It’s always an honour to be able to stand in this Legislature and speak on bills that are very important to this province and important to the people of Timiskaming–Cochrane.

Before I start on the bill, I just ask for the House’s indulgence for a moment.

Currently, the Cochrane-Timiskaming branch of the Canadian Mental Health Association has locked out their workers. As a result, right now, their clients are not getting any service. We are in the middle of a mental health crisis. As with any labour dispute, there are two sides; we recognize that. But I urge the management and I urge the government to discuss with the management what the roadblocks are from their end. They’re not that far apart, and we are facing a mental health crisis. Right now, the people who serve their clients are being locked out and not being able to serve the people who have some of the most dire needs in this province. I urge the government to reach out to management to see what roadblocks exist so that those residents in my riding and in other ridings can get the mental health services they need.

Thank you for that indulgence, Speaker.

The bill we’re talking about—the working title is Keeping Energy Costs Down Act. This bill is more complicated than it seems. A lot of people, I think, would never think of how the energy system, particularly the natural gas system, is operated in Ontario. It’s regulated. That means that there is a regulatory board, the Ontario Energy Board, that oversees the system so it’s stable, so that people who are connected to gas or who want to connect to gas—if they do want to, and there are reasons why they may not want to—know that they’re getting as fair a deal as possible.

The Ontario Energy Board made a ruling that new gas hookups in new subdivisions, in new builds, shouldn’t be amortized over 40 years because it’s a very likely that that gas hookup won’t be useful for 40 years, because, as we know, the world is in transition.

Last summer, I was in this House speaking, and I think you will remember that we could smell the smoke from the forest fires, in this House. I don’t think that has happened in modern times.

Today, in Timiskaming–Cochrane, it was 8 degrees this morning, thunderstorms—in February. In Timiskaming–Cochrane, in February, it’s usually minus 20, minus 25, snowmobilers are happy, ice fishermen—ice fisher-people, I guess—are happy. But that’s not the case. People can say, “Oh, that’s a one-off,” and, “No, no, that could happen”—I was standing here, and so were the rest of us, sitting here, when we smelled that smoke. That’s not a one-off. Is that the only reason to look at this—what the government is trying to do here? It’s a big reason, but not the only one. But we have to keep that in the back of our minds.

We have to look at transitioning away from fossil fuels. We’re not the first people to do this. Most of my family comes from Europe. Right now in Holland, they’re self-sufficient in natural gas. They do import, but they could be self-sufficient. Right now in Holland, if you build a new house—

This bill is about how the regulator said, “To keep the system stable, we can’t take out 40-year amortization mortgages on new parts of the system that likely might not make sense today and likely won’t make sense in five years.”

It was really interesting when the Minister of the Energy, who I respect, talked about how he had a heat pump with an electric backup and he was never cold. That tells me that, in large parts of this province, new houses could also have heat pumps with electric backup and cause much less impact to the environment than natural gas.

The financial part of what the government is doing—the Ontario Energy Board said, “No, no, it doesn’t make sense to take a 40-year mortgage out to pay for something that actually might not make sense for people now; it certainly won’t make sense in five years, because the rest of the world is transitioning already.” The government steps in and says, “No, no. The regulator? They don’t know what they’re talking about. We’re going to make an informed decision. What we’re going to do is, we’re going to make all the other people who pay, who are already on the system—we’re going to make them pay for the hookups that might not make sense. We’re going to destabilize the system on their behalf.”

If this government had a really good record of making forward-looking financial decisions, you could maybe give them the benefit of the doubt. It’s very, very concerning that they are overruling a regulator. If they had a reasonable track record on their legislation—but this is the government that, with Bill 124, decided to change how negotiations were done with public sector workers, creating a huge issue in the health care sector. And guess what? They rescinded it. They rescinded another bill to go over the “notwithstanding” clause. The greenbelt? They rescinded it. Now they’re saying, “We know more than the Ontario Energy Board.”

The government doesn’t have a problem tacking the bill on infrastructure for 40 years that’s likely not going to be worth it in five—“We’ll make the people who are already on that infrastructure pay the difference.” They’re willing to destabilize the system. They say it’s because they want to make houses more affordable. We all want to make houses more affordable. But are you sure you’re making the house more affordable when you’re kind of forcing someone to put in natural gas because they’re hooked up when, over years, they’d be much better off with something that was more efficient for heating and cooling and that would save them money in the long run? I question whether the government has thought that through.

I certainly don’t think that this government has the track record to say that we, the province, should be very comfortable that we’re overruling a regulator.

This is a big debate. We need to take this issue seriously. We are making decisions for people in the future—it’s not just for today.

Thank you very much for the opportunity.

Thank you very much for that question. You raised a lot of issues.

I knocked on a lot of doors—we all knock on a lot of doors—and I can guarantee you, Speaker, that not one person said, “Sign me up to pay $500 extra so a new subdivision can get gas.”

I see this as an attempt by the government to make a short-term political gain, not taking into account the long-term financial pain that it’s going to cause to everyone on the system. It’s a wake-up call that there are going to be stranded assets, things that we don’t use, and one of those is going to be large parts of the gas system.

You’ve got the Minister of Energy with a heat pump, supported by electricity. He’s going in the right direction. I don’t think he has access to natural gas. Everyone in this House is not going to subsidize a natural gas line to the Minister of Energy. He’s going to put in a heat pump, supported by electricity—which he did. So why does this government expect the rest of Ontarians need to do that?

I’ve been here for a while. Years ago, municipalities were demanding and residents were demanding access to natural gas, but now, many are doing what the Minister of Energy himself did and are putting in heat pumps supported by electricity, even in northern Ontario, because the price between natural gas and heat pumps is—the difference is no longer there like it was before. People are switching, and the government isn’t realizing that. The Minister of Energy realizes that, but his government doesn’t seem to.

Are there people wanting natural gas, needing it in particular for agriculture? Yes, 100%—but for heating their homes, not the case anymore, even in northern Ontario.

That’s a very good question.

I can’t speak on behalf of the government, because most of us don’t understand what this government is doing most of the time.

If they don’t do this, and people actually have to make a rational decision, not all of them are going to choose gas. Then, if not everyone chooses gas, all of a sudden, the gas lines won’t get built, because everyone has to be hooked up to make that worthwhile. So they’re kind of forcing—if you’re a new development and you’re going to get, basically, a free hookup because everyone else is paying for that hookup, the chances are you’re going to put in a gas furnace as opposed to the chances of putting in a heat pump with electric backup or with another backup, because you’ve already got the hookup for the gas. So they are helping Enbridge, and they are helping the developers, but they are creating stranded assets—they know that because the energy board told them, and they overruled. They know that we’re creating stranded assets.

At the end of the day, somebody is going to end up paying a lot of money for—it’s like taking out a car loan for 20 years when you know the car is going to last, maximum, eight, and you’re forcing everyone else to pay that car loan for 20 years. In eight years, that car is going to be in the recycling centre. That’s what—