My question is to the member from Beaches–East York. When the Liberals were in power, they politicized electricity planning. Liberals disregarded evidence. Liberals disregarded professional independent analysis. The Liberals directed the IESO to write blank cheques for new gas plants and signed hundreds of overpriced private contracts with no OEB hearings to find out if these were a good deal for consumers. As a result, hydro bills skyrocketed. We all remember also the gas plant scandal where hard drives were damaged and deleted and a staffer went to jail, Speaker.

My question to the member is, what lessons did your party learn that you can share with the Conservatives so they can avoid making the same mistakes?

Point of order.

I thank the member from Kingston and the Islands for that amazing lesson in physics. You are an incredible resource here in the chamber.

So here we go again, debating more policy that is going to help accelerate the climate crisis and cost Ontarians even more.

Bill 165, Keeping Energy Costs Down Act, 2024: Honestly, I just love the branding of these bills by the government. The titles are actually the complete opposite of what they do. It’s like developers, when they build sprawl, and they name the new areas after the things they destroy, like Heron Gate or Eagle Ridge.

The truth is, this bill seeks to undermine the authority of an independent energy watchdog. Let’s just think about it: It seeks to undermine the authority of an independent energy watchdog, and as is routine for this government, they prioritize corporate interests over the well-being of Ontarians.

The Ontario Energy Board, an independent arm’s-length regulator mandated to protect the interests of energy customers, released a landmark decision telling Enbridge to stop subsidizing its plans to expand infrastructure for methane-heavy natural gas by charging buyers of new homes for connections. I agree with this decision. It should have been done and dusted after the board so bravely made this choice.

Let me tell you what I think happened here. Their buddies, the government’s buddies in the greenhouse gas industry, got so mad that the government had to do something to stop the legitimate decision by the OEB, so they had to legislate it because, well, they knew they could not win a legal appeal on this.

The Ontario Energy Board came to this decision to help builders make informed choices when building new homes. The problem for this government is that if people have the option and information to make an informed choice, well, maybe many people won’t choose gas, and they can’t have that, because they have too many people in the greenhouse gas industry counting on them to keep them rich.

The government has justified Bill 165 based on the cost of the OEB decision—

Interjections.

So, the government has justified Bill 165 based on the cost of the OEB decision, but the ruling would actually not have had a substantial impact on housing prices. In the long run, its influence on energy prices would be determined by the energy source a home used, a choice that will increasingly shift as renewables gain recognition as an affordable energy option. As gas becomes less competitive, homeowners with gas hookups may switch to other energy sources, leaving the gas infrastructure as a costly stranded asset that would be a burden on homeowners who are still hooked up, a point that was emphasized by the OEB.

The legislation also sets a dangerous precedent. This is the first time any government of Ontario has overruled a decision by the independent OEB. These independent watchdogs that we are lucky to have should be non-partisan entities that look out for the needs of Ontarians.

The board’s mandate is to keep energy costs down, and that’s what drove this decision. This government is not looking out for the needs of regular Ontarians who are trying to save money on their energy bills. You can listen to them rant and rave and waste all their time talking about federal issues, but when there is an actual opportunity to make life more affordable for the people of Ontario, they intervene and make sure that, as always, their friends and wealthy insiders are taken care of.

I recognize the member for Beaches–East York.

I recognize the member for Peterborough–Kawartha.

I recognize the Solicitor General.

I recognize the member for Peterborough–Kawartha.

My question is quite simple. The bill is called the Keeping Energy Costs Down Act, yet we saw that this bill would allow the government to basically approve gas pipeline projects that the Ontario Energy Board has reviewed and believe that it is not economically viable, it is too expensive and not in the public’s best interest to do so. So how can she reconcile the two?

We have the energy board telling us, “Don’t go ahead with those projects that are too expensive,” and yet we have a bill that’s called Keeping Energy Costs Down. Do you think there is a problem here?

Thank you to the member from Parkdale–High Park. As you know, I just came two years ago, so I will start from June 2, 2022.

As you know, with the climate emergency, we all need to work together and we need to stop being partisan. That’s what Ontarians are looking for. I hear it time and time again, whether everyone can just get behind good, strong, bold and brave climate action and work together.

I expect—because I know that that is part of the NDP, who believe in climate change and want to do that and believe in the climate emergency—that you would work alongside with us, with the Greens and, hopefully, with the Conservatives if they clue in that there’s actually a climate emergency. Thank you.

Farmers don’t know whether they’re coming or going with you. You’re selling their land. You’re expropriating it. You’re keeping it. You’re all for the farmers. They don’t know. There’s no certainty.

Developers—well, let’s see. We’re going to not have you pay development charges, then we’re going to have you pay them. Then we’re going to allow this and then we’re not going to allow this. And planners, you’re out of jobs in Ontario because we know best as this government. We’re just going to take over and scrap all the planning policies that are out there.

So there’s no certainty for Ontarians with this government. I would ask you to maybe walk the talk on your comments today.

And here’s the thing: Where is the supply chain? Have you secured the supply chain to extract these minerals in the Ring of Fire? Have you done that? No. Have you consulted or engaged with Indigenous communities? No. How are you doing this and—

Interjections.

If you are aware of the climate emergency, you know that technology needs to change, and it will change. We’re going to have extreme heat this summer, absolutely, in Ontario. We’ve had it in the past, but it will be worse this year. It will continue to be worse, and we’ve done nothing for it. The FAO has warned us about the high cost of inaction, and we’re doing nothing. It’s going to be more cost-prohibitive.

So Ontarians are doing their own thing. They’re getting heat pumps. They’re conserving energy. They’re doing it themselves in spite of the lack of leadership.

You know what? How can you stand here and say Ontario’s open for business when you cut 748 renewable energy contracts in 2018 when you arrived? Like, read the tea leaves and the rest of the world. You’re open for business, but you—

I’d like to ask my colleague from Beaches–East York how important, in her opinion, is certainty. Is certainty of knowing that by having the infrastructure in place—and we heard from the member from Renfrew–Nipissing–Pembroke about when you look at rural areas, people have a right to have a home. People have a right to be able to purchase a home, and we need certainty to do that.

I think what I really appreciate in Bill 165 is that by keeping energy costs down, with certainty, it allows us to take that step. How important is that in her opinion?

Thank you to the member from Beaches–East York for her presentation this afternoon.

Speaker, given the PCs’ past critiques of your government’s approach to electricity, which they compared to a soap opera for its dramatic politicization, how do the Liberals now view the current government’s similar strategy with Bill 165, which might lend to some lessons from previous missteps on electricity?

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’ve had the great pleasure of listening to some of the conversation. I’m actually going to follow up a little bit on what my colleague from Ottawa-Carleton—

Interjection.

I represent a riding that is larger than Prince Edward Island. We are slightly more than 3,400 square kilometres. We have approximately 170,000 people when you count some of the seasonal residents as well. Prince Edward Island is about 171,000 in about 3,200 square kilometres. So what I found really interesting about it was that during committee, the NDP kept bringing up Prince Edward Island as a prime example of it, not recognizing that sitting in committee there were three members on the Progressive Conservative side whose ridings were larger than Prince Edward Island.

I want to show some statistics because I do find it very rich that urban centres stand up and say, “This is what should happen in rural Ontario.” The member from Toronto–Danforth, who spent an hour talking about this—his riding is 29 square kilometres, 3,685 people per square kilometre. That is more people in one kilometre of Danforth than in the entire township of Trent Lakes, which I represent.

The member from Parkdale–High Park has a whopping 16 square kilometres, with 6,671 people per kilometre. The only municipality in my riding that is larger than that is the city of Peterborough. I have six municipalities and a First Nation, so the largest portion of my riding isn’t even as big as a square kilometre for people.

Beaches–East York: a whopping 19 square kilometres, with 5,061 people per square kilometre.

Kingston and the Islands: a little bit smaller, 665 square kilometres. Trent Lakes is 890 square kilometres. They have 3,000 people.

Peterborough itself: As I said, my riding is about 3,470 square kilometres. The centre of our riding is the city of Peterborough, with 85,000 people in it, and yet my riding only has 33 people per square kilometre. When I look at Trent Lakes, they have a whopping 3.2 people per square kilometre.

Now, why do I bring this up? I bring this up because everybody from the opposition who has been talking about this has natural gas available to them. They have inexpensive heating. What do we have in Trent Lakes? Oil furnaces, propane furnaces, wood pellet and a little bit of electric. Now, why is it only a little bit of electric? Because in 2003, Ontario had the lowest electric rates in North America; in 2018, after 15 years of Liberals, we had the highest electrical rates in North America, and people could not afford to heat their homes with electricity.

We’ve heard from the opposition many times saying we should go to heat pumps. Well, if the temperature consistently drops below minus 15 degrees Celsius, which would be my entire riding in most of the winter, an air-source heat pump doesn’t work for you. You just cannot get your home warm enough. A ground-source heat pump could, but here’s the problem that we experience in my part of the province, as well as 72% of the entire province, and that is that the Canadian Shield begins in my riding. It is extremely difficult to put a ground-source heat pump in granite. That is a challenge.

While the Ontario Energy Board makes hundreds of decisions a year and—and to their credit, almost all of them without issue—this one, this particular decision, did raise some concerns about the public engagement in the decision-making process. In fact, in the decision itself, one of the commissioners noted that this decision, which could have significant impacts on electricity demand, was reached without input from the province’s Independent Electricity System Operator.

So to the member of Beaches–East York: Do you agree that it’s concerning that members of the commission didn’t know the impacts of the decision before signing off on it, and do you agree that the changes we propose to increase public engagement is the right thing to do to ensure that the people of Ontario are heard on decisions that impact them?

You should try harder.

On farms.

I’m sure if you tried really hard and blasted a whole lot, you might be able to do it. But the reality is, heat pumps are not a viable option outside of the urban centres, who already have inexpensive ways of heating their home.

There has been a false narrative put forward that this is going to actually add costs to it. But since the late 1980s, we’ve had this system where the gas companies could amortize the price with a cost of that installation over 40 years, and what the OEB did was step outside of their bounds and enter into policy to make that decision. They said, “We don’t think that what’s been working for 40 years is what we should continue doing, and instead we’re going to change it so that you had to pay everything up front.”

The argument that they gave—and this is one of the interesting arguments that they gave—is they said that it would add about $4,400 to the cost of a new-build construction. But what they took was the example in the urban centres like Parkdale–High Park, Toronto–Danforth and Beaches–East York, where you have thousands of people per square kilometre.

We did the calculation on my house. I live in the rural part of the riding, just outside of the city of Peterborough. We do not have natural gas running down my street. If we had natural gas running down my street and I wanted to hook up to it, my driveway is almost a kilometre long. It would be $65,000 to run the pipe to my house. That does not become a viable option.

But I’m not alone in my riding in having that much of a distance to the road. There are a lot of places where you have a significant distance to the road—pretty much every single farm.

But it’s not just us who are saying that this was a bad decision by the OEB. Now, everybody who lives in Toronto has something in common with everybody who lives in rural Ontario: We all eat food. And where is that food produced?

So, let’s take the position, then, from the Ontario farmers’ association, the OFA. What was their position on this? “Rural Ontario needs access to natural gas infrastructure to provide reliable and affordable energy options for farms and rural businesses. The expansion of natural gas throughout rural Ontario is the single most important investment the Ontario government can make to support thriving” farms.

I would like to think that everyone who lives in Toronto would like to continue eating. And if they would like to continue eating, they need to recognize that farms in Ontario need to have access to inexpensive energy, so that we can actually dry the grains that they need to eat and all of the other products that come from it, because if you don’t—we are already seeing the cost of living increasing significantly. We’re already seeing the cost of groceries skyrocketing because of carbon tax. Now you want to add an additional expense to it.

What makes any of these individuals believe that by doing that, they’re actually supporting their constituents? Because they’re not. They’re making it more difficult for them to live. They’re making it more difficult and more expensive for them to go out and buy food. And I think every one of them would agree, all of their constituents need the food that’s produced in ridings like mine.

We do not have natural gas running throughout the entire riding. There is no possible way for us to have it, but we are doing that expansion. We’re expanding into Selwyn. We’re expanding into Douro-Dummer. We’re expanding into Havelock. These are all small communities. And we need to, because despite what the opposition is saying, that is reducing greenhouse gas emissions, because they’re getting off oil.

Point of order.

Third reading debate deemed adjourned.

Report continues in volume B.

Point of order.

I apologize to my colleague for interrupting for that reason.