I would like to thank the member from Ottawa South for his presentation on the get nothing done act. This bill is what has been described by quite a number of people as “performative,” and especially when you look at the toll prohibition on roads that don’t currently have a toll, and not removing the tolls on roads that currently do.

I wonder: Would the member like to make any comments about the performative nature and the vacuous nature of this bill, rather than legislation that actually achieves its desired goals?

Speaker, I just want to put on the record that Highways 412 and 418, the member from Oshawa has been a long-time advocate of removing those tolls. I’m glad the government took that initiative. I think on this side of the House, we give credit where credit is due, but that’s where the credit needs to go, to the member from Oshawa, for the 412 and the 418. Thank you to the government for implementing that.

But then I go to the billion dollars, the giveaway. You talked about a $100-billion giveaway over 32 years. I think the recent giveaway was $1 billion on Highway 407, where we could have collected that money and put it back into infrastructure, but this government chose to waive that bill and give a free pass—really, a lottery ticket—to the 407 corporation.

Can the member explain—under this bill, you say it’s getting done—not having tolls on highways that don’t have tolls, but you won’t stop the tolls on Highway 407. You won’t take that away. Why is that?

I appreciate the member from Nickel Belt’s question. Actually, I think I first proposed this two years ago: to pay the tolls of truckers on the 407. At that time, part of the rationale was somebody had just landed an airplane on the 407, it was so underutilized.

It seems to make sense to me: Why would you build a highway that’s exactly the same area—just a little bit north of the 407—and spend 10-plus billion dollars on it, when you could pay the tolls of truckers for the next 30 years for less than a quarter of that price and actually relieve gridlock right now? That’s the most fiscally responsible, environmentally responsible way to benefit our economy and end gridlock.

You talked about costs. Let’s not even talk about future costs for a second; let’s talk about costs from just last year. According to the Insurance Bureau of Canada, the climate crisis costs Canadians $3.1 billion in insurable losses. They estimate that uninsurable losses were three times that: almost $10 billion in one year. That cost every household $720 in this country.

The other thing the government doesn’t talk about when it comes to carbon pricing is that, actually, eight out of 10 Ontarians receive more money back in the rebate than they actually pay into the carbon price. And the Ontarians who benefit the most from that rebate are low- and middle-income Ontarians. So it is true: There are some people who do pay more because they pay more in tax than their rebate. Those are the wealthiest people in the province.

So, they don’t have a plan, and the plan they have actually takes money out of our pockets.