Thank you to the member from Newmarket–Aurora. Since 2018, we have averaged 20,000 starts more than the last 10 years of the former Liberal government. We know, though, there is so much more to do. That is why we introduced Bill 185, Cutting Red Tape to Build More Homes Act. That is why we reduced the HST on purpose-built rentals. That is why we’ve seen a 27% increase year over year, 2022-23. And that is why we’ve seen more housing starts in the last three years than since the 1980s.

Building a house is an expensive proposition. What is the number one component today that is punitively hurting the building of those homes? The carbon tax. In the articulate words of the Minister of Energy, I ask the members opposite to talk to their friends in Ottawa and scrap the tax.

In fact, there was an 1,100-unit housing unit that was proposed to be built. They wanted density, they wanted height, but it interfered with the mayor’s thoughts. She didn’t want her local bakery to be disturbed. So what happened? We don’t have these houses because of height and cookies and cake. It’s sad. Shadows, cookies and cake are why we don’t build houses in Mississauga—shameful.

Speaker, here’s the difference: We’re getting the job done for Ontarians. Think of what those 1,100 units would cost today with the added carbon tax. It’s terrible. Everything about housing is touched by the carbon tax. Scrap the tax.

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—