I want to start off by being clear: We’re in a climate crisis. We’re heading toward an iceberg and we need to turn this ship, not crank up the gas. We don’t have to wait for 2030. It’s here now, it’s getting worse faster, and it’s our fault. We can’t plug our ears and pretend we don’t know. We have to be brave, and we have to be afraid a little bit. It’s fear and courage that will help us do the right thing and save our way of life; whether it’s for your kids, yourself, your business or a space you love, I beg us, please.

I am worried that this summer in Ontario we’ll have an unprecedented fire season. Our province is going to burn. It will go up in smoke. This will devastate northern communities. We need to wake up and smell the smoke. Businesses will be impacted. Home building will be stalled. Kids will spend their time inside in the summer because it’s not safe to go outside, because we can’t breathe smoke. Smoke causes cancer. Ontarians will be at ERs because they’re sick from the smoke. We shouldn’t be doubling down. We should be preparing. We should prepare for extreme heat, the most deadly killer of climate impacts. BC lost 600 people to death when they had an extreme heat dome. This foreshadowing should not be ignored.

When everyone in Ontario turns on their energy-inefficient air conditioning, we have to watch out for our grid. We have to watch out for us—for seniors, for folks with respiratory issues, for babies.

Can we spend our time now in the Legislature discussing how to improve our energy grid? Can we discuss how to install more heat pumps that are three times more efficient to cool our homes? That will help us with these peaks. It will help us with blackouts. It will help prevent deaths, and it will help prevent ER visits.

We know that every dollar we spend on mitigation will save Ontarians $7 to $10. The Conservative government’s own report says that for every dollar of adaptation we spend, we save $13 to $15. So if we care about affordability, this is a good investment. But get ready to adapt, spending our time in government working on how we can reduce the harm to our community, how to prepare for the devastation to come, instead of doubling down.

We are cooking Ontario, because Enbridge is cooking the facts. We know that they’re afraid that people can save on connection fees by not connecting. The gravy train will stop. This $16-billion company and the $19-million man will not benefit from this gravy train. They’re greenwashing right now. They’re being challenged in court for that, because they say that gas is clean, that it’s good for the planet and affordable. These claims have been proven untrue and unethical. They’re also lobbying mayors, which is also unethical.

We need to do what we can to make right decisions for the people of Ontario so that they can make affordable decisions.

How many beds do we have for slip-and-falls? In my community, when there was an icy day, we saw slip-and-fall visits to ERs explode. Not only did we have RSV explosion, but it doubled down because of climate impact, because of slip-and-falls.

So we’re talking to insurance companies right now, workplace injuries—if we have HR concerns, climate is not going to make that better, because we’re going to have smoky days in the summer, we’re going to have slip-and-fall days in the winter, and we’re not collecting proper data to prepare our health system for these consequences.

They’re afraid to compete with the heat pump industry that’s exploding all over the world. They want to save their monopoly, and they don’t want to play nice in the sandbox. They’re creating misleading information across our province, on radio, sending letters to mayors, because they’re afraid—

Interjections.

In subsequent conversations with the grand chief of Nishnawbe Aski Nation, we have reaffirmed our commitment in a couple of important categories to address the mental health crisis both in isolated communities and for students attending high school in Thunder Bay. Those resources focus on NAN Hope, a program run by Keewaytinook Okimakanak, an organization widely accepted and thought of as the right organization to deliver services to students on-reserve and transitioning to the big city, as well as mental health resources on the ground in Thunder Bay—additional new funding—to support the challenges that they face. That was the right action to take. It dealt on point with the kinds of things that the NAN leadership was asking to be addressed. We were there for those communities.