Back to the minister: This is a very serious matter. It is the difference between buying groceries or not for a renter, the difference between keeping up with your bills or not. Tenants should not be paying illegal rents to big landlords, but in Ontario today, they are.

My question is to the minister: Will you take action to curb AGI abuse, and protect tenants and get them the money that they are owed?

Speaker, the carbon tax is holding us back from unleashing the full potential of Ontario. But we’ve shown the Liberals the way: less red tape and lower taxes equals more jobs.

We have removed 500 pieces of red tape that the Liberals put in. Our fall red tape reduction package alone is saving people and businesses over 100,000 hours each year. As a result, 700,000 more men and women are working today than when we took office. Last year alone, we added 180,000 new jobs in Ontario and $11 billion in new investments. Imagine— just imagine—what we could have achieved without the carbon tax.

We refuse to let the Liberals jeopardize the progress that we have made. Scrap the carbon tax today. Work with us to create the conditions for growth in Ontario.

My question is for the Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade. The federal Liberals are turning their back on the hard-working people of Ontario, whether it’s the auto worker in Windsor, the miner in Timmins or the tech engineer in Waterloo—they’re all concerned about the rising cost of living.

The absolute last thing that a government should be doing is making things more expensive by hiking taxes, but that’s exactly what the federal Liberal government did last Monday when they increased the carbon tax. As we all know, the carbon tax is driving the cost of everything up across the board, penalizing Ontario’s workers and squeezing businesses in every sector of our province.

Speaker, can the minister explain how, by cutting costs, our government is able to create the conditions for job growth and new investment?

With the stroke of a pen, Speaker, the federal Liberals could scrap the carbon tax and bring down the cost of gas by nearly 18 cents a litre while simultaneously alleviating inflationary pressures, not just in Ontario but across our country. But instead, they’ve chosen to proceed with their 23% carbon tax hike.

While elected officials of all political stripes are standing up against the carbon tax, Bonnie Crombie and the provincial Liberals have not said one word.

Speaker, can the minister highlight the progress of Ontario’s economy since we took office and since we’ve lowered costs?

Mr. Speaker, Metrolinx and their team are undertaking the largest public transit infrastructure investment in the history of not only Canada but all of North America.

And do you know what? Those members, including the Liberals, who for 15 years did absolutely nothing to build transit in this province, voted against every single one of those transit projects: the Ontario Line—388,000 daily boardings projected; 28,000 fewer cars on the road once that line is built. And do you know what, Mr. Speaker? That member has voted against those public transit investments every single time. Let’s look at the Yonge North subway extension, another project this government is delivering on: 4,800 tonnes of GHG emission reduction when that project is built. And guess what? That member has voted against it every single time.

We’ll continue to build public transit across this province, and we’ll be ambitious and continue to do what the previous Liberal government refused to do, which is build for future generations.

We want to get shovels in the ground, and guess what, Mr. Speaker? We do have shovels in the ground, on the Ontario Line, on the Eglinton West extension, on the Yonge North subway extension. We’ve put the RFQ to market. The Scarborough subway extension: Shovels are in the ground. This is historic. And if the NDP and if the Liberals did what we experienced for the last 15 years, we’d have no shovels in the ground, and we’d have no public transit for this province.

So I ask the members of the Liberals and the NDP to support public transit in this province, to support investments that we are making so we can move the people—

Interjections.

My question is for the Premier. It begins with some unfortunate news for this House, however: There is something growing faster in Ontario than the number of six-figure staffers in the Premier’s office. It’s the army of vice-presidents that work for CEO of Metrolinx, Phil Verster.

My question to the Premier is very simple: Can he say to this House if he has confidence in Metrolinx right now and its executive leadership?

So, my question again to the honourable gentleman: Please, for the transit users who work in this province, why are you rewarding failure? When will you rein in the gravy train at Metrolinx? It’s time for action.

In 2018, the Premier ran a tough-talking campaign aimed at convincing Ontarians the previous government was wasting taxpayer money. He spoke about the growing sunshine list of public sector employees earning over $100,000. One would think he was some kind of Robin Hood figure who was going to take from the rich and give to the poor. His record in office proves otherwise.

Speaker, this government has made many mistakes: Bill 124, axing workers’ rights, the greenbelt scandal, to name just a few. But now, the government has a mistake right in the Premier’s office. The Premier has added so many new sunshine-list employees to his staff that it’s costing taxpayers more than double what it did under any previous government.

My question to the Premier: Is he ready to admit that he is running a government that is full of friends, insiders and fat cats, to use his own words, and to clean up the bloated mess in his office?

Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

The supplementary question.

The next question.

Speaker, what we’re doing is running a government that is delivering on behalf of the people of the province of Ontario.

The Liberals increased taxes and delivered nothing. They increased red tape and delivered nothing. Are there more people working in the province of Ontario? Yes, there are: about 700,000 more people working in the province of Ontario than there were under the Liberals. Do you know why? Because we’re doing what they wouldn’t do. We’re actually investing in people. We have the largest transit and transportation investment in the province’s history. We have the largest investment in hospitals in the province’s history, the largest investment in new schools in the province’s history. We have the largest investment in economic development ever. Do you know why? Because people want to come to Ontario and make those investments. Do you know why they want to do that? Because they have a confident Progressive Conservative stable majority government, and we’re delivering for them: cutting taxes, making investments, more jobs. It’s a good time to be a Progressive Conservative—

The new leader of the Liberal Party’s first ask wasn’t for the people of the province of Ontario; the first ask was what? A million dollars to pay her salary. That is what this member is supporting.

Do you know what we’re doing? We’re cutting taxes for the people—

Interjections.

The leader of the Liberal Party knows what we’re doing. What we’re doing is making sure that we have an economy that works for all of the people. We’re fixing the mess that they left behind, and we’ll continue to do that job for the people—

Interjections.

My question is for the Minister of Energy. The federal carbon tax went up again, and Bonnie Crombie and her Liberals refuse to oppose it.

Speaker, we know that Ontario families cannot afford the carbon tax. When I was door-knocking last week in my riding of Newmarket–Aurora, people expressed concern over the high cost of living. It seems like Justin Trudeau and his ally Bonnie Crombie don’t understand how much harder life has become for Ontarians due to this carbon tax.

While the Liberals are pushing for higher taxes, our government is lowering costs for the people of Ontario. Speaker, can the minister please explain how our government is keeping costs down for Ontarians fighting this terrible Liberal carbon tax?

Now more than ever, Ontarians need a government that will deliver true affordability, not increased taxes. Our government must continue to demonstrate leadership and support Ontario families during these challenging times.

Speaker, can the parliamentary assistant please elaborate on the steps that our government is taking to support the great people of Ontario?

I’d like to thank the member for Newmarket–Aurora, not only for her question, but her continued advocacy on this issue.

So 17 cents a litre is what we’re paying more for a litre of gasoline because of Justin Trudeau’s carbon tax. In a pickup truck like mine, which is a common way of transportation in rural Ontario, that’s over 20 bucks a tank. That’s what I’m hearing—she’s hearing it from her constituents; that’s what I’m hearing from mine.

When the cost of fuel goes up, the cost of everything goes up, because we need fuel to move everything in this province. We need it. So, the reality is that either Bonnie Crombie and Justin Trudeau don’t understand—which she asked, do they understand—or maybe they just don’t care.

On this side of the House, in this government, we care. We’re lowering the cost of living by reducing that tax. That’s $320 a year for the average person. And we’re also removing the cost of licence plate fees. We will continue to fight this punitive carbon tax until it’s gone.

But they’re hearing it in boxcar letters all across the province. Everybody is saying the same thing. They are being hurt and harmed. Their families are being hurt by the carbon tax. But the Liberals just sit there like deer in the headlights, like it doesn’t matter to them. But it matters to the people of Ontario. I hear it all across my riding. This tax is regressive, it is punitive and it is not accomplishing anything of what it was intended to do.

It is time for the Liberals in this House to talk to their chieftain out in Ottawa and tell the queen of the carbon tax to have a discussion with Justin. It is time to scrap this tax once and for all. The people can’t take much more.

My question is to the Premier. Seniors in hospital are being fined $400 a day if they refuse to be sent to a long-term-care home they didn’t choose, even if it’s up to 150 kilometres away from their families.

This government repeatedly denied the use of this cruel practice under Bill 7. The Conservatives claim that Bill 7 gives hospitals the authority to charge seniors $400 a day in order to force them out to clear out beds and create hospital capacity. But we know wait times in hospitals remain historically high, and one senior recently was slapped with—listen to this—a $5,200 bill.

Was the Premier actually unaware of the charges being billed to seniors, or did he purposely withhold that information from the media?

Our government believes that a hospital is not a home. We repeat: A hospital is not a home. Under the same legislation that the member is referring to, 99.96% of those people he is referencing have gone from being patients in a hospital to residents in long-term care—17,339 people now have the dignity of calling a home a home.

But I guess we shouldn’t be surprised by the attitude from the member opposite, right? Because this morning, the Leader of the Opposition mocked long-term-care homes as counting as homes, mocked student housing as counting as homes and, one step further, equated them to being jail cells.

We see things very differently. Our seniors took care of us. That’s why we’re building a record capacity, fixing the mistakes that the Liberals made when they failed to build: 611 net new beds when they exited government in 2018. We will continue to not only build capacity, we’re ending hallway health care in Ontario.

The member doesn’t want to listen to me, but maybe he will listen to his colleagues on the opposition benches: “Alternate level of care. It’s a fancy word that means ... you really would like to be supported someplace else, but you have no choice but to” be in a “hospital.”

Here’s another one, the MPP for Waterloo: “These are patients who should not be in a hospital. They should be in long-term care or in retirement or assisted living options.”

So, Speaker, I have a question. I mentioned the 17,000 seniors who are no longer patients in a hospital, now residents in long-term care. What about the 8,838 in Ontario Health West, including Niagara region, who have gone from hospitals to now living in long-term care? Would the member like to go with me and tell those members, all 8,800 of them, that they’re better off in a hospital? I’m not going to do that. If the member wants to do it, go ahead. Will the member apologize to seniors for ignoring them for decades upon decades, as this government is finally taking care of them and picking up on their failures?

Supplementary question.

Minister, a senior had to pay $5,200 to a hospital, as your party continues to ask question after question over affordability. There are not a lot of seniors in the province of Ontario who can afford a $5,200 bill. I don’t care if it’s one or 10, they shouldn’t have to pay that kind of money.

We’ve learned the minister has allowed nearly 300 seniors to be bullied and forced to move to a long-term-care home without their consent—think about that; without your parents’ or your grandparents’ consent—and he chooses to hide the information or is completely unaware that seniors are being fined $400 a day under his legislation. And he still refuses to apologize to the seniors and their families they have hurt and intimidated, including the thousands of seniors that died of COVID in long-term-care homes under the government’s watch.

Speaker, are the seniors simply cash cows, dispensable to this government, or will the Premier repeal Bill 7?

My question is for the Premier.

This weekend, I met with residents in my riding who live at a building at 250 Frederick Street. Please look it up. They’re all over the media. They’re being bullied by their bad-acting landlord. These tenants, mostly seniors, were handed N13s stating they have to vacate their units so that the landlord can do renovations.

In Ontario, people are losing their homes over a coat of paint and a dishwasher. This scare tactic works. It’s used a lot by this so-called investor who works in London, has done the same thing in Hamilton and might be coming for any of our ridings next. He will scare you out of your home and jack up the rent so he can make sky-high profits. Since 2017, the use of N13s has risen by 300% and N12s have risen by 70%, affecting over 20,000 people—people who pay their rent and are getting kicked out of their houses with nowhere to go.

My bill, the Keeping People Housed Act, aims to stop bad-acting landlords from clogging up the LTB and displacing tenants illegally. Will the Premier support my bill and stop the hemorrhaging of tenants onto our streets?

Wait times at the LTB have never been longer—over 427 days and up to two years for tenants, because it’s a two-tier system; and it was 70 days in 2018. So try something else. It’s not working.

My bill, the Keeping People Housed Act, if passed, would stop the misuse of the LTB by asking for proper paperwork before they get in the queue—a queue, might I add, that is 53,000 long.

Bringing back vacancy control would mean that bad-acting landlords aren’t given pay increases when they kick seniors out of their homes. I thought, in Ontario, that when you break the law and you do a job badly, you don’t get a raise.

Mr. Speaker, the Premier says that he cares about affordability, that he wants people to save up for a home, that he cares about justice. So don’t you agree that it shouldn’t be luck; it should be law to have a good-enough landlord?

I appreciate the question from the member opposite. If the member would like to help, she could support, the NDP could support, the Liberals could support, the Green Party could support—but they don’t. They don’t support any of the investments that we’ve made.

We have doubled the number of adjudicators. Last year we have taken in more cases than any time in the last 15 years, and we’re up on case intake by 31%, but we’re up on resolution by 45%, Mr. Speaker. So, we are fixing the system that they left in shambles, and we will take no lessons from the Liberals chirping over there.

I would ask the new Green member to please join us in making investments so that individual renters and landlords can actually get their cases heard fairly and quickly.

There are some bad actors on both sides, and the only way to resolve it is not political interference; the way to resolve it is to have an independent tribunal, have a hearing, with evidence, so that they can make a decision. That’s what we’re doing. We’re taking no shortcuts.

The NDP and the Liberals, during COVID, said, “Stop all hearings. Stop everything.” Well, we didn’t stop everything.

We do have a backlog, but we are getting it down in a fair, equitable, fast way. We are putting the resources in. We doubled the number of adjudicators. We put a new back-end system in. We hired more administrators. And we are getting the job done.

Thank you to my amazing colleague from Mississauga Centre for raising an issue that’s facing so many small businesses across Ontario.

Speaker, I have been hearing from entrepreneurs and job creators across our province about the devastating impacts the federal government’s punishing 23% carbon tax increase to $80 per tonne will have on their operations and bottom lines. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business warns that over half of small firms will be forced to raise prices and the other half will need to freeze or reduce wages. These are real, on-the-ground effects of this tax increase, with small businesses being forced to make difficult decisions that could impact their ability to support many families. This tax hike is not just a financial burden for these businesses; it’s a threat to the livelihoods of hard-working entrepreneurs.

Unlike the opposition Liberals and NDP, this government and this Premier will continue being the voice of Ontario’s small businesses and will continue to tell Ottawa to scrap the tax.

My question is for the Associate Minister of Small Business.

Speaker, small businesses are the backbone of our economy, and this was so evident when the minister and I visited a small family-owned business in my riding called Palma Pasta. Congratulations to the Petrucci family for being a staple of Italian cuisine and Italian culture in Mississauga.

However, the federal government is making it even harder for small businesses to survive and thrive with its massive 23% hike in the punitive carbon tax, to $80 per tonne. This job-killing tax is already increasing the cost on everything from heating to electricity to transportation and raw materials. Small businesses are already struggling under the weight of high inflation, supply chain disruptions and labour shortages. This new carbon tax increase is yet another burden.

Can the associate minister please further explain the impact the carbon tax has had on Ontario’s small businesses?

The contrast couldn’t be more clear. Under the leadership of the Premier, we are supporting small businesses across the province.

With many small businesses already struggling to repay their CEBA loans, the carbon tax is only adding further challenges. They need relief, not more taxes.

Speaker, the opposition used to be all talk and no action, but now, all of a sudden, they’re staying silent when the federal Liberals are hiking this job-killing carbon tax, and so is the queen of the carbon tax, Bonnie Crombie. I think her new name should be carbon Crombie, because there isn’t a single tax that she doesn’t love.

Our government has the backs of our hard-working entrepreneurs and job creators, and we’ve got the record to prove it, but we know that more must be done. Can the associate minister tell the House how our government is pushing back against the carbon tax and its negative impacts?