I want to thank the member for his always-eloquent speech. I wanted to ask a question of him: When this was first debated at second reading, a government member got up and spoke that tolls weren’t the way to go; that it was actually gas tax that was the way to go, that it was sensible, that it was smart. A PC Conservative Ford government member said that the gas tax was the way to go. In fact, he sits way over on that side. I just wanted to ask what the member thought about this Conservative government member talking about gas tax being the way to go.

There you have it, Madam Speaker: We heard the member from Guelph say that he actually likes taxes and actually doesn’t believe that Ontarians are taxed enough. He actually wants to tax them more, so we should pay taxes on our licence plate stickers and we should pay an increased carbon tax.

I think of the song Taxman, by the Beatles. I’m not quite old enough to have been there when it came out, but if you take a walk, he’ll tax the street; if you get too cold, he’ll tax the heat. It is ridiculous. To drive, to heat your home, to buy groceries: Out-of-control, ideological governments have made everything more expensive, and now the federal government, on April 1, will actually be increasing the carbon tax—believe it or not—in this affordability crisis that we have.

If there was a referendum on increasing the carbon tax on April 1, would the member vote yes or no? Or does he think they should increase it even further than they’re already doing?

Further debate?

Thank you. We’ll need to move to the next question.

Speaker, just a quick question: I heard in the last debate we were talking about tolls, and the government owns part of a road that they’re charging tolls on and they don’t want to take them off. Now they’re worried about breaking a contract? The government that has broken so many, so many contracts and gone in reverse so much on things like MZOs and the greenbelt and the “notwithstanding” clause and green energy—I don’t really understand, Speaker, why the government is concerned over breaking contracts.

I appreciate the member from Ottawa South’s question. I think they’re concerned because they have such a poor legal record. They tend to lose most of their legal cases, so I’m thinking they’re probably worried they’re going to lose the case.

But here’s the reality: We can pay for tolls for truckers for 30 years—for 30 years—on the 407, and it won’t even come in at half the cost of building Highway 413. Let’s solve gridlock tomorrow by putting those truckers on the 407, saving us money.

Merci, madame la Présidente. Ça me fait plaisir de dire quelques mots au sujet du projet de loi 162, Loi édictant la Loi de 2024 sur la protection contre les taxes sur le carbone et modifiant diverses lois. En français, la loi s’appelle « passer à l’action », mais vous allez voir qu’elle n’est pas à la hauteur de son titre.

On commence avec l’annexe 1 :

« Annexe 1

« Loi sur les évaluations environnementales

« L’annexe modifie la Loi sur les évaluations environnementales pour prévoir que la mention d’acquisition de biens ou de droits sur des biens vaut mention de leur acquisition notamment par achat, location à bail ou expropriation. »

Vous savez, madame la Présidente, que cette première annexe pourrait très bien être utilisée lors de la construction de l’autoroute que le gouvernement veut construire. Dans un premier temps, l’autoroute 413, qui va coûter des milliards et des milliards de dollars—ça se peut très bien qu’il y ait plusieurs personnes qui ne sont pas satisfaites que ça passe au travers de leurs terrains, qui veulent aller de l’avant parce que la loi fédérale sur l’évaluation de l’environnement n’a pas été rencontrée, et on a une loi ici qui leur enlèverait le droit de faire ça.

L’annexe 2, elle, parle du Code de la route : « L’annexe apporte diverses modifications au Code de la route en ce qui concerne les certificats d’immatriculation de véhicules. Des dispositions sont ajoutées relativement aux cas où la validation d’un certificat d’immatriculation doit être refusée et aux cas où le statut, la période de validation ou la date d’expiration d’un tel certificat peuvent être modifiés. D’autres modifications prévoient que toute contravention à l’obligation de possession d’un certificat d’immatriculation valide constitue une infraction et que tout certificat d’immatriculation expiré, suspendu ou annulé n’est pas un certificat d’immatriculation valide.

« L’annexe ajoute également l’article 5.0.1 au code. Cet article prévoit que, pour chaque période de six mois ou moins pendant laquelle un permis de conduire est valide, son titulaire verse des droits de 7,50 $. »

C’est ce gouvernement-là qui a changé comment on fait les choses. Dans le passé, on a toujours renouvelé nos permis de conduire, on a toujours renouvelé nos plaques d’immatriculation parce qu’on recevait une lettre du gouvernement qui disait que la date d’expiration de votre plaque d’immatriculation est telle date. On se rendait à ServiceOntario, on payait et on recevait une nouvelle petite étiquette pour coller sur notre licence. Il n’y a plus rien de ça qui existe, ce qui fait que la plupart des gens, incluant des gens dans ma famille—pas moi, mais des gens dans ma famille—qui se sont retrouvés avec des plaques d’immatriculation non valides et qui ont reçu une contravention de la part de la police. À la fin de la journée, ça leur a coûté plus cher de payer la contravention que ça leur aurait coûté de tout simplement renouveler leur plaque de la façon qu’on faisait ça avant—si au moins ils avaient su.

Maintenant qu’on n’a plus les petites étiquettes qui nous donnent la date—ça nous donnait le mois et l’année quand les plaques d’immatriculation n’étaient plus valides. Maintenant qu’on n’a plus ça sur nos plaques d’immatriculation, c’est très difficile de savoir, bon bien, est ce que c’est cette année, est ce que c’est l’année prochaine que je dois renouveler mes plaques? Cela a rendu des maux de tête, disons, à bien des gens.

Ce que le gouvernement est en train de faire, c’est que tu n’auras plus à faire ça. Ça va être renouvelé automatiquement, mais pour bien des personnes, elles vont être exclues de ça.

On arrive maintenant à l’annexe 3. L’annexe 3, la Loi de 2003 sur les modifications apportées aux plans officiels : « À l’heure actuelle, les articles 1 et 2 de la Loi de 2003 sur les modifications apportées aux plans officiels prévoient que certaines décisions prises en vertu du paragraphe 17(34) de la Loi sur l’aménagement du territoire sont réputées de n’avoir jamais été prises et que les plans officiels de même que les modifications aux plans officiels qui faisaient l’objet de ces décisions sont réputés avoir été approuvés à compter de la date de la décision pertinente. Un certain nombre de plans officiels et de modifications sont modifiés tel qu’il est indiqué dans la loi et approuvés sur leur version modifiée. Le tableau de l’article 1 ainsi que l’article 2 sont réédictés rétroactivement et comprennent diverses modifications. »

Ce qu’on est en train de dire, madame la Présidente, c’est non seulement que les changements qui ont été faits dans la loi 165—

Interjections.

Donc, ce qu’on est en train de voir avec le projet de loi 162, c’est qu’il y a des modifications qui ont été faites dans la loi 150 par rapport au plan qui vont être défaites quelques semaines plus tard avec le projet de loi 162.

Ça, je te dirais qu’on voit ça de plus en plus avec ce gouvernement-là, qui prend des décisions à la hâte—en général, c’est pour aider ceux qui donnent à leur parti—et là, ils se rendent compte que cela a soit aucun bon sens ou que les Ontariens et Ontariennes s’y opposent vraiment fortement, et là, prennent des pas par en arrière. L’article 3, c’est des pas par en arrière de ce qu’ils ont fait avec la loi 150.

On arrive à l’annexe 4. L’annexe 4, sur les cartes-photo, « modifie la Loi de 2008 sur les cartes-photo par adjonction du paragraphe 8(2). Ce paragraphe prévoit que, pour chaque période de six mois ou moins, pendant laquelle une carte-photo est valide, son titulaire doit verser des droits de 3,50 $ » ou 7 $ pour une année. Les changements futurs vont demander un changement de loi. Donc, ça va être écrit dans le ciment, ça va être 3,50 $ à tous pour six mois.

L’annexe 5 parle de la protection contre les taxes sur le carbone. Ça, c’est pas mal intéressant. Donc, « de nouvelles règles sont créées concernant les programmes de tarification du carbone. De nouvelles règles sont également créées concernant le fait d’accorder à d’autres personnes ou organismes un pourvoir d’établissement d’un programme de tarification du carbone. Il ne serait pas possible d’établir un programme de tarification du carbone sous le régime d’une loi ou d’un règlement ou d’accorder à d’autre personne ou organisme un pourvoir d’établissement d’un programme de tarification du carbone avant la tenue d’un référendum qui autorise ces mesures. »

Là, je vois que le temps file. Ça, madame la Présidente, c’est quand même pas mal intéressant, parce que quand on a eu l’occasion de discuter pendant les comités de faire des référendums, le premier commentaire qui a été fait par les membres du gouvernement, c’est qu’un référendum, ça coûte cher, donc ça devrait seulement être utilisé dans des cas bien précis. Mais là, on a une loi qui va dire qu’à chaque fois qu’on s’occupe de la tarification du carbone, on devra faire un référendum qui va coûter aux payeurs de taxe—ça, c’est tout le monde—et au gouvernement des millions de dollars. On se demande un peu pourquoi on se met des choses comme ça sur le dos.

L’annexe 6, elle, parle de l’aménagement des voies publiques et du transport en commun, « modifiée afin d’interdire l’imposition de péages au titre de la circulation sur une voie publique si l’office de la voirie est la Couronne, sauf si le péage est autorisé par une loi. »

On sait tous, là, qu’en Ontario, c’est la 407 sur laquelle tu as du péage. Il y a une grande partie, à l’est de la 407, qui appartient au gouvernement. Donc on est en train de mettre une loi qui dit que le péage sur les autoroutes, c’est quelque chose de mauvais, que le gouvernement ne pourrait jamais faire ça, sauf que le gouvernement le fait en ce moment sur la 407 Est, et va continuer de le faire.

Donc si tu regardes les choses qui doivent être faites, les choses qui sont urgentes à faire, je te parlerais d’améliorer des soins de santé, je te parlerais d’améliorer l’accès à une place à vivre, je te parlerais de l’inflation. Il n’y a rien de ça dans ce projet de loi.

Merci beaucoup à la députée.

On va passer aux questions. We have questions for the member for Nickel Belt, for those who listened carefully to her remarks.

Earlier in debate, I was talking about this omnibus bull—uh, bill—and I wanted to mention that omnibus bills usually are heavier and thicker, and, well, you can’t actually grow things with this omnibus bull. But in it, what happens here is that the government is banning tolls but not banning tolls. They’re freezing licence fees, but they’re not returning money to people. They’re saying, “Trust me on the environment, because we have such a good record,” when you look at the greenbelt and the MZOs and all the favours for land speculators.

So, there’s this piece about referenda stuck in the bill. Again, that’s something else. It’s future, farther down the road, but it’s not putting any money in people’s pockets. What do you think of the referendum?

I want to thank my colleague for her remarks. A big part of the Get It Done Act is getting it done by giving taxpayers a veto over a future carbon tax.

Now, I know the member is from northern Ontario. I don’t drive quite as far, but I do drive quite a bit and I pay the carbon tax on every litre of gas that I put in my car. I heat my home with natural gas; I’m not sure how the member heats her home, but I know I pay a significant carbon tax on heating my home. And when I go to the grocery store, the prices are out of control because of this out-of-control federal Liberal carbon tax.

I guess I’m asking the member—because we know that the federal Liberal government is actually increasing the Liberal carbon tax on April 1. I guess I would ask the member: If there were a referendum on increasing the carbon tax, does the member believe that Ontarians pay too little, too much or just enough carbon tax? How would she vote on that referendum?

I do live in northern Ontario. I represent 33 small communities. In most of those communities, we have one gas station—that’s it; that’s all. The gas station sells the gas at what the market can bear. In my riding, people work in the mines. They all make over $100,000 a year working in the mines, so the gas station sells gas for way more. We will go 30 kilometres to Sturgeon Falls and the price of gas will be 40 cents a litre cheaper. You will go 20 kilometres west to Espanola, and the price of gas will be 30 cents cheaper than they sell it.

In northern Ontario, they sell gas at whatever the market can bear, and if you’re around a mine, where people make good money, they sell it through the roof. I can pay two bucks a litre for gas; I get to Toronto and it’s $1.34.

Quelles sont les priorités? Priorité numéro un, madame la Présidente, c’est la santé. Ce n’est pas normal que 800 salles d’urgence aient fermé l’année dernière. Ce n’est pas normal que 2,2 millions d’Ontariens et d’Ontariennes n’aient pas accès aux soins primaires. Ce n’est pas normal qu’on ait des services d’hôpitaux qui sont fermés dans le nord de l’Ontario, où les femmes doivent voyager pendant trois heures pour venir à bout d’accoucher de leur bébé. Ce n’est pas normal, et tout ça, c’est en dessous de ce gouvernement-là.

Est-ce qu’il devrait passer à l’action? Oui, passe à l’action. Il y a des choses faciles qu’on pourrait faire pour améliorer, mais il n’y a rien de ça dans le projet de loi 162.

Même chose—la député parle de l’habitation. On a, à Gogama, des propriétés qui sont appartenues par le gouvernement. Mettez-les en vente pour que les gens puissent les acheter. Ça fait deux ans et sept mois qu’on attend, et il ne se passe toujours absolument rien.

When it comes to doing a referendum before any changes to the carbon tax, I would say, I was in committee where we put forward the idea of doing a referendum in another part of the legislation. The members of the Conservative Party stood up really quickly and said, “There’s no way. A referendum costs a lot of money. It requires a lot of work, time, effort and energy. This is not a good use of taxpayers’ money.” I tend to agree.

So for people like me who live in northern rural Ontario we will continue to pay way more. Why? Because we are being gouged at the pumps. Why? Because we are being gouged in the grocery store because they sell at what the market can bear. How about we regulate the price of gas, like they do in 34 other jurisdictions—

Merci à la députée pour votre discours. Je vais essayer de poser ma question en français.

Premièrement, le titre de ce « bill » est « passer à l’action ». C’est drôle, parce qu’on ne trouve pas que ce gouvernement passe à l’action pour ceux qui manquent de médecins, pour tous les gens partout en Ontario qui sont des sans-abri et surtout pour les gens qui attendent les services aux hôpitaux dans cette province.

Est-ce que vous pouvez dire à cette législature ce que ce gouvernement peut faire pour passer à l’action pour ceux qui en ont besoin?

It’s always a pleasure to be able to stand in my space on behalf of the people of Hamilton Mountain and to be able to put some input into the legislation that this government continues to put forward. This one, like many others, has a catchy title, has a lot of gimmicks, but not a lot to really, truly make a difference for the people of the province once again.

This is Bill 162, and wait for the title: Get it Done Act. Wow, have we heard that many times in the last six years. I’m pretty sure the Premier actually had—wasn’t it “get it done” nameplates made up for their desks? Wasn’t that a thing? “Get it done,” right? This has been the Premier’s shtick—

Interjection: For the people.

We hear those stories continue to hit the floor of this Legislature in hopes that the government actually will get it done and actually fund appropriately our services that people desperately need to be able to function. We’re seeing that in mental health and addictions. We’re seeing that in homelessness. We’re seeing that in our health care system. We’re seeing it in our education system. We see it in social services. We see it in the children’s aid society. I meet with them on a regular basis. They are completely underfunded. They have no idea how they’re going to be able to function under the current system. They’re working to keep families together and at home; proactive work to ensure that they’re creating stability in the home and they’re keeping the family unit together. Yet they can’t even manage to do that because they don’t have the funding that it takes. And when a family needs mental health supports, they can’t get them a meeting because it’s wait-lists. In Hamilton, I believe, for a child, it’s an 18-month wait for mental health services.

So what’s happening? We’re seeing parents actually giving their children up to the children’s aid society, praying that they’ll have the supports necessary to be able to help their kid. And what’s the children’s aid society doing? They’re bunking them in hotel rooms because they don’t have foster homes. They don’t have kinship. They have no supports. They don’t have beds or rooms for children’s mental health to be able to support these kids like they need. That would be something the government could get done. That would be something that we could get behind and say, “Yes, kids are our most valuable resource. Let’s get it done.”

The autism services: We’re seeing that we have over 60,000 kids on a wait-list. When this government came into power six years ago, we had 24,000 kids on the wait-list. This government likes to crow that 40,000 kids are getting service—that is so not true, and if they are getting services, it’s very minimal. They’re barely getting speech therapy, maybe a little bit in school if they can. They’re literally languishing on wait-lists.

Then, when they finally get a determination of needs meeting, which is the check box to see what level they’re at and what kind of services they get, to appeal that process is almost a year again. So now you have your next determination of needs meeting every year and you’re not even through your appeal process fighting the small amount of money that you received the year previous. If the government wanted to get that done, we could get behind it and get it done, but they don’t want to do that.

They want to take tolls off of highways that don’t have tolls, and the only toll that actually does exist on the 407, they’re going to keep it there. We tried to give them solutions. We said, “Here, get it done.” No way—they don’t want to hear solutions. We could have taken the trucks off the 403 and 401 and put them on the 407 and freed up some time. I bet you I would be able to drive home in less than three hours, for an hour drive, if we took some of those trucks off the road.

Again, I see members nodding their heads over there because they know these are good solutions. They could get it done if they had the will to actually want to help people in this province, but they don’t.

They’re going to charge them $7.50 for every six-month period for their driver’s licence fee—that’s going to do a lot. Statutory photo card of $3.50—okay.

Talk about fixing messes: Do you know how much time, Speaker, we’ve actually spent in the Legislature fixing messes for bringing forward bills, reversing bills—the whole thing? Listen to this: 27 wasted days here in the House and in committee debating bills and government repeals and reversals. Bill 124—you remember that—unconstitutional wage caps; Bill 28, the “notwithstanding” clause and education workers—boy, that was something that they didn’t get done. They had to get it done. They had to reverse it. They had to reverse their bad decisions. Bill 35, reversing Bill 28—although no time was spent because we let that go for unanimous consent because we were trying to help them get through a mess that they created, without spending a whole bunch of time here in the Legislature because they had already wasted so many days.

Bill 39 repealed the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve Act. Bill 112, dissolving region of Peel; 136, reversing the greenbelt charges and the repeal of the DRAP act; 150, reversing urban boundary changes—and speaking of Bill 150, in this legislation they’re actually putting stuff back that they reversed in Bill 150.

Is this what we call getting it done, when we actually have true crises in this province? People are sleeping in tents in every community in our province. In every community we have people that are homeless, that are struggling with addictions, that can’t make ends meet. We have people who are going to work and they live in tents because they can’t afford the rent. They could have got that done. We’ve put several bills forward. They could have got that done, to actually make rent affordable in our province, and yet they’ve ignored that because they’re wasting time on their own shenanigans and then having to backtrack to repeal the information.

That’s a total of 72 hours in the Legislature, which is 19 days, and a total of eight days in committee—

It’s the same.

Thank you. We have to move to next question.

That’s right. It’s a good solution.

Speaker, I’ve been thinking about it, and I really believe that this government truly does not want to get rid of the carbon tax, because if they did somehow, they would have nothing else to talk about, literally. You go in the halls and they’re walking the corridors, “Carbon tax, carbon tax,” bumping into each other, bumping into walls.

My question is simple. Do you believe they believe that if they repeat the words “carbon tax” over and over and over enough, it may actually change the scary and embarrassing fact that they’re under RCMP investigation?

There are many actions of this government that nobody is proud of, and I’m sure that they are not proud of them either. So to say that they want to change the channel—yes, absolutely. They want to change the channel on lots of the decisions that they have taken in the past, whether we talk about the greenbelt, we talk about the MZOs, we talk about many of the decisions, many of the bills that this—we talk about Bill 124. They don’t want to talk about this too much because of the damage it has done to our health care system, and the list goes on and on. So talking about the carbon tax is a way for them to change the channel, not to help people struggling to make ends meet.

I want to thank the member opposite for bringing her perspective to the floor of the House, and of course, talking about the issues that she perceives to be important and that are obviously of great concern to many of us. We’re seized with the concerns that she’s raised, but of course, as government, we do have some unique insights that others don’t have, and sitting around a cabinet table, as I did once, you do see other issues.

However, I would like to talk to the member, who has been here long-standing—and by the way, she reminded me of my old time over in the opposition, where I was very critical of the government. It’s always important that we have people that take us to account. However, I just wanted to know: She does have a growing community in Hamilton, one that I think is a world-class city. I’m just wondering what she would like to see get done for her constituents in terms of infrastructure in Hamilton and how she thinks that we should go about doing that.