Shocker, Mr. Speaker—Sault Ste. Marie is getting all the love today. I’m loving it.

Well, Mr. Speaker, I have a very, very important question on behalf of the people of Sault Ste. Marie for our wonderful Minister of Energy. Many individuals and families, particularly those in northern Ontario, rely on fuel to heat their homes. Unfortunately, residents in rural and remote parts of northern Ontario face additional barriers in heating their homes due to the lack of viable alternatives.

Families and businesses in Sault Ste. Marie are telling me that they already feel the carbon tax’s impact on their energy bills every single month, and quite frankly, this has been a pretty warm winter in Sault Ste. Marie and throughout the province. It’s unfair and unjust for them to bear the burden of this regressive carbon tax, yet the Liberals and the NDP are content to see the costs related to the carbon tax raised even higher.

Minister, please let us know how our communities in the north are suffering more because of this unaffordable carbon tax.

Thanks to the member from Sault Ste. Marie for the question. He is right: Members in northern Ontario, like in Sault Ste. Marie, don’t have a lot of choice when it comes to how they heat their homes. A lot of them are using home heating fuels, natural gas and propane.

April 1 is coming up fast; it’s about 25 days away. April 1 is known as April Fool’s Day, and this year it happens to be Easter Monday as well, but do you know what it is again in Justin Trudeau’s world? It’s Groundhog Day, because once again this year, they’re increasing the carbon tax. This time, they’re increasing the carbon tax by 23%. What does that mean for those who heat their home in Sault Ste. Marie and across Ontario? Almost $400 a year in an increase to their home heating bill, not to mention what it means for you when you fill up at the pump and what it’s going to mean in the grocery store.

Mr. Speaker, it’s time to stop this charade at the federal level. Call Justin. Call Jagmeet. Put a pause on this carbon tax. We need to stop it today.

With an increase of 23% in the carbon tax on April 1, it’s going to drive up your home heating bill by another $400 a year. There are many people across this province who simply can’t handle that.

We’ve done everything we can possibly do in Ontario to make life more affordable. We fought the carbon tax all the way to the Supreme Court. We’ve lowered gasoline taxes by 10.7 cents a litre, eliminated licence plate sticker fees and eliminated tolls on our highways. We’ve never raised a tax. We’ve never raised a fee. And do you know what has happened? In spite of that federal carbon tax, that terrible tax, being in place, we’re seeing record growth in our province: 700,000 more people are working today than when we took government in—