Thanks to our amazing member from Milton. It’s great to be able to take on this question, especially in the moments after the last question from the Liberal member over there.

Now, I know a leopard can’t change their spots and neither can a Liberal. The Liberals love to tax. Bonnie Crombie, the queen of the carbon tax, is happy to support Justin Trudeau’s federal carbon tax, which is driving up the price for everyone and every business in Ontario. Anybody who gets anything trucked to them is paying more because of Justin Trudeau and Bonnie Crombie’s carbon tax.

We’re not in favour of a carbon tax. We’ve lowered taxes. We’ve lowered fees. We’ve cut red tape. As a result, our economy is thriving with multi-billion-dollar investments from Windsor to Umicore in Loyalist township and into the north. And we’re not done yet.

A day of firsts here—congratulations to the member from Milton on his first question in question period.

Again, I want to congratulate my good friend from Kiiwetinoong, as well, for his words this morning in Oji-Cree. To me, he’s known as “kitchi-animohsh”—if the interpreter is still there. That means “the big dog.” We love the member from Kiiwetinoong.

Speaker, we can do this. We can have the energy that we need in our province for our growing economy without having this punitive tax that the member for Milton is talking about. And we’re actually doing it.

There are a lot of firsts in this province. We’re building the first new nuclear small modular reactor at Darlington right now. We’re building the first large nuclear in the province in over 30 years. That’s going to be happening out at Bruce. We’re building a beautiful transmission line. Wataynikaneyap Power is here. We see the wonderful people—Margaret is here from Watay Power, and I’m going to talk a little bit more about some of the things we’re doing in northern Ontario in my—

One of my favourite events since becoming the Minister of Energy was with the member from Kiiwetinoong and the folks from Wataynikaneyap Power in northwestern Ontario and Kezia, actually, in her home community of Kingfisher Lake First Nation, when I was there with the member and we linked that community to our green, emissions-free electricity grid that we have in Ontario so they can prosper in places like Kingfisher Lake, North Caribou Lake First Nation, Wunnumin First Nation. I actually look forward to joining the folks from Watay next month when we celebrate the completion of that product, linking 16 First Nations communities to our clean provincial grid.

Those are just a couple of examples of how we can do this without—

Thanks to the member from Hamilton for her comments earlier, in her 20-minute speech.

We are very fortunate; we have one of the cleanest grids in the entire world here in Ontario.

I know that the NDP critic for energy is opposed to natural gas. He would like to rip out all the natural gas today. He’s also opposed to nuclear, which provides almost 60% of our electricity, and that’s emissions-free, baseload power that we keep investing in in the province.

Our goal at the Ministry of Energy is to ensure that we have affordable, reliable and clean energy production—and reliable is a big, big, big part of it, because if the lights go out, then there’s going to be chaos in our province.

Don’t you think—and this is to the member opposite—that it would have made sense for the Ontario Energy Board to have heard from the IESO at the hearings that would decide whether or not the next one and a half million homes we’re going to build in our province would all move to electric?

We acted quickly. Why? Because reliability of our electricity system in our province is paramount, and ensuring that we’re keeping new homes as affordable as possible is paramount. When you look at the fact that the IESO, the Independent Electricity System Operator, wasn’t asked for their opinion on whether or not we had the electricity in the province to continue to power the one and a half million new homes that are going to be built, that’s a big, big problem. The IESO was not called to testify at the hearings. And the OEB ruled, themselves, that it was going to cost about $5,000 more per home.

What I’d really like to know from the member opposite is, if she’s against natural gas and she’s against nuclear, how is she going to power our province?