Exactly; exactly. I think that’s the point. Can they not get it done, or is it that they won’t get it done? That’s the question that rings through everyone’s head.

We saw it even this morning when we asked questions in the House this morning about appointing political insider ex-staffers and lobbyists of the Premier to a panel that would appoint judges. They’re clearly showing that they can get it done for lobbyists, but they can’t get it done for Ontarians who can’t afford a lobbyist or don’t have a million-dollar CEO or a $19-million CEO, in the case of Enbridge who seems to have unlimited opportunity to whisper in the Premier’s ear. As the member from Oshawa said, the real question is, is it that they can’t get it done for us or that they just won’t?

I contend, Speaker, that as we move through the schedules in this bill, you will see who this government is working for. It’s clear that this bill will lay out, in all its glory, again, the unfolding motivation of this government to get it done for their friends and for insiders.

Let’s start by turning to schedule 1 of the bill. I mean, it needs to be said that while this bill is mostly performative and doesn’t get much done, it certainly does have serious implications, particularly when it comes to the environment.

I just have to say, as the environment critic for the province of Ontario, oh, my God, the poor environment. It has been treated with such disregard by this government. The Environmental Assessment Act, the Environmental Bill of Rights—this bill has been prodded, poked, molested. It has been debased. There’s everything this government has done to make sure that the things that protect the environment and the laws that we have to protect the environment are toothless, if you will, despite the fact that this is a 50-year-old history, a proud history, of being one of the first in the country to have a bill and to have laws that protected the environment. This government seems really hell-bent on dismantling all of that.

And so we see here in schedule 1—I’ll just describe what schedule 1 does. It essentially amends the Environmental Assessment Act with the effect of confirming that expropriation may proceed prior to the completion of an environmental assessment. The minister is describing this as a minor tweak, a small thing, but I would argue that nothing about the way this government has moved when it comes to the environment is minor at all, particularly when we pretty much understand that this schedule—again, further watering down the Environmental Assessment Act—is most likely serving the Premier’s desire to ram through and bulldoze Highway 413.

In doing that, they are content to water down environmental protections and expropriate private land, without evidence that they need it, that it’s appropriate and how much they need. It’s kind of clear that this schedule in the bill is a way to legally prevent, I would say, landowners who aren’t in on the government’s plans to be able to hold on to their property.

Let’s just talk about the 413, because it’s heralded time and time again as something that is going to save time, when that is a debunked myth. We know that the 413 is only going to save 30 seconds, but it is a $10-billion—at a minimum—boondoggle that is going to be paid for by the taxpayers of the province of Ontario. And what will be at risk? Not only is it going to cost us tens of billions of dollars—and I’ll go on to say how it’s going to cost us important farmland in the province—let’s just say what Highway 413 plans to do. It’s going to pave over 2,000 acres of class 1 and class 2 farmland. It paves over 400 acres of protected green land. It crosses over 85 rivers, streams and wetlands. I would like to add that only 5% of Canada’s land mass is class 1, 2 and 3 farmland, and this highway severely impacts that.

The construction of the 413 and its maintenance will produce 113,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions, at a time when we’re not meeting our targets and we’re going in the wrong direction when it comes to reducing our greenhouse gas emissions and addressing climate change. This estimated cost to build the highway doesn’t take into account the estimated cost that it will cost almost $1.5 billion to address the health issues and the damage that Highway 413 will cost to local ecologies.

It has been said many times before in this House: Not only is this an ecological disaster, it’s most likely going to be a financial disaster that this government won’t pay for, but the people and the taxpayers of the province will pay for, for years to come.

I think it’s shocking when I hear the Minister of the Environment describe the changes to environmental assessment as minor. When this government talks about modernizing and streamlining, does that give anybody confidence in this House? Because when you hear that, you know that they’re doing this not in the interests of us, but in the interests of who they work for.

And so I really want to say that it was shocking to hear the minister, in the Legislature the other day, in her question-and-answer. The member from Newmarket–Aurora said, “Thank you to the minister for her response. It is great to see our government bring forward changes that will protect world-class environmental standards while helping get shovels in the ground”—is there anybody left in the province of Ontario, except on the other side, who thinks that we have world-class environmental standards anymore? We used to, but now, those have been—there’s been a fire sale on the things that we cherish so much in this province.

She went on to say, “Can the minister please elaborate on how our government is protecting strong environmental oversight and making it faster to build in Ontario?” Does that seem like—what is that expression? The Progressive Conservative, the forward-backward—what is that expression? Really, you’re going to protect strong oversight and make it faster to build in the greenbelt? That’s just ironic, I guess, is the word I’m looking for.