The member opposite just gave me a great reminder—and I want to also say happy birthday to the member’s niece.

I thought at this time I might as well say happy birthday to my mom, Lina. I won’t say how many years old she is, but she’s quite a young lady, and she’s a pretty awesome mom. I’ll make sure to get a copy of Hansard and send this to her, because she’ll probably be pretty excited about that. So, thank you, and thanks for the reminder.

I can see the minister is very angry, and there are a lot of reasons to be angry when you think about the Liberals, especially the federal Liberals. You know something I’m angry about, Speaker, and people of my community are equally angry about it, and it’s the federal carbon tax. It’s leading us to soaring fuel prices, making it unaffordable for everyone—tough to even drive a car. People have to think twice about driving a car in my riding now and ridings across northern Ontario.

It’s unfair to every driver in this province, especially those in the north who rely very heavily on their vehicles, just so that they can go to work every day, run errands, take their kids to soccer practice. All of these things are just too expensive because of the federal Liberals and their provincial counterparts who refuse to change this awful position on the carbon tax and are constantly hurting northern communities. We continue to take leadership on addressing affordability in this province to help the north get the help it deserves.

Can the Minister of Transportation please tell us how the carbon tax is hurting northern Ontario communities with this regressive, terrible—

It’s unacceptable. It’s breaking the backs of common, hard-working Ontarians, northern Ontarians. And the Liberals across the aisle, they just want to sit silent. I guess it’s because their leader is one of the only Liberals left in the entire country of Canada who will not speak out against this terrible carbon tax and the additional nearly triple—triple, again—they want to increase it.

Can the minister please explain to us how this negative tax is hurting the people of our province?

My question is for the Minister of Northern Development and Indigenous Affairs.

It’s no secret: The carbon tax is making everything more expensive for everyone, especially for the people who live in the communities throughout northern Ontario. These communities are already feeling the pressure at the gas pumps, where fuel costs are significantly higher, in comparison, than they are anywhere else in the entire province.

But the opposition NDP members and the independent Liberals continue to support the carbon tax. They continue to support carbon tax hikes. They actually agree with the federal Liberals’ plan to increase the carbon tax on gasoline seven more times before 2030.

The people of the north deserve better.

Can the minister please explain how the carbon tax negatively impacts individuals and families in northern Ontario, as well as Indigenous communities?

Speaker, it is absolutely shocking that the federal government continues to force this terrible tax on northern communities that are already paying more for fuel. It’s even more shocking that the members opposite who represent these northern communities continue to support the carbon tax.

Northern Ontario faces unique barriers when it comes to fuel costs, and these have to be considered before we impose these further taxes on them.

Clearly, the federal Liberals don’t care about the adverse effects of carbon tax on northern communities. They clearly don’t care about the northern communities at all.

I’m wondering if the minister could please elaborate a little bit more for us on how the carbon tax is negatively impacting not only the residents in all of the communities, but the businesses as well, throughout the region, in northern Ontario.

It’s with some excitement that I’m here this morning to provide some words of congratulations to our Sault Ste. Marie Sault College Cougars women’s hockey team who, on Saturday, March 16, won their second national title in consecutive years with a 3-0 victory over the Assiniboine Community College Cougars at the American Collegiate Hockey Association Women’s Division 2 national championship in St. Louis, Missouri.

During the championship game, Emma Lee paced the offence with two goals, with Materia Land adding an insurance marker in the third. The Cougars goalie, Farrah Farstad, stopped 22 shots for the shutout.

There is a history between the Cougar squads, as the Brandon-based Cougars team had handed Sault College their only loss this season in a 4-1 setback at the Northern Community Centre in Sault Ste. Marie on January 20, breaking the team’s one-and-a-half-year winning streak. That is correct; they had a one-and-a-half-year winning streak. The Brandon-based team did defeat them and break the winning streak, but ultimately, our Cougars still managed to come out on top in the finals and won their second national title.

The Cougars had gone 31-0-0 in winning their first ACHA title last season and started this season with 16 wins and a tie through 17 games, until that loss that I referenced. The Cougars went 3-0 in division pool D, with wins over Mercyhurst University, the United States Naval Academy and Northeastern University. I just want to offer them great congratulations for their second-year-in-a-row victory.

My question is for the Minister of Indigenous Affairs and Northern Development. The carbon tax is essentially a tax on everything, Speaker. It’s on your groceries, your gasoline, your home heating and every other day-to-day essential.

For over a year now, the Chiefs of Ontario have been calling on the federal government to consult with them on the impact that this harmful tax is having on all of their communities. Due to the federal government’s failure to address the First Nations’ concerns, the Chiefs of Ontario filed for judicial review into the application of the carbon tax in Indigenous communities. They have called this tax anti-reconciliatory and discriminatory.

Can the minister please tell the House how this carbon tax is disproportionately impacting northern Ontario communities?

Instead of helping northern Ontario foster economic growth and to reach our full potential, the federal government is bringing one tax hike after another after another after another. It is clear that neither the Liberals nor the NDP understand, respect or care about the financial hardship that many individuals and families are going through.

Northern and Indigenous communities should not be paying the price of this harmful and regressive tax. Speaker, can the minister please explain further why the carbon tax has such detrimental effects on northern Ontario and especially First Nation communities?

Speaker, I move that the question now be put.

Thank you so much to the minister for that exceptional response.

As the cost of living continues to rise, people are justifiably concerned about the carbon tax and how it’s going to make everything in our life more expensive. Workers from all sectors of the economy are already feeling the hardship and challenges because of the carbon tax, and sadly, the federal government does not care. They just don’t care, Mr. Speaker. They’re not doing anything to change it.

Ontario’s hard-working individuals, businesses and farmers deserve to be treated fairly, and they deserve to be treated with dignity. Our government must continue to stand up for the people of this province and ask Justin Trudeau and the federal government to please end the carbon tax.

Speaker, can the minister please explain how further increases of this terrible tax, the carbon tax—this awful tax—are going to hurt Ontarians?

Shocker, Mr. Speaker—Sault Ste. Marie is getting all the love today. I’m loving it.

Well, Mr. Speaker, I have a very, very important question on behalf of the people of Sault Ste. Marie for our wonderful Minister of Energy. Many individuals and families, particularly those in northern Ontario, rely on fuel to heat their homes. Unfortunately, residents in rural and remote parts of northern Ontario face additional barriers in heating their homes due to the lack of viable alternatives.

Families and businesses in Sault Ste. Marie are telling me that they already feel the carbon tax’s impact on their energy bills every single month, and quite frankly, this has been a pretty warm winter in Sault Ste. Marie and throughout the province. It’s unfair and unjust for them to bear the burden of this regressive carbon tax, yet the Liberals and the NDP are content to see the costs related to the carbon tax raised even higher.

Minister, please let us know how our communities in the north are suffering more because of this unaffordable carbon tax.

I want to thank the minister for his answer. This is amazing news, not just for Timmins and northern Ontario, but for all of Ontario.

These facilities will ensure that the minerals from Timmins are getting processed in Timmins, boosting local employment opportunities and creating sources of nickel for the North American electric vehicle supply chain.

Speaker, the opposition has made it clear, based on their voting record, that they do not believe in the potential of the mining industry in northern Ontario. They would rather rely on minerals from overseas to fuel the electric vehicle revolution.

On this side of the House, we believe it is our obligation to ensure critical minerals are developed and processed right here in our wonderful province of Ontario.

Will the minister please tell us more about how these processing facilities are going to help us build a made-in-Ontario supply chain for electric vehicles?

My question is for the Minister of Mines. The previous Liberal government all but ignored the importance of the north, failing to invest in northern Ontario’s mineral exploration and development sector. Their inaction had dire effects on the economy of northern Ontario. Even the NDP, after being given the opportunity to build a stronger mining sector and vote in favour of investment and development, chose to say no and do nothing.

Unlike the opposition members, our government understands that exploration and development of critical minerals is essential for the economic prosperity of our province. Can the minister please tell the House what our government is doing to support the mining sector while attracting game-changing critical mineral investments in Ontario?

Withdraw.

Mr. Speaker, I did not get a chance to do this earlier, but I’d like to be able to introduce a party and welcome to the House today Katie Blunt, CEO, and Allyson Schmidt, chair of the board of Habitat for Humanity in Sault Ste. Marie. I know they were just in the room and left a little bit early, but I just want to thank them for being here and look forward to seeing them later today.

The 61st annual Bon Soo Winter Carnival was held from February 2 to February 9, 2024, in beautiful Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada.

Incredible events were planned, including the opening ceremony fireworks, the Polar Bear Dip, the Polar Rush Obstacle Course, the EDM Sno Bath dance party, the Fire and Ice hot sauce challenge, concert with Canadian country singer Brett Kissel and so many more. Nine days of family fun in the Soo were held at the Canal District, Northern Superior Tap Room, the Canadian Bushplane Heritage Centre, Searchmont Resort and others.

The Bon Soo festival has been going on—just to speak a little bit freely about this, Mr. Speaker—all of my life. I remember going there as a kid, participating as a kid. It’s changed a lot over the years. It’s fun to be able to bring my own children there. Unfortunately, this year was a bit of a tougher year with the snow not being around and us having a very green Christmas—yes, even in Sault Ste. Marie, not a lot of snow—so things like our bum slides, snow sculptures, things like this, had to be removed. Well, we lost the snow sculptures quite a number of years ago.

I would also like to say though I’m really not that disappointed about one piece. Unfortunately, the day of the polar bear swim, I was encouraged to attend and take a dip in the icy cold waters of the St. Marys River, which I have done once before. This year, unfortunately/fortunately, I had to be out of the community with my children at another event and wasn’t able to jump in the icy cold St. Marys River. Perhaps another time, Mr. Speaker.

I’ll bring the pasta.

Good morning, everyone. Today, I want to congratulate a local Sault Ste. Marie business on their 20th anniversary. Loplops Gallery-Lounge is a fixture of downtown Sault Ste. Marie and our local music scene.

Owners Stephen Alexander and Jennifer Bellerose have seen ups and downs during the last several years with our economy, especially the last few years when COVID was happening. Over the last 20 years they’ve really been able to see a bit of it all, but they’ve remained strong through adapting their business model with the changing of the times.

It is great to see the fun holiday-themed event, the 12 Musicians of Christmas, is back after a five-year hiatus, and I just want to offer my congratulations to both Steve and Jenn on the very many great memories that we’ve had at Loplops over the years. I’m looking forward to another 20 years ahead.

I’m going to go for the hat trick here: I also want to welcome, from Sault Ste. Marie, our former MPP and now president of Sault College, David Orazietti.

I also want to introduce Sherri Smith, the vice-president of academics, innovation and student services at Sault College; Rachel MacDonald, the director of communications and stakeholder relations at Sault College; and a very good personal friend of mine, Don Mitchell, the chair of the board of governors at Sault College.

Welcome, everyone, to Queen’s Park.

One of the things I get to really enjoy—I think we all should hopefully take the time to enjoy, and I trust we all do. This time of year, we, as elected officials, get to participate in our Santa Claus parades in a lot of our communities across the province.

In Sault Ste. Marie, we had our annual Santa Claus Parade that is hosted by our Rotary Club of Sault Ste. Marie this past Saturday. I had a great time participating in that. We put a float together. I want to thank my staff, Kathy, Jen and Edie, for working so hard to put it together. I want to thank my mom, Lina, and my kids, Jayden, Jackson, and Jarrett, who participated with me in walking down Queen Street in Sault Ste. Marie and handing out candy canes to thousands. I think we distributed just shy of 3,500 candy canes on Saturday.

One of the fun moments is being able to participate with your family, I find, in these parades, getting to walk up and down the streets and shake hands with the members of your community. It is a fun moment that I think we all have as elected officials. I trust so many of you enjoy that as well.

Of course, the one drawback, Mr. Speaker, as I’m sure you’ve seen your fair share of parades as well, is you never—and my kids point this out as we’re always leaving the parade route. That’s when you actually see the floats, as everybody is dismantling them along the parade route. You don’t get to see them, Mr. Speaker, but it’s fun to participate and welcome Santa Claus to town.

On behalf of our Associate Minister of Housing, he has asked me to please extend, and I’d like to extend my welcome, to Neal Roberts, the chief of the Middlesex London Paramedic Service, who is here to join us today at Queen’s Park.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I appreciate that.

Interjection.

Interjection.

I really, if I can, and if the member from Niagara will allow me, would love to be able to speak to the member for Orléans’s amendment to our motion at this time, which of course as we all know is about affordability. I think that it’s a challenging situation, though, Madam Speaker. It’s a very challenging situation when we sit in this House and we look at ways that we can fix things, and yet when I look at this carbon tax, I can’t fathom how it fixes the problem. Here at home, I’m challenged to see how it fixes the problem, but what I can clearly see—and I think we can all see—is how it’s costing every single one of us, the end user, more for everything.

The HST does cost everything more. We’ve been paying for the HST now for a long time. We’re all used to that. I mean, hey, I’d be happy to pay no tax. Mea culpa, I would love no tax. I don’t think anyone on this side of the House would ever argue with that. But, maybe there is some argument of, like, “the end justified the means.” We needed income to pay for things like health care. We needed money to pay for various items. And a lot of this revenue for the government allows us to be able to afford the things that we enjoy, as people in a free and democratic society, here in this province and certainly in this country, enjoy—and, arguably, maybe some should be able to enjoy more than others. I think that there are certainly challenges in that regard.

All that being said, this particular carbon tax—it’s a tax. It’s not fixing the problem it was intended to solve. So if it’s not going to fix the problem that it was intended to, then maybe the feds should look at a different way of doing it. How else can we protect the environment? Let’s not even talk about how the lack of this—

Both of these measures—whether the carbon tax or whether the HST—are all coming from the feds. So we’re looking at the feds and saying, “Hey, guys, you’ve got option A and you’ve got option B. Option A, the carbon tax, is supposed to fix the environment, but it’s just costing us all more money. Option B is a way to fill our coffers, and it’s costing people more money. You should change something here.” Well, let’s be reasonable. The whole concept of this amendment is, which one should we ask for; which one do we want to bug the feds about? Do we want to say to the feds, “Hey, guys, stop charging people more money for something that isn’t fixing the problem you’re trying to fix”—the environmental concerns—or, “Stop charging people more money for this other problem, which is just trying to pay for all of our other goods and services that we have out there”?

Madam Speaker, I’ll repeat what I said earlier. Personally, I’d rather have no tax of any kind. Don’t tax me at all. Keep your hand out of my pocket. I think most people would agree. Nobody wants government’s hands in their pockets.

But I do like the services that I have. I do enjoy having roads to drive on. Sometimes I wish they were nicer. Sometimes I really wish there were more of them. I like being able to go see my doctor. Sometimes I do wish there were more of them. Sometimes I wish there was better access to different things. But I do like what I have. I like being able to send my kids to school. Actually, I’ve got no concerns with my kids’ schooling. They’re doing really good in school. They’ve got nice teachers, a good team there, a good board, a nice facility. I’m quite happy with that side of things, to be honest with you. But I recognize that that costs money. So we’ve got to pay for that—and we are.

The carbon tax—what is it fixing? It’s not fixing the environment. Is it going to change how much pollution someone generates in any jurisdiction outside of this province or country? Is it going to change any of that? No. We know for a fact that it won’t change that at all. But members in various—and rightfully so—would say, “We’ve got to worry about our own house first. We can’t worry about everybody else. We’ve got to worry about us.” That’s a fair argument, right? It’s a very fair argument. It makes a ton of sense. You’ve got to worry about yourself first. Lead by example, right? That’s really relevant. But is it going to do anything? It doesn’t seem to be fixing it. It just means I’m paying more money for my baloney sandwich, for my cord of wood, for everything, and it’s not fixing the problem. It’s not changing anything. So why are we doing it?

So, should we vote for the amendment? Let’s tell the federal government we don’t want to pay any more money. We want them to stop charging tax for all the stuff that we enjoy, those goods and services that we really, really appreciate and that we love as Canadians. Or should we ask the federal government to stop a tax that absolutely is not fixing the problem they want to solve?

And then when you look at—I’m going to use a personal example. Here I am, the member for Sault Ste. Marie. My local steel plant—one of only three steel manufacturers in the country, all three of which are here in the province of Ontario, two in Hamilton, one in Sault Ste. Marie—Algoma Steel, greening its steel, reducing carbon emissions, a huge economic investment, a huge benefit, actually making a difference on the environment at a huge level by making critical investments that our government has made without resorting to a carbon tax, without jamming our hands as deep as we can into every single business and thinking that it’s going to change anything other than them then making us pay for it.

I say we get rid of the carbon tax, Madam Speaker. To me, I would say I have really, really honestly considered the member’s amendment to the motion, but personally, I’m not convinced. And as I’m speaking, I don’t know, I hope I convinced a few people here today that the amendment doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense.

Good morning, everybody. It’s a pleasure to be here to have the opportunity to debate this fine motion and amendment to it. As many of you have heard me say, when I speak and when we look at the types of resolutions that we look at to fix the various problems that we try to fix, I always like to begin with looking at what is it that we are trying to solve and what’s the problem we’re trying to solve.

Well, obviously we’re dealing with some significant cost increases across the board. People are dealing with inflation. They’re struggling to be able to put food on the table. They’re struggling to be able to pay their rent. They’re struggling with being able to buy their groceries and heat their homes and put gas in their cars, or struggling to be able to get a bus pass. The struggles just are quite significant.

We are the government, and the reason why we are the government is because people have a lot of problems and they have elected us to fix those problems, because when the coalition of the Liberals and the NDP were in power, they caused all these problems. While they were causing all these problems, the people saw how terrible they were at effectively managing anything, so they decided to elect some people that they thought were going to be a lot better at managing things. I think the people have spoken, Madam Speaker.

Interjection.

So it’s incumbent on us as members in this House to recognize what the people of this province—all across this province in every single riding and every corner of it—what they are saying and what they’re concerned about. Right now, one of the principal concerns is affordability. It’s a basic reference. So, again, back to the question, what is the problem we need to solve? And the problem is affordability. Now, the nature of the motion that is before us and the amendment to the motion is to call upon the federal government to do something. So in this case, we’re calling upon our brothers and sisters in the—

Interjections.

And so, again, I ask, what is the problem we’re trying to solve and how will this amendment or this motion address that? I challenge myself because in order to answer that question, you have to get to the root, right? You must come to the root, and the root, ultimately, as the amendment is addressing an HST issue, the motion is addressing a carbon tax issue—which is all, again, aimed at how do we fix this affordability problem.

Well, you have to ask yourself what each one of those taxes—what they were all about. The HST, obviously, has been around for a very long time. The GST before it was around for a very long time. The carbon tax is a recent issue, and it comes about for very different reasons, so let’s focus there as a starting point.

The carbon tax: My understanding—I stand to be corrected, Madam Speaker—is, somehow, a tax that was contemplated, envisioned, would solve certain environmental problems. They would produce people’s environmental impact. It would protect the environment. Okay—in theory, I can understand how that works. But in so doing, we’re taxing businesses on just about everything we do—literally, quite frankly, everything, whether it’s your food—you know, we’re hearing people talk about what it costs to run a fan, to dry our foods off before we can put them out to market so they don’t rot or mould.

We’re talking about how much it costs me to fuel gas in my home, and I don’t even use that much. My own home—I burn a lot of wood. I just had my three sons and myself getting ready for the winter. We’re prepping our woodshed. We’re getting everything set. My wood cost has gone up $10 a cord and they’re telling me it’s because of the cost of fuel. All of these costs just keep on growing and growing and growing.

Me heating my home with wood is a little bit more environmentally friendly than using natural gas. Now, I’ve got to pay more money for that. Okay, I can understand that. But is it going to fix the problem? Is it going to fix the grander issue of protecting the environment? Those costs are just getting pushed on to me, the end user. The cost of that bologna sandwich is just going up, but the person who is paying for it is that end user. I used to bring my kids to Subway a lot after soccer practice. We used to always go to Subway; it was a thing. Until I went to Subway recently and a sub cost me, and a diet Pepsi—it was like $18, for one. I mean, you multiply that out by the whole family and I’m thinking, that’s a really expensive lunch, right? That’s a really, really expensive lunch. Why am I paying that price? It’s because of all of these costs going up, and I’m just paying for it.

So, is the environment getting protected? Did anybody stop doing anything to hurt the environment because they had these taxes? No, they’re just paying more money to do the business that they’re doing, and they’re making me pay for it. It’s a really challenging situation that now I’m just paying for and you’re paying for and the member for Niagara is paying for and all of his constituents are paying for—but again, are his constituents seeing any changes in the world? Are they seeing the impact of the carbon tax fixing the environment? I’d love to know if the member actually sees a change in the environment because of all the extra costs his constituents are paying, for basic items like a fried egg in the morning.

Interjection.