Speaker, as everyone knows, insurance rates are going up. People are getting sick at work from heatstroke. People are being forced from their homes by out-of-control forest fires. These damages from climate change are already here. It is not a distant issue but one people are being hit with today.

We need to help people make their homes better able to withstand extreme weather. We need to ensure that the measures to protect people from climate-driven floods are not abandoned, as is being done with attacks on conservation authorities; in fact, we need to put in more flood protections. Making homes and communities safer from fire saves lives and avoids huge personal and financial costs. Failure to act and, in fact, action that makes things worse mean that people will lose their homes and that all of us will pay higher insurance premiums.

The government’s refusal to carry out a credible climate plan or to put in place measures to protect us from existing climate damage is hurting people in Ontario.

The government must act now on climate.