Orders of the day? I recognize the member for Chatham-Kent–Leamington.

Speaker, just so that you’re entirely clear about this, this bill is about making sure that Enbridge customers pay more and get poorer and that Enbridge makes a lot more money and gets a lot richer. That’s what this bill is about.

The Premier is planning to raise your gas bill this year. That’s what this bill makes possible. That’s what this bill is set up to do.

The Premier decided to protect Enbridge to make sure it could bring in billions of dollars from its customers and take money out of the pockets of those customers across this province. His buddies at Enbridge are being protected, and he’s sticking you, each and every Enbridge customer in this province, with the bill. That bill is calculated to be between $300 and $600 over the next four years.

Everyone in this room is well aware of how stretched people are, well aware of how they’re pushed hard by high rents, by mortgages that are difficult to cover, by rising grocery prices. They need this like they need a hole in their wallet. They need protection from Enbridge, and this government is not only not protecting them, it is making sure that Enbridge gets to collect billions of dollars from them—billions of dollars.

If you think that you should be paying more on your Enbridge bill, then you should support this legislation that’s come forward. And if you don’t think you should be stuck with those extra charges, if you think that Enbridge should be the body that actually coughs up the few billion dollars that they want to expand the gas supply system, then you should oppose this bill. Enbridge pays. That’s the situation that we would have if this bill did not go through. If the bill goes through, the customers pay, just as they have in so many other circumstances.

I don’t think I’ve made it plain enough: This bill is about raising your gas charges, making life more expensive for you and making sure that Enbridge shareholders make a lot more money.

This bill reverses the decision by the Ontario Energy Board—the agency set up in this province to regulate utilities and protect customers—the decision they made in December to protect people in Ontario from higher gas bills. Now, it’s the job of the Ontario Energy Board, that regulator, to look out for consumer interests when energy companies apply to raise their rates, as they do constantly. The job of the Ontario Energy Board, their mandate, is to protect the customers. They’re told, “Look out for the consumers. Look out for the public. Make sure they aren’t gouged, they aren’t ripped off, they aren’t pillaged, they aren’t silently stolen from. Look after those customers.” That’s their mandate, and that’s whether that utility is electrical or gas: protect the customers. And that is what the Ontario Energy Board did last December in, I would say, a Christmas surprise, a Christmas gift. They stood up and said, “We can read our mandate. We think this charge against the customers can’t be justified. We’re not going to approve it.”

Now this government is completely horrified that those customers are being protected. They’re horrified that Enbridge will not continue to make the crushingly huge profits that they’ve been making. And this government wants to reverse that. They know what has to be protected at all costs, and that’s the profits going to Enbridge. The customers? Not an issue, not a concern.

Since we had this bill before committee, the news service Narwhal published an article on the close co-operation between senior Conservative government staff and Enbridge. It was as if they were working in collusion. It was pretty clear from the article that the first concern of the government was to protect Enbridge and its profits. In what they reported, there weren’t big issues about, “How do we protect rural ratepayers? How do we look after small businesses? How do we make sure that new home buyers don’t pay more than they would have paid before?” No, their focus was on Enbridge’s profits and how expensive this decision was going to be for Enbridge, and then they looked for stories that would buttress the argument that they made.

Enbridge is a multi-billion-dollar company, and frankly, the one that we deal with in Ontario is a subsidiary of the larger Enbridge that runs gas transmission lines across North America—both of them multi-billion-dollar operations with multi-billion-dollar profits, not exactly on the edge of poverty. These companies have a few bucks available if they wanted to actually help customers, but that is not what we’re dealing with here. This is not about the government trying to protect customers and trying to keep energy bills low. This is about making sure that the company that wants to squeeze every last penny out of you is protected and given licence to do that. In fact, this government will ensure that your gas bill is going to go up.

Two weeks ago, we asked the Premier about his government’s efforts to ensure that Enbridge was protected and consumers got stuck with the bill. What do you have to say, Premier, on this?

So we asked: “In December, the Ontario Energy Board ruled that consumers should no longer have to subsidize Enbridge’s gas expansion. But instead of listening to the experts, the government decided to keep forcing consumers to pay the subsidy.

“Yesterday, the Narwhal revealed that the Premier’s top officials weren’t just communicating with Enbridge on this; they were actively coordinating their response together.”

Question for the government: Did the government give preferential treatment to Enbridge when it intervened pre-emptively to undermine the regulator and drive up costs for customers?

I’ll go on to the other two questions that were asked because I’ll summarize the response of the government.

The next question: On the morning of the Ontario Energy Board ruling, the chief of staff to the Minister of Energy reached out to the Premier’s staff and called an urgent meeting to prepare a response in case the OEB ruled against Enbridge in favour of consumers. Oh, horrors, protecting consumers; what has the world come to?

It just happens that the minister’s chief of staff is a former lobbyist for Enbridge. Was this chief of staff in a conflict of interest when he decided to put the interests of his former employer ahead of Ontario’s gas consumers?

Third part: Government lawyers warned the Premier’s staff and the former Enbridge lobbyists now working as the minister’s chief of staff that intervening in the OEB decision carried legal risks. They did it anyway. That’s why we’re debating this bill today.

They announced the plan to overrule the Ontario Energy Board, the regulator acting to protect customers—overrule them only 15 hours after the decision was published. I’ve never seen a government so determined to overrule an independent regulator and drive up gas bills for Ontario consumers.

Why is the government risking legal action in order to give preferential treatment to a gas monopoly over the interests of hard-working Ontarians?

Speaker, you had to be there to enjoy the show. No one will be surprised to hear that the Minister of Energy was bobbing and weaving like crazy to avoid answering the question. There were all kinds of diversions. Rabbits were pulled out of hats, red herrings were dumped on carpets, smoke was blown. The minister was a cat on a hot tin roof.

My experience around here is that when a minister can’t answer a question—and I’ve seen many over the years not be able to answer a question—then you have a minister with a big problem on their hands, because they like to be able to say, “You’re totally wrong; here’s the reason,” but when they dance and bob and weave and get into the red-herring stuff, you know that they understand they have a big problem on their hand.

We all remember the kind of—and I’ll just call it ambiguity in answers from ministers at the start of the greenbelt scandal. They wandered all over the landscape, sort of like a subdivision with no clear idea where it wanted to go. Why? Because what they were doing was wrong, wrong enough that they had to back off, bring in legislation to nullify those decisions, wrong enough that there’s now an RCMP investigation of the whole thing.

So far, we haven’t heard about Enbridge executives showing up at a wedding hosted by the Premier, but we’ve heard enough to know the government’s whole efforts are directed at enriching Enbridge and making life harder for families in this province.

This bill will strip Ontarians of protection from Enbridge’s attempts to gouge customers across Ontario. The minister, the Premier don’t have to do that. The Premier could take another course. The Premier could protect you, the Enbridge customers. He could protect your families and protect families across this province.

He knows that people are having a tough time. He talks about it regularly. We have debates, discussions, here in the Legislature, about the difficulties people are facing. People are pushed hard, as I said in the beginning. They’re facing rising rents. My colleague from Parkdale–High Park raised that just a few minutes ago. People are pushed to the limit.

They’re having a tough time with grocery bills. You’ve got major retailers that have engaged in squeezing people, squeezing their suppliers, squeezing the customers. The Premier knows that people are having a tough time staying afloat, and yet, today, we’re debating a bill that will protect the profits of Enbridge and raise gas bills that people will have to pay. It will take money out of people’s pockets. That’s the reality.

At the committee meeting a few weeks ago, we brought forward a number of amendments to protect people from higher bills, and I want to thank Unifor for suggesting two very useful amendments that would help reduce people’s Enbridge bills, one of which was to set up a system for monitoring and preventing leakages of natural gas from the system.

Let’s face it: Having gas leaks is bad in terms of safety, it’s bad in terms of people’s health, but it’s also bad in terms of the bills that people pay, because all of the customers are charged for the total cost of the gas coming through the system. Enbridge wants people to burn as much as they can: The more they burn, the more money is made. If the gas leaks into the atmosphere, well, hey, that’s just another form of consumption.

So did the government support that amendment which would be good for the environment, for health and for people’s bills? No, they did not.

Unifor also asked for action on the contracting out of utility functions. I raise this because a little more than two decades ago, there was a landmark hearing at the Ontario Energy Board about how Enbridge was hiving off parts of its operations to become what one would call a “virtual utility.” The ability to actually regulate the utility and control the costs they were taking out of people’s pockets was dramatically reduced when they contract out. In fact, it was alleged at the time that Enbridge was contracting out work—both direct maintenance and administration—to companies that they, in turn, controlled but which were outside the regulatory framework; in other words, there was no price control on them, which is why a regulator is there.

That was a good amendment, one put forward by Unifor which would protect customers from being gouged. No one will be surprised to know the government voted that down.

Now, we brought forward another amendment, and I want to thank Environmental Defence and Stand.earth for their suggestions for protecting customers from higher bills and that Enbridge pay for their own expansions. Pretty straightforward. Enbridge’s consultants know that there is a time limit to the gas distribution system in Ontario and across North America, and if the system starts phasing out more quickly—and it’s headed in that direction—the remaining customers get stuck with higher bills.

The amendment was to ensure that Enbridge, its investors, paid those extra costs, not the customers. No one in this room will be surprised to learn the government voted it down.

This bill is about making customers pay more, it’s about Enbridge getting richer, and when we actually get into the details of the bill in committee with amendments that would protect customers, they were refused by the government. It is focused on making sure Enbridge makes as much money as it possibly can.

I’m going to go back a bit to the decision by the OEB, the Ontario Energy Board, the regulator responsible for protecting customers from utilities.

Just before Christmas, the Ontario Energy Board announced the decision that would make Enbridge Gas responsible for the cost of expanding its gas system and protect almost four million customers from hundreds of millions of dollars in higher heating bills. Actually, I’m understating—we’re talking billions.

This is a very important point: Enbridge has investors. It has cash flow. If it wanted to put money into those new connections and collect from those new customers over 40 years, they could do that; no problem. They don’t have to take the money out of your pocket. They don’t have to take the money out of the pockets of the constituents that you represent. They could take it out of their own cash, but instead, they want it to come from existing gas customers.

I should say—again, I refer back to that 2002 decision by the Ontario Energy Board: They noted a pipeline Enbridge had been built that was uneconomic, one that actually drained money out of existing customers, and they said, “No, you can’t take that money from customers. The shareholders have to pay for that.” This is not unprecedented.

If Enbridge wants to put money in, they can put their shareholder money in and see if it comes back. But no, they treat customers like an ATM. They get permission to go to the machine, hit the button and take the money out of your pockets. That’s what’s going on.

The Ontario Energy Board, whose job is to protect customers from gouging, whose job is to protect customers from being taken advantage of, said, “No, we’re not going to support the increase that you’re asking for, billions of dollars for expansion of the system. It’s going to cost $300 to $600 per customer over the next four years.” They said, “Enbridge, it’s your expense. You pay. It’s yours”—entirely legit and something that’s been done before. The very next day in December, the minister announced that this government would be taking steps to reverse the decision of the Ontario Energy Board, the regulator they put in place.

Now I have to say, for those who have been around for a while, I used to refer to the Ontario Energy Board under the Liberals as glove puppets, as Muppets, and I think I was accurate, because I watched the performance. Those on the other side who were upset at many of the decisions made by the Liberals should be well aware that the Liberals skirted around the OEB. The OEB was there for a lot of show and display, but when it came to the fundamental questions, the Liberals said, “Well, very nice to have you, glad you enjoy your pay, but we’re going to make this decision. You’re not going to be part of it.”

So when this regulator actually stood up and said, “Hey, we’re going to follow our mandate and protect the customers of Enbridge,” I was astounded. They actually did their job. They had read their mandate. They listened to the evidence that was presented to them over a year—thousands of pages of evidence—and they said, “Damn, we’ve got to protect people.”

Of course, the party that used to attack the OEB for not standing up for customers realized that and said to themselves, “Boy, if this decision is allowed to go forward, then we’ve got Enbridge—a big company, very profitable—going to be very cranky with us.” That’s why we have this bill before us today. Enbridge and the government came together very quickly to protect Enbridge—within hours—and give the minister talking points, and obediently, the minister used those talking points and does to this day.

But, Speaker, wait; there’s more. Not only did the government decide right then to protect Enbridge, but they wrote the law to ensure that the regulator would no longer actually regulate. The bill restructures things so any well-connected lobbyist or team of lobbyists can get around the regulator. What kind of heaven have they created for utilities who want to pillage the public? The regulator, the Ontario Energy Board, is now there in many ways as they were for the Liberals: for display and not for protection of consumers. It’s an expensive decoration. It disguises where real decisions are made about your hydro and gas bills.

This is straight out of this government’s greenbelt playbook: decisions made in backrooms to protect powerful private utilities; not to protect you, not protect the Enbridge customers who are out there, not to protect the constituents who you represent, but to protect Enbridge.

The Premier is going to raise your gas bill. When you get the bill in the mail later this year with a notice saying, “We’ve got an increase,” I think you should remember who made sure that that happened. Make sure you remember who put their thumb on the scale to ensure that the price is higher. This Premier has acted and is acting to protect the very wealthy Enbridge and stick you and your family with the bill.

Not only is this decision that was protecting gas consumers going up in smoke, but future decisions will be in trouble. There were a few people who had comments. The Toronto Atmospheric Fund made a presentation. What was interesting to me was that typically they’re much more focused on environmental and climate issues, but in this presentation to us at committee their focus was on the reality of ending effective regulation. They wrote:

“We have reservations regarding the extent of the new ministerial authority proposed in section 96.2. As noted above, the OEB has a mandate to protect ... consumers’ interests”—I noted that before; that’s their job. That’s what they did—“while facilitating rational expansion of gas infrastructure....

“The OEB does this using a well-regarded transparent and evidence-based process in which all stakeholders are invited to participate, introduce evidence and challenge evidence introduced by other parties. This quasi-judicial standard of decision-making provides a safeguard, ensuring balance and alignment with goals of keeping energy costs down and expanding the energy system.

“Proposed section 96.2”—which is in the bill that’s before us—“permanently supersedes this transparent, evidence-based process with unrestricted ministerial authority to decide which gas infrastructure projects are in the public interest and who should bear the cost of the projects. Unlike the OEB, there is no obligation for the minister to consult stakeholders and transparently weigh evidence in an open process before issuing directives. This change also encourages project proponents to focus efforts on ministerial advocacy instead of putting forward rationale arguments and credible evidence in OEB applications and proceedings.”

What they’re saying is that the regulator is fully and truly just The Muppet Show; that everyone who can afford a lobbyist goes around that Muppet, goes to the minister, makes their pitch and, if they’ve been to a wedding or a stag, probably is successful.

Similarly, the Society of United Professionals, which represents the actual OEB staff, the Ontario Energy Board staff, spoke about the end of regulatory independence and they talked about the impact on investors coming to Ontario of the Muppet-ization of this regulator:

“At the heart of the society’s opposition to the proposed Bill 165 is the removal of regulatory independence from the OEB. Publicly traded companies that rely on regulated rates, and credit-rating agencies that determine credit quality in the province’s utility sector, need to trust that the regulator maintains its independence and does not become a political arm of the government.”

In a recent analysis, Standard and Poor’s Global, the bond-rating agency, laid out the four pillars of Ontario’s natural gas and electricity regulatory environment. They are regulatory stability, tariff-setting procedures, financial stability and regulatory independence. They further state that they “believe the Ontarian regulatory framework is the most credit-supportive kind, benefiting all key stakeholders.” However, they warn their assessment of the province’s regulatory framework could change if there was “a loss of regulatory independence or instances of political interference in the framework.”

Well, I’ll tell you right now, if you’re a credit-rating agency and someone is applying to invest in energy infrastructure in Ontario, and you know that you no longer actually have an independent regulator—that you actually just have a lobby machine that determines energy decisions based on who is most effective at getting to a minister—then you have an impact on the credit rating of investments made in this province. That is an argument that I would have thought would work on the government, because the argument was made in front of government members in committee, but it was ignored.

Also interesting were the words of the Industrial Gas Users Association—so you’re talking big employers in Ontario, major industries who use a lot of gas. They said there were two unintended consequences of the bill. I think they were overly generous, because I think they were entirely intended, but they said “unintended,” I think because they’re polite. They said that selective approvals—the ability to approve projects by going around the regulator—would push up costs for industry in Ontario; that uneconomic, nonviable projects would be subsidized by the industries that we depend on right now to employ tens of thousands of people.

So the big industries that this government talks about all the time didn’t like this. You should understand that they were not fans of ending regulation in Ontario. They said that the independent regulator has been useful in keeping costs down, but what we’re seeing now is going to drive costs up.

They also said they couldn’t understand why procedural fairness was something that was ruled out by the bill. I didn’t get into that, but there actually are rules in Ontario that governments and bodies should follow to ensure that decisions are made on a fair basis. Those were wiped out in this bill when it comes to energy regulation. They suggested that it was not a good thing to have that happen.

So, the Premier is planning to raise your gas bills this year, and in future remove any protection that Ontarians may have from lobbyists reshaping energy policy in backrooms. Man, I feel like I’m back in Dalton McGuinty’s Ontario. It is amazing. For anyone who was here for the gas plant scandal—

Interjection.

Good afternoon, Speaker. First, on a point of order, please—

Resuming the debate adjourned on May 7, 2024, on the motion for third reading of the following bill:

Bill 165, An Act to amend the Ontario Energy Board Act, 1998 respecting certain Board proceedings and related matters / Projet de loi 165, Loi modifiant la Loi de 1998 sur la Commission de l’énergie de l’Ontario en ce qui concerne certaines instances dont la Commission est saisie et des questions connexes.

J’aimerais remercier Nicole Bessette d’Azilda dans mon comté pour ces pétitions : « Soutenez le système d’éducation francophone en Ontario ».

Comme vous le savez, monsieur le Président, les enfants francophones ont droit à aller à l’école en français. Nous avons des écoles francophones du côté public et catholique pas mal partout en Ontario. On voit également une augmentation des inscriptions dans les écoles francophones, ce qui est quelque chose qui me fait plaisir et qui fait qu’on a besoin d’environ 1 000 enseignants ou enseignantes supplémentaires à chaque année.

Malheureusement, avec les changements qui ont été faits par le gouvernement, il y a seulement 500 nouveaux enseignants ou enseignantes francophones qui graduent à chaque année. Donc, on voit que dans toutes les écoles francophones, il y a eu une augmentation de 450 % des gens qui enseignent dans nos écoles francophones qui ne sont pas qualifiés comme enseignants ou enseignantes. Donc, des centaines et des centaines de personnes, surtout des parents francophones, ont signé la pétition pour demander au gouvernement de mettre en place le rapport qui a été fait par le groupe de travail sur la pénurie des enseignants et enseignantes dans l’éducation de langue française qui nous aiderait à combler ce déficit et à s’assurer que tous les enfants francophones reçoivent une éducation de qualité.

J’appuie cette pétition. Je vais la signer et je demande à Aaldrian de l’amener à la table des greffiers.

This petition is titled “Bring Back Rent Control.” Rent control existed for all units occupied by tenants regardless of what year they were built until this government came into power in 2018 and rent control for buildings built after 2018 was removed. As such, many renters in Toronto and across Ontario who are living in these units built after 2018 do not have protections of rent control. When you don’t have any cap on rent increases, it puts tenants in precarious housing. Massive, unpredictable rent increases also take away stability and predictability to build a life and to plan a life.

As such, this petition is calling on the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to pass my bill Rent Control for All Tenants Act so that we can ensure all tenants can live with rent control protections in safe, affordable homes.

Yes. It just totally—that’s where we are again. Amazing.

I want to dig a little further. There’s a subsidy that gas customers do not even know they are funding. If you talk to most people, they look at their gas bill and they see “gas”—it’s there—and they see “distribution,” another piece. That distribution is the cost of getting the gas through the pipes to their houses. They don’t spend a lot of time analyzing their bills. Most normal people don’t. What is going to be happening to them is that part on distribution is going to be going up because they’re going to pay the cost of expanding the system—not the shareholders, but the customers. The customers working long hours, getting as much overtime as they can, where they can, sometimes working second jobs, people who are cutting corners all the time, are going to get higher bills because this government wants to make Enbridge richer.

This past Christmas, I was talking to my nephew over Christmas dinner, and I said—because that’s the kind of weird uncle I am, to discuss these things over Christmas dinner—“You know that your gas bill is going to go up so that Enbridge can expand its gas system?” He put down his turkey and he said, “You’ve got to be kidding me—pass the cranberry. You’ve got to be kidding me about that. Why am I paying for that?” And I said, “Well, it’s the way it’s working.”

The independent regulator, the Ontario Energy Board, decided to put a stop to the subsidy because it raises energy bills for existing gas customers—and for new home buyers. This is not a wonderful gift for them. It sets them up for higher costs in the years to come, and it also increases financial risks for the whole of the gas system. Ending the subsidy to new developments alone would save gas customers over $1 billion over the next four years in avoided pipeline subsidy costs—a billion bucks.

So when this government says, “No, no, we’re going forward; it isn’t going to affect people’s gas bills,” tell me where the billion is going to come from. Because Enbridge is going to get permission to actually charge it to their customers. It isn’t some magic group of elves and leprechauns somewhere that are going to be coughing up. It’s going to be people with real bank accounts who are trying to get through their daily lives who are going to be charged this extra money. It comes to about $300 per customer. Some calculations show it at $600 over the next four years, so let’s say $300 to $600. There are about four million customers on the system. Now, I note that that $1 billion doesn’t include any interest or profit payments that go to Enbridge. I’m talking bare minimum. I’m just talking the minimum number that was cited by the Ontario Energy Board.

What ending the subsidy would do, aside from protecting customers from being gouged, is it would encourage developers to install electric heat pumps in new homes instead of gas. I note the Minister of Energy has his home heated by a heat pump. He doesn’t have any gas connection. He talked about it when we were going through second reading. He talked about how comfortable it was, how he was happy. He didn’t talk about the water in a cat dish freezing over because he couldn’t keep the heat up in the winter. He didn’t talk about the end of civilization or his teeth chattering while he watched Netflix on a Saturday night. No. The heat pump kept him warm. He wasn’t in downtown Toronto. Belleville is still on the shores of Lake Ontario, but it’s a bit cooler than down here.

Ending the subsidy would be a win for customers who otherwise get charged that amount. It would be a win for new home owners, who’d get a far more cost-effective heating and cooling system. And it would be a win for the environment—I’ll detail that later. It would lower energy bills for existing customers, something I think is wildly popular, lower energy bills for new home owners because they’d be getting a less expensive system, and it would lower carbon emissions. And it would avoid costs further down the road when people move away from natural gas.

But there is a loser in the OEB decision, and the government picked it up within seconds; probably on their phones to the loser saying, “Enbridge, you’re going to lose money here.” Well, maybe it was the other way around. Enbridge may have phoned them and said, “Hey, we’re going to lose money here. Jump to it.”

Enbridge can afford, frankly, to finance any expansion they want. They don’t need to use the customers as an ATM. Many tenants and homeowners, by the way, are going to have a tough time dealing with those bills. So our task, I believe, is to protect those tenants, those homeowners, and not protect these multi-billion-dollar multinational corporations. Well, well.

Now, the minister is trying to pass this legislation, the bill before us, to overturn that decision, the decision to protect customers. The government has decided to stand with Enbridge and its lobbyists, using the argument that change will reduce housing supply and affordability.

But developers can just forgo gas and install heat pumps instead. If they have a customer who really wants gas, they can do that, but everyone gets an electrical connection in any event. You’re not building new subdivisions without electrical connections, frankly. And if you’ve got an electrical connection, you can put in a heat pump.

So why wouldn’t one take the opportunity to install an electric heat pump and forgo the extra cost of putting in gas? And even if you didn’t want to go there, why do people around this province have to subsidize this? Why do people in Sudbury or London or Kingston or Thunder Bay have to pay more to subsidize a multi-billion-dollar corporation?

You don’t have to take my word for any of this. Ian Mondrow is a partner with the law firm Gowling WLG, practising in the area of energy regulation policy. He wrote an op-ed that was published in the Globe and Mail. He can see that leaving the regulator’s decision in place would protect current gas customers and new homeowners. Now, Gowling is not an environmental group. They’re a pretty straightforward corporate Bay Street law firm, and they understand the economics of this whole system. I’m going to quote the op-ed from the lawyer who specializes in energy regulation policy:

“While including gas connection costs to developers up front would marginally increase the cost of a new house, an offsetting rate credit recognizing the upfront payment would lower ongoing gas rates, resulting in a wash for homebuyers. The other choice would be to forgo gas servicing in favour of electric heat pumps, thus lowering the operating costs of the house—a win for homebuyers.”

The member from Perth–Wellington, back when we were talking at second reading, was talking about new home buyers. Well, we’ve got someone who specializes in energy policy saying this would be better for new home buyers.

“Either choice would reduce Enbridge capital costs, and potential stranded assets, in the range of $1 billion over the proposed five-year gas rate plan period, significantly reducing delivery rates and customer risk.”

Two associate professors, Brandon Schaufele and Adam Fremeth of the Ivey Business School, wrote a post about this as well: “The government’s decision to override the OEB should have virtually no effect on affordable housing in the province.” So the government’s whole argument that their bill is one that will keep the cost of housing down does not bear scrutiny from academics who work in this field.

If this bill passes, it’s not going make housing any cheaper. It’s not going to be to the advantage of homebuyers. In other words, the government’s actions will make you, Enbridge customers, pay more and will not help those new home buyers. But it will mean higher rates for your gas bills. The Premier is going to raise your gas bill. Don’t be confused. Be very clear and plain about this. The Premier is going to raise your gas bill.

Now, gas is no longer the cheapest heating source. Investing in new gas pipelines for heating is financially foolish because they will become obsolete and a massive cost to all current and future customers as we stop burning gas to heat our homes and other buildings.

Even the minister was talking about the electrification of home heating. He knows it’s coming; in fact, his whole plan for providing electricity to Ontario is based on the idea of a massive increase in electricity demand for home heating. He knows that the demand for gas is going to fade dramatically, or at least he’s willing to bet several billion dollars on that analysis.

So you’ve got the minister saying, “I need to spend billions of dollars on new generation for home heating,” and at the same time saying, “No, no, I’ve got to protect the gas utility.” Well, the reality is, you’re moving from one technology to another. What his plan means is that over the next few decades, fewer and fewer people will be burning gas, and the people who leave the system will not have to carry the burden of the cost of those pipes that are in the ground, but the ones who stay will be stuck with it.

There are cheaper alternatives to what has been before us. The OEB recognized that. Like rotary-dial phones, like Blockbuster Video, natural gas furnaces are coming to the end of their time—not tomorrow, not in 2025. But over the next 20 years, cheaper alternatives such as home heat pumps are undermining Enbridge’s market for home heating.

Even the parliamentary assistant, in his comments on third reading the other day, said the time for natural gas, in the near term, the middle term—yes, in the next 10 years, the next 20 years, it will probably be around; the next 30 years, it won’t. I appreciate the comment from the parliamentary assistant on that.

So the minister said exactly that—we’re going to be electrifying our homes. He’s betting a lot of money on that.

The OEB ruled that Enbridge can’t spread the cost of hooking up new homes over decades or charge it to current gas customers like you, like the people who are watching this, because those who are Enbridge customers are going to be stuck with a bill that’s going to be pretty significant. But that’s what the Premier wants to do—he wants to raise your gas bills. He will increase your gas bill. The OEB said that Enbridge or new home developers could take the risk if they want, but not new home buyers or current Enbridge customers. They recognize this would likely mean many more people installing cheaper heat pumps to provide heating.

As I’ve said before, the minister has an electric heat pump; he has got an electric resistance coil to back it up. And as I said before, the bowl of water for the cat has not frozen in the kitchen. He’s still alive. There are many debates, but he’s still there. So, apparently, an electric heat pump does work outside of downtown Toronto.

I’m going to go back to Ian Mondrow, the lawyer working for Gowling, about the question of how we can actually deal with the issues before us, because passing legislation to reinstate a subsidy that’s completely out of step and that risks financial disaster down the road doesn’t make sense.

The minister, in his statement in December and his speech at second reading, said the decision of the OEB would increase the cost of energy, increase the cost of a new home. The facts do not support that claim. When you look for those facts, when you round them up, when you put them together and you compare them to the minister’s statement, they are not related; they are not even distant cousins. There is no blood relation between the facts and the minister’s statement; it’s just not there.

I’m going to go back to the energy regulator lawyer from Gowling, Ian Mondrow, who had this to say about the claim by the minister—he writes in a more formal style than me, but I think he’s quite good:

“Early the following day after the release of the OEB decision, Ontario’s Minister of Energy released a statement expressing that he was ‘extremely disappointed’ with the OEB’s decision.... The minister asserted that the OEB’s determination on this point ... ‘could lead to tens of thousands of dollars added to the cost of building new homes, and ... would slow or halt the construction of new homes, including affordable housing.’”

Good God. That’s a scary thought. You’ve got to sober up when you hear that kind of statement.

Interestingly, the energy lawyer went on:

“If those facts were true”—and I like the way he slips in the “if”—“then the minister could well have a legitimate and immediate housing policy concern. The facts as determined in the OEB’s decision do not, however, support a ‘tens of thousands of dollars’ increase in home costs, and it does not appear that the decision will in fact ‘slow or halt the construction of new homes.’ The conclusions expressed in the minister’s statement”—and, frankly, his speech on the bill, according to the lawyer—“are inconsistent with the facts relied on, and determinations made, by the OEB’s three-member expert panel of commissioners as a result of the comprehensive hearing process undertaken.”

I want to say a few other things about the area of charges. I’m speaking to you gas customers who will get stuck with a higher bill if this legislation passes. One is that claim that gas heating is the cheapest option. Numerous studies now show that when you compare the combined costs of equipment and energy, heat pumps provide cheaper heating than gas heating. Just putting in a heat pump or putting in a furnace or an air conditioner, those capital costs and the cost over a lifetime—it’s cheaper to go with a heat pump. In fact, the minister referenced that in his speech, that Enbridge, which keeps spreading the claim about gas being cheaper, is now facing an investigation and hearing at the Competition Bureau for false advertising, for making that claim that gas is cheaper.

The National Observer reported on this case: “Enbridge has a new fight on its hands as Competition Bureau Canada officially launches an investigation against the gas giant over allegations the company is misleading customers about the role of gas in the energy transition.” I don’t think the Competition Bureau picks up frivolous cases. It will be interesting to see what their decision is. But on the face of it, there is enough credibility for the hearing to go forward. “Specifically, Enbridge has promoted new gas hook-ups as the cheapest way for Ontarians to heat homes, while branding natural gas as ‘low carbon’ and ‘clean energy.’” That’s being challenged by the environmental organization Environmental Defence.

National Observer reports: “‘Enbridge’s dishonest marketing is duping people into installing new gas hook-ups and spending thousands of dollars on new gas furnaces and other appliances, falsely claiming its cheaper than heating with electricity, which is just not true,’ said Environmental Defence programs director Keith Brooks in a statement. ‘It is good that the Competition Bureau has agreed to investigate Enbridge.’

“The ... complaint filed by Environmental Defence, Ontario Clean Air Alliance, the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment and a group of Ontario residents in September accuses Enbridge of falsely claiming gas is the most cost-effective way to heat homes. Enbridge has made this claim online and in communities pegged for expansion in an attempt to increase its customer base.”

Environmental Defence summarizes the situation this way: “Enbridge is misleading consumers into connecting to its gas system using false and misleading representations.... Enbridge is telling potential customers that gas is the most cost-effective way to heat their homes and suggesting”—and this I find totally entertaining—“that it is ‘clean energy’ and ‘low carbon.’ None of these representations are true.” That lack of honesty about what’s real and not real when it comes to home heating is something people should keep in mind.

But the other issue, and this is a big one because as the minister has said, we’re moving away from gas heating our homes—again, this government is committed to spending billions of dollars on new electricity generation to heat homes. If they’re doing that—if they are successful in their plans, there will not be a market for Enbridge. Those who are hooked up to the system will be stuck with the cost of a system that is increasingly expensive. We’ve had these transitions before. It’s not unique. It’s not novel.

If you look at the energy history of this province, you can see that at about 1958-59 TransCanada pipeline came from Alberta to Ontario with natural gas. This opened a whole new way to heat homes. It was cleaner. It was more convenient. It was probably cheaper than coal. From 1960 to 1970, the portion of homes that used coal for home heating went from 30% to 1%. Within a decade, 30% of Ontario homes no longer used what had been a very popular fuel.

So I want to note you can have a very rapid transition from one technology to another, frankly, with probably very little in the way of governments programs in that case. People looked at it and said, “Hey, handling coal is pretty dirty. We spend a lot of money on it. I put in gas. I just got a thermostat on the wall. I move it around when I want more heat. I don’t have to go in the basement and shovel coal into the furnace.”

I have to say, a reduction from 30% of homes being heated by coal in 1960 to 1% by 1970: These transitions happen, they happen rapidly and those who stay with the old technology get stuck with bills.

We’re facing a situation in Ontario now where, as we move away from gas home heating, something that the minister has said we’re doing because he has his own electrification plan for Ontario—people who stay out in the gas system, who get sold onto the gas system are going to be stuck with higher bills. The pipes that are put in the ground are going to be paid for by those who can’t afford to buy a new heating system, ones whose furnace is, say, eight years old. Those furnaces have a 15- or 20-year lifespan. If your furnace is eight years old, you’re not going to get rid of it and buy a new furnace. Mostly people can’t. They only buy when they have to—normally in January, when their furnace dies and they phone desperately to get a new one. They will be stuck with higher bills as the system becomes more and more expensive. It’s a risk for homeowners; it’s a risk for tenants. It’s a problem people are going to have to face in the future.

Frankly, continuing the subsidy from existing consumers—and remember, the Premier wants to raise your gas bill. He will drive up your gas bill. He will make you pay more so he can create deeper problems for you in the years to come.

Now, another reality that we need to face is the volatility of gas prices in this world. Quite a few people who are gas customers, about four million in Ontario, know that around 2022, the price of gas went up dramatically. What was happening in world events at the time? Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the disruption of the supply of natural gas to Western Europe, and frankly, with that disruption and the rocketing increase in the world price for gas, you had a situation where the world market was setting the price.

We in Ontario generally have paid a much lower price than people do on the world market, but you need to know that 60% of the gas that we burn in Ontario is imported from the United States. It used to come from western Canada, now mostly from the United States, and in the United States there are large numbers of liquefied natural gas export terminals that are shipping that gas out. In fact, recently, within the last few months, there was a pause put on a few of those liquefied natural gas terminals because industrial manufacturers in the United States were saying, “These exports are killing us. They’re killing us. You need to stop exporting all the gas because it’s changing our cost picture.”

Well, that’s right. The world price is a lot higher than we pay. The more you integrate into the gas system, the more you’re tied into a very volatile pricing framework, one that can give price shocks. And we’ve had them. I don’t know when we’ll have another spike or a price shock, but wars happen, disruptions of energy supplies happen, and people suffer as a result.

I need to emphasize something that I mentioned at the beginning. The OEB, the Ontario Energy Board, the regulator, didn’t say you can’t have a gas connection to a new house. They didn’t ban it; they don’t have the power. If Enbridge wanted to install new gas connections to new homes, they could do it with the capital that’s provided by their investors, and they could try and recover it over the next few decades. But actually, I don’t think they take that as a good bet. I think they realize that there’s a huge risk to putting that money down into expansion of the system, and instead of them putting their money on the table and watching the wheel spin, they’re putting the money of customers across this province on the table. No one knows what the outcome will be other than this: Gas will fade out over the next 20 to 30 years and the people who are last in the system will be paying a lot of money.

Speaker, there’s no doubt that high prices are the number one thing that we’re dealing with here. I would say that you go out there and people who are trying to make sure their rent is paid on the 1st or who have mortgage payments, who have to get groceries, are very focused on immediate costs, and I don’t blame them. But we need to keep in mind that there’s another reality, something that is coming at us, and that’s that the world is steadily getting hotter. Every year, we are seeing more extreme weather events, which is driving up the cost of insurance, which actually puts a burden on public treasuries. Because insurance doesn’t cover all those costs, it means that we’re going to be paying more through our taxes, either higher taxes or reduced services, to cover the damage from climate change.

In Ontario, the second-largest number in terms of greenhouse gas emissions is from heating buildings. So in order to actually meet any targets to stabilize the climate to avoid the worst of extreme weather, we actually have to move away from gas. It isn’t just that heat pumps are cheaper, which they are; that they have a future, which they do, but also that we need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions to stabilize our climate so that we do have a future, so that our children have a future.

There are places now where the impact of climate is having a very direct impact. Sorry, impact—

Interjections.

I apologize to the member. There are conversations taking place and they’re disrupting the member who is speaking. If you could please keep your conversations a little bit lower. Thank you.

I apologize. The member can continue.

I apologize. The member from Toronto–Danforth can continue.

I listened with great interest to the critic from the opposition, as I always do. And he said a couple of things that—one, I want to take exception to. He talked about people who were accountable, that the government essentially said that we are not accountable. Well, is there anybody more accountable than those that go to the polls every four years—in fact, like we did in Milton this past week? The government is accountable; it’s called an election.

The member also said something about, “The government doesn’t like to answer questions.” Well, I’d like to ask him a question. Maybe he can do it the way that he says the government doesn’t do. Is it not in fact that the way that this legislation would put back into place the same system that we’ve had for decades, ensuring that natural gas distribution as it is built is spread across the distribution network, the customer network, so that no one is left with a bill that is exceeding what they can afford—it’s spread across the gas network, the same way it’s been for decades: Yes, or no?

But I want to ask you a little bit about rural Ontario, because you’re talking about—you were saying marginally increasing the cost of housing, if we come back with this system that’s been in place for decades. But I come from rural Ontario; you don’t. And I know what it costs, and we’re hoping to get natural gas moved into many of our rural communities. People are begging for it. Farmers are begging for it.

So do you believe that it’s fair, then, that the cost of a new home in a riding like mine, in Renfrew–Nipissing–Pembroke, should go up by tens of thousands of dollars for that person, just because they have to absorb all of the costs of bringing natural gas to that home when the distribution gets there? Are you saying that, in rural Ontario, you’ve got to pay the full cost, where all over—the last 30 years or more—it’s been shared by everyone?

It’s now time for questions.

I actually appreciate the question.

The decision to charge customers is based on the idea that the lines will be in the ground for 40 years, but they won’t be. We’re talking about a system that will not be functioning in 40 years. It cannot; not only because, technologically, gas furnaces are expensive compared to heat pumps—so, again, like rotary dial phones or Blockbuster Video, they are on their way out. That ain’t going to be here. The assumption that the vast bulk of customers will be repaid over 40 years is no longer true.

And in fact, Enbridge’s own consultants, in their presentation to the OEB, said that Enbridge was in the situation where they were headed towards going down, because people were going to abandon the system. There won’t be customers to pay in the future. Forty years ago, it was true; they were going to pay. It isn’t going to be true in the future.

Yes, we are seeing history repeat itself. The Liberals had a different technique. They would define where the OEB could make a ruling and then they would make their decision in another space, and it was always quite something amazing to watch, that major decisions were shifted out of the OEB, into ministerial area of discretion. But what’s happened here is they’re not even doing that, they’re just saying, “The minister can overrule. The minister can make these decisions. That’s the simple reality.” It’s even less of a regulator than it was in the past.

And you’re quite correct: If energy companies get the chance to write their own cheques on your bank account, man, they’re going to write a lot of cheques. That’s where we’re headed. That’s what this is all about.

But I’ll say the other thing: I don’t think that, in the future, this is going to be very different between rural and urban Ontario because both jurisdictions will be moving away from gas. There is no good financial reason to go to gas at this point. There is no good financial reason.

In fact, when you look at the studies done by the federal government, it is more expensive to go to gas than it is to go to a heat pump. That’s the simple reality. It was cheaper in Montreal to operate home heating and cooling on a heat pump than it was with gas. Montreal is not a hot place.

I first want to thank my colleague from Toronto–Danforth for his presentation—I would say, an hour of good, solid argument as to why this legislation should not move forward, and if the government wanted to do the responsible thing for Ontarians, they should not proceed with this bill.

The member reminded the House that when the Liberals were in power, the Conservatives criticized the politicization of electricity planning and the Liberal disregard for evidence and professional, independent analysis. The Liberal government directed IESO to write blank cheques for new gas plants and sign hundreds of overpriced, private contracts with no OEB hearing to find out if these were a good deal for consumers, and what happened? Hydro bills skyrocketed.

So my question to the member is, are we seeing history repeat itself, and what is going to happen to consumers with this legislation moving forward?

Further questions?

Thank you to my colleague and neighbour in the east end of Toronto. That was a fantastic, informative speech.

My question to you is, since the Minister of Energy actually has a heat pump—which is a huge revelation to me. Like, wow, wonder of all wonders, he actually believes in it. He must believe in climate change and climate action to do that. Would you like a tour of his house and a field trip there with me some time, if he would invite us?

Well, that would be the non-Orwellian title for it, but unfortunately, some cousin of George Orwell works for the minister and was delegated the task of writing this bill and decided to go the opposite way. I agree with you that this bill is the “more expensive energy act” and “Christmas for Enbridge shareholders act, 2024,” and should be recognized as such.

This bill is not meant to protect customers. This bill is not meant to keep energy costs down. This is meant to keep people’s disposable income down. It’s meant to keep investor profits up. But it’s not going to be helping people, not a bit.

But I can’t say I think that the minister believes in climate change, because if he did, he’d be acting in a very different way. He wouldn’t be expanding the gas-fired generation fleet in Ontario, because frankly, he’s undermining our climate goals, but he’s also undermining the clean interests of this province in having an electricity system that doesn’t belch out a lot more greenhouse gases.

I suspect, my colleague from Beaches–East York, that we’d have a lot of fun. The minister was pretty clear; he said he loved his heat pump, that he didn’t have any troubles when it got really cold. The resistance heater came on board. He didn’t have propane backup. He didn’t have gas backup. I think that other people in Ontario should have the same opportunity as the minister has.

As the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Energy, it is my pleasure to rise this afternoon to speak on the third reading of Bill 165, Keeping Energy Costs Down Act, introduced by the Minister of Energy.

Speaker, as the minister said, the changes proposed in Bill 165 will help to protect Ontario’s energy consumers and get housing and energy infrastructure built faster, while ensuring that families and businesses continue to have access to energy that is reliable and affordable, now and in the future. I’m proud of the work that the minister and our government are doing on a pragmatic approach to energy policy that provides customer choice and is also one of the cleanest in the world.

Speaker, just last week, I was proud to represent the minister at the Niagara Parks Power Station to celebrate 100 years of hydroelectric power in Niagara Falls with our friends from Hatch, a global engineering firm based in Mississauga–Lakeshore; Niagara Falls mayor Jim Diodati; and the Niagara Parks Commission CEO David Adames.

We’re extending the life of these stations by at least another 30 years, providing up to 1,700 megawatts of clean, reliable hydro power with a billion-dollar refurbishment plan to help Ontario meet our growing energy needs and to ensure we have the power we need for the homes we’re building.

For the next major international investment: Thanks to all the work our government has done to attract investments, Ontario is quickly becoming a leader in electric vehicles and battery manufacturing and green steelmaking, with over $43 billion in investments from global automakers like Stellantis, Volkswagen and Umicore, and just two weeks ago, another $15 billion from Honda, the largest auto sector investment in the history of Canada.

The investments don’t stop there. We’re also attracting massive investments in advanced manufacturing, life sciences and more. In fact, last September, in my own riding of Mississauga–Lakeshore, the member of Oakville North–Burlington and I were proud to welcome a $6.5-million investment by Eurofins, a global leader in bioanalysis, in a new lab that will support groundbreaking research while creating new well-paying jobs in Mississauga.

Across the province, we have been able to attract over $3 billion of investment in the life sciences sector in the last three years alone.

Since 2018, Ontario has added over 725,000 new jobs—more new manufacturing jobs last year than all 50 US states combined. That’s one reason why we’re seeing manufacturing move to electrify their systems, which will reduce emissions even further.

Adding to that, Speaker, Ontario’s population is growing faster, by over half a million people last year, and we’re on track for at least another half a million in 2024. That’s more growth than any US state, including the fastest-growing states of Florida and Texas.

All this means that, for the first time since 2005—20 years ago—Ontario’s electricity demand is rising. The Independent Electricity System Operator reports that electricity demand in the province could more than double by 2050. That means that our entire current supply, including all our nuclear and hydroelectric capacity, would need to double to meet this expanded demand. Clearly, it is critical that we start now to build new capacity to support all the new infrastructure and homes that Ontario will need, including the 1.5 million new homes to keep up with our growing population.

In my own community, we’re adding whole new communities along the Mississauga waterfront, including the site of the old Lakeview coal-fired generation plant. They will be homes for tens of thousands of people, including thousands of affordable homes. I know that the Liberal leader, Bonnie Crombie, is still livid about this, as she wanted to cut the number of affordable homes in half, but our government is moving forward on this.

Many of these new homes and businesses will require heating, and my constituents should have every choice available to them. With Bill 165, our government is ensuring that we hear from everyone to help guarantee that the right regulations are put into place.

As the minister said, the OEB made a decision last December that affects families and businesses without consulting the major players and stakeholders that understand this sector best, and without consulting the IESO about the impact this decision could have on Ontario’s electricity grid.

The minister has proposed amendments to the Ontario Energy Board Act in Bill 165 that would help to ensure that this never happens again. I want to take a moment now to echo the minister’s concerns about what commissioner Allison Duff had to say in her opinion. Given its importance, I’d like to read from here.

She wrote, “I do not support a zero-year revenue horizon for assessing the economics of small volume gas expansion” consumers. “The ... comparison table filed by Enbridge Gas did not even consider zero within the range of revenue horizon options.” As she wrote, “Zero is not a horizon. It is fundamentally inconsistent with the intent of E.B.O. 188 by requiring 100% of connection costs upfront..., rather than a contribution in aid of construction. There was no mention of zero in E.B.O. 188,” although “a 20 to 30 year revenue horizon was considered. To me, the risk of unintended consequences to Enbridge Gas, its” consumers “and other stakeholders increases given the magnitude of this ... change.

The commissioner also asked, if we switched completely to all-electric development, would electricity generation, transmission, distributors and the IESO be able to meet Ontario’s energy demand by 2025? And, Speaker, she didn’t know. Obviously I share the minister’s concerns about this, and I think that everyone in this chamber should be worried when the commissioner says she didn’t have the evidence she needed to reach a decision, let alone such a major change for a 40-year revenue horizon set in 1998 to a zero-year revenue horizon in less than a year. To be frank, Speaker, as the minister said, the OEB went outside of their lane when they made this decision.

Back in December, when the minister said the government would bring forward legislation to fix this change, we all understood how critical this legislation would be. The change that we’re proposing now in Bill 165 would ensure that major OEB decisions, with far-reaching implications like this one, don’t happen again without the appropriate stakeholder consultations. These changes, if passed, would allow for the broader stakeholder participation in all major OEB hearings.

Speaker, our government is working hard to ensure that the voices of Ontarians are heard, and it was sad to see that the voices that matter most were not even acknowledged here. To ensure that future OEB decisions reflect and support the priorities of the people of Ontario, the amendments in Bill 165 would require the OEB to provide opportunities for the organizations and individuals that are affected most to participate in the proceedings. As well, these changes would provide the government, through the Ministry of Energy, with the authority to ask for a hearing on any matter of public interest that could arise during an OEB proceeding. This would ensure that the voice of Ontarians are heard on matters that will affect their families, businesses and communities.

Speaker, it is also important to note that if the amendments in Bill 165 are passed, our government may propose regulations related to specific stakeholders or economic sectors, such as housing, transit, low-income Ontario construction and government agencies, for which the OEB should have a process in place to ensure that the stakeholders are aware of the proceedings that may significantly impact them and also that they invite the participants in the OEB proceedings and other consultations.

Speaker, I know that better public and stakeholder input into OEB decisions will be a key mandate of the new OEB chair, who the minister will appoint in the near future, and I understand that there will be some clearly defined expectations about how the OEB and their new chair should conduct themselves in a number of areas. As I said, this includes improving OEB hearings to allow for broader stakeholder participation in OEB proceedings and more stakeholder input to the OEB in general, especially related to natural gas and electricity.

Speaker, the chair of the board of directors will continue to be accountable to the Minister of Energy for the effective delivery of the OEB mandate and to ensure that independence of the decision-making by the commissioner and others that carry out the work of the OEB.

Speaker, at this point, I would like to refer to a column written by Aleck Dadson, the former chief operating officer of the Ontario Energy Board, and Ed Waitzer, the former chair of the Ontario Securities Commission, who shared their frustration with the OEB decision.

They wrote, “In our view,” the OEB “should focus on deciding specific matters in a transparent, fair and non-partisan manner. They should do so by applying a legal and regulatory framework to findings based on evidence and arguments presented.... And they should avoid trying to resolve complex policy issues, in which any decision will affect unrepresented stakeholders and other areas of concern. In short,” the OEB panel “shouldn’t stray.”

Speaker, even the former COO of the Ontario Energy Board understands how important it is for the stakeholders to be involved in this process. Our government also understands the importance of cutting red tape and reducing costs to help get shovels in the ground faster, which is exactly what Bill 165 will help do, as we all recognize Ontario is in the middle of a housing crisis, but unfortunately, it seems that the OEB did not even take this into consideration when making this decision, and would force new families to pay higher upfront costs when buying a new home.

That’s why I was very happy to hear from the Ontario Home Builders’ Association, which thanks our government for introducing Bill 165. They wrote that they applaud the “government for introducing legislation to revoke the Ontario Energy Board’s December 21, 2023, decision. Securing energy choices for Ontario’s communities is vital to support economic development, energy access and reliability while we take a measured step toward energy transition.”

As well, the Ontario Real Estate Association also reached out to tell us how much this high, upfront cost would hurt Ontarians. Their CEO, Tim Hudak, said, “If we want to create more Canadian homeowners, we should not whack them with this massive upfront bill for infrastructure that will last for generations.”

And he doesn’t stop there. He goes on to explain how big an overstep this was: “This head-scratching overstep by the OEB will push affordability further out of reach for Ontarians, and put provincial and municipal housing targets at risk. Such one-size-fits-all policies will be particularly harmful to Ontario’s smaller and northern communities, where energy infrastructure is not well-developed.”

Catherine Swift, the president of the Coalition of Concerned Manufacturers and Businesses of Canada said this decision would have the effect of discouraging badly needed new home construction, especially regarding affordable housing.

The Ontario Federation of Agriculture had similar feedback. They said, “We are supportive of this decisive action taken by the Minister of Energy to address the OEB decision, which threatens to increase costs for new homes relying on natural gas for heating, jeopardizing housing affordability and future access to natural gas. This decision also challenges Ontario’s efforts and current policy to bring reliable and affordable natural gas to Ontarians across the province, which has been an investment priority for agriculture and for rural communities.”

They continue: “The OEB decision has the potential to stifle the growth of the industrial sector, leading to higher costs for manufacturing, agriculture and consumer goods.” They wrote, and I agree, that our priority needs to be on providing infrastructure to support the growing province while minimizing unnecessary financial burdens on residents and businesses.

And again, our government did not make this decision lightly, but it is critical that we support fair and inclusive decision-making at the OEB. My constituency office in Mississauga hears daily about the housing affordability issues we’re having, not just in Ontario, but across Canada. And I know that most members are hearing the same thing in their offices. Unlike the queen of the carbon tax, Bonnie Crombie, and some in the opposition, our government takes these issues very seriously. Our new members from Milton and Lambton–Kent–Middlesex take these issues very seriously as well.

In addition to saving new home buyers money and creating more opportunities for economic development, the changes in Bill 165 will help to ensure that the province can continue to attract critical investments in the auto sector, life sciences, technology and much more. Through Bill 165, our government is seeking to do what we always do: to grow Ontario’s economy, cut red tape and get shovels in the ground to build the homes and infrastructure we need, while also ensuring the Ontario continues to be a place where the people’s voices are heard on the issues that matter most to them.

Speaker, access to affordable and reliable energy is critical to our province’s growth, and the changes that we’re proposing in Bill 165 will help to preserve customer energy choices and to ensure that all voices are heard when the OEB makes any major decision. In fact, Bill 165 would improve the OEB and ensure its decisions are based on feedback from the entire sector and consistent with government policy to protect ratepayers.

Ontario is in an excellent position. We have one of the cleanest electricity systems in the entire world, and we have been able to attract tens of billions of dollars of investment from companies who want to do business here in Ontario. And I want to thank the Minister of Economic Development for all the businesses that he’s been able to bring into the province of Ontario: $43 billion of automotive investment to build the cars of the future right here in Ontario, for the world. This has never happened with any other government in the history of Ontario, so I want to thank the minister and the Premier for being able to attract all these companies here to Ontario. At the same time, our growing knowledge in nuclear technology is creating new opportunities for our province and for Canada.

The future for Ontario is bright, but we need to make the right decisions today to ensure that we continue to have access to affordable, reliable and clean energy tomorrow. I know Bill 165 an important step towards this brighter future, and I want to urge all members to make the right decision and support this bill.

I want to thank you, Madam Speaker, for this opportunity here today to speak on Bill 165.

I would like to thank my colleague from Toronto–Danforth for a very interesting one-hour debate on this bill. It’s becoming more and more obvious that all that the bill does is it gives this government the power to force gas consumers to pay costs that the Ontario Energy Board believes they should not have to pay. The Ontario Energy Board is a consumer protection board. It exists to protect the consumer from being gouged by any kind of company, be it natural gas—so why, with this bill, does the government give itself the power to do this? I feel like the title of the bill should be “pushing energy costs up act”—not down. What do you think?

I thank the member from Mississauga–Lakeshore for his presentation. I will ask a question similar to the question I asked my colleague from Toronto–Danforth.

When the Liberals were in power, the Conservatives used to criticize their politicization of electricity planning, and the Liberals’ disregard for evidence and professional, independent analysis. The Liberals directed the IESO to write blank cheques, renew gas plants and sign hundreds of overpriced private contracts, with no OEB hearing to find out if these were a good deal for consumers, and hydro bills skyrocketed.

So my question to the member is: Why is your government doing exactly the same thing with natural gas systems and driving energy costs up?

It’s now time for questions.

I want to thank the member for that question. As you know, there are stakeholders that agree with Bill 165, because at the end of the day, we have to make homes much cheaper in the province of Ontario—when it would cost an individual house $4,400 here in Mississauga or in Toronto, or $8,000 to $10,000 to hook up gas in northern Ontario.

I know that we are going to transition to electric moving forward, but at this time, we still need natural gas because if everybody today were driving an electric car, with the investments that we are attracting here to the province of Ontario, we would have blackouts here in the province of Ontario. We have to have a combination of natural gas and electricity to move forward in this province and create the jobs that we are attracting here in Ontario for the future.

With all the investment that the Minister of Economic Development is bringing to Ontario—$43 billion of automotive investment with electric vehicles—we are going to need electricity, and right now, if we just kept the electricity that we do have in the system, we would not be able to end up driving electric cars.

So this is what this will do moving forward. This will help us to stabilize the system as we’re moving forward to the next 20 to 30 years down the road. I wish we could get rid of natural gas by 2030, but that will be impossible with what is going on right now across Canada and across Ontario.

We need our nuclear fleet to help, as well as using natural gas to heat our homes at this present time, but we have to do it to combine this together, to move forward as we do move off natural gas moving forward.

I still have a natural gas furnace. I have a natural gas water heater. I have a natural gas barbecue and a natural gas fireplace, and I know that moving forward, we are going to be moving off all this—and a natural gas stove, too, in the kitchen; I forgot about that one. I know, moving forward, we are going to be changing that, but right now is not the time to put this extra cost on the consumers and the new homes that we’re building in a housing crisis that we are having right now in the province of Ontario. This will only cost people more money at the present time, so Bill 165—