is our pal.”

The Conservative government has made this argument several times about, “We’re going to lower the cost for homes because the cost of having natural gas in the home is going to be passed on to the homebuyer.” They are out of their mind if they think that any homebuyer is going to think that that money is going to leave developers’ pockets and be passed on to them. There is no way that’s going to happen. Do you know where it’s going to be? It’s going to be in the developers’ pockets. It’s going to be a couple of grand in their pocket, and they’re going to peel off a couple of grand and they’re going to feed it back into donations for their buddies who helped them out. That’s what this is about. This isn’t about helping regular people. This is about helping people who donate to this party. This is about helping people who are billion-dollar companies.

“Hopefully the evidence and the truth will prevail, the government will respect the independent decision of the Ontario Energy Board, and you”—I’m talking to the people of Ontario—“will be protected from this rate increase.” That was by our energy critic. I’m not supposed to say his name, but it’s just spelled here: Peter Tabuns, “the NDP MPP for Toronto–Danforth and is the party’s critic for energy and climate action”—just for credit on what was in there.

So what we’re talking about in this bill, and I’ve said it again and again—and really, I started with this statement. I stole it from our energy critic, because he started with it: “Premier Ford wants to raise your gas bill. That’s what this is about.”