It’s my pleasure to rise this afternoon to speak on my colleague from Oshawa’s motion before this House. I also obviously want to wish my colleague a happy birthday. I know we work well together on the procedure and house affairs committee and the important work we’re doing there.

I was listening to the debate intently this afternoon, colleagues, and hearing about the important investments our government is making in Ontario—increasing the power capacity, historic amounts of auto investments that Minister Fedeli and Premier Ford are attracting to this province. Our provincial government understands the opportunities this presents, and we’re going to unleash the next stage of the electrical vehicle revolution.

That’s why our government is implementing, as this House knows, our Powering Ontario’s Growth plan, with shovels in the ground today on new energy generation and storage that will power the switch of Ontario-made electric vehicles as well as new economic investment and new homes. That includes Canada’s first small modular nuclear reactor; the largest procurement of clean energy storage in the country’s history; and new transmissions that are going to connect every region of our province.

At the same time, we’re ensuring that our grid is ready for families and businesses to decide to make the switch. We also know this revolution brings with it unparalleled opportunities for our province’s economy.

Over the last four years, Ontario has attracted over $43 billion in transformative auto investments by global automakers and suppliers of EV batteries and battery materials.

Interjections.

Interjection.

My apologies, Speaker.

Ontario’s auto supply chain is comprised of over 70 parts firms, over 50 tool-and-die and mould makers and over 40 companies working on connected, autonomous, electric and mobile technologies. It employs approximately 120,000 people in the province of Ontario—as well as hundreds of thousands of indirect jobs, many in my own riding of Perth–Wellington. These are historic investments for our province.

It’s disappointing though, colleagues, that the members opposite, most recently in the investments we’re making in our budget around auto investment, giving our municipalities the tools to attract this investment—they voted against that, colleagues. And they voted against my motion, in particular, around our clean, green nuclear fleet. They voted against those good union jobs at Bruce Power, Darlington, and those historic investments we’re making to refurbish those facilities to continue to produce the electricity we will need to power those made-in-Ontario electric vehicles. It is disappointing that they voted against those investments.

But it’s thanks to our government’s actions that we are now a global leader when it comes to the manufacturing of electric vehicles. We know that in order to take full advantage of this coming change, we need to be ready. That’s why we’re increasing the number of public EV chargers, especially in underserved areas, including exploring reduced electricity rates for those chargers. As we heard, the member from Kitchener Centre appreciates our government’s action on lowering the overnight rate to charge her electric vehicle.

We’re building thousands of new EV chargers through the EV charge Ontario program, a $91-million investment to support public EV charger installations outside of Ontario’s large urban centres, including at community hubs, Ontario’s highway rest areas, the ONroutes, carpool lots, parking lots, Ontario parks, an arena down the road from my house in my riding. We are installing new EV fast chargers across all of Ontario’s ONroute stations along the 400- and 401-series highways with local utilities. They’re some of the biggest supporters of these programs—like Hydro One and OPG’s Ivy Charging Network.

When it comes to ensuring our homes are ready, last year the Ontario Energy Board issued new guidance to all local utility providers that makes clear that utilities should be providing all new residential customers with the capacity to accommodate 208-amp service, enough to power an EV vehicle that is currently available on the market.

Let’s talk about new homes. It’s no secret, colleagues, that Ontario is in a housing supply crisis. Recently, as members of the standing committee on infrastructure, cultural policy and heritage, we heard from a former Liberal cabinet minister, Steven Del Duca, now the mayor of Vaughan—we know the leading cause of this crisis was the inaction of the previous Liberal government, who for years failed to act to take any steps to address the lack of affordable housing in Ontario. While our government has taken historic steps to undo this damage—today we voted on Bill 185, another important step forward in that goal of building more homes across Ontario—one of the main obstacles facing home builders across the province of Ontario is the cost of housing. As we heard recently at committee from stakeholders, high interest rates—it was great to see the Bank of Canada finally begin to cut interest rates, as our Premier has been calling them, and many Premiers in Canada have been calling on that. High interest rates, high inflationary rates, high tax policies of the federal government—yes, including the federal Liberal carbon tax—are driving the costs up for our home builders across Ontario. These are the higher costs that are ultimately passed on to those potential homebuyers. Those new Ontarians, those new Canadians, those young people, and those seniors looking to downsize are the ones footing that bill.

Unfortunately, the proposal from my colleague, as presented today, would be another additional cost that would make it more unaffordable for families to purchase a new home. The NDP wants every homeowner to have to pay up front, whether they would use the service or not. Those of us on this side of the House believe in a free market approach. And they laugh, colleagues, but I will fight every election in my entire life on the free market, because I’m a believer in the free market and I will stand for that.

Any homeowner can make this choice, and I have friends who have made the choice to purchase an EV and install that, as well. I have friends who have purchased a home that may have it, as well. It’s their choice. We’ll continue to stand with the people of Ontario to allow them to make those choices, as well.

That is why our government is recommending that we do not support the opposition motion.