Schedule 4 of this act has a provision—and I’ll go slowly so that the member has an opportunity to refer to it if she hasn’t seen it already. It says that the schedule is amended to provide that “for each six-month period or part thereof during which a photo card is valid, the holder of the photo card shall pay a fee of $3.50.” So in other words, the fee is now fixed in legislation and may not be automatically amended, unless another piece of legislation is introduced to amend the fee. So that’s $3.50, and I would like to ask the member if she believes that fee is too low, too high or somewhere in between, and whether she agrees that should be fixed at $3.50?

But there is only one government that’s freezing fees and lowering taxes, and that’s the PC government of the province of Ontario. So I put this question to the member opposite: Is it not a good thing that we are freezing the fees? Isn’t that a good thing?

Good morning. Let us pray.

Prières / Prayers.

Mr. Sarkaria moved first reading of the following bill:

Bill 162, An Act to enact the Protecting Against Carbon Taxes Act, 2024 and amend various Acts / Projet de loi 162, Loi édictant la Loi de 2024 sur la protection contre les taxes sur le carbone et modifiant diverses lois.

I was fortunate to be here yesterday when the member for Oshawa made her presentation. She talked quite a bit about the issue of tolls, and she shared with us a motion that had just been passed, I think that day, yesterday, by the region of Durham.

I know that one of the schedules in this bill deals with tolls, with removing tolls. I wondered if the member could tell us if that schedule will do anything for the people of her community.

I appreciate the question. Folks will remember the 412 and 418 and that I tabled my private member’s bill, and four years later, finally, the government removed those. I think part of the reason that the government finally followed through with that was because it was unfair, broadly across Durham region, that we’re the only part of the province with a tolled road.

So here we have schedule 6 that says, “We won’t toll provincial highways, unless it’s in an act. Oh, but by the way, 407 ETR that’s privately owned and the 407 East, which is owned by the province, we’re not touching those.”

When Durham has asked for temporary removal because of construction and now that they’ve asked for permanent removal of the tolls from the provincial section, the government has its hands over its ears, and all we hear is crickets. They’re not taking the tolls off. It’s just Durham that has a tolled stretch of provincial highway.

So this bill does sweet nothing for the folks of Durham.

In fact, I appreciate the member focusing on schedule 4. I will also liken it to schedule 2 that deals with drivers’ licence fees and fixes it at $7.50 for each six-month period. The $7.50 and the $3.50 for each six-month period for photo cards now being fixed in statute, are equal to the—wait for it—existing fee. So there is no change. It had been regulation, and now it’s fixed in statute. There is no change to the customer, to the community member. They’re not going to feel any difference. It’s just some shift from regulation into statute. And honestly, who cares?

So my question to this government is, when you’ve got a bill here that says get it done, why on earth are you directing people’s attention to licence plates again when you can’t get them off the roads? You certainly couldn’t get it done in that case. Four years later, we’re still talking about them, and the government—those plates, while impossible to read, are also impossible to forget. So, maybe, the government could get it done when it comes to licence plates.

But if they want to talk about affordability, instead of removing tolls or preventing tolls where they don’t exist, why don’t you remove them where they do? We’ve got transport trucks on the 401. We could move a lot of them to the 407 if government had any sense of thinking about how to better utilize our existing provincial infrastructure—remove those tolls for transport trucks. Or, the region of Durham is asking for a temporary removal because of construction. We won’t remove those fees for people in the community, and we are not removing tolls for the people of Durham region.

So making life more affordable? What are you talking about? Where? How? In what way? You’re keeping things the same. If you want to address affordability, there’s a million different opportunities. If you wanted to address housing, health care, bring forward a bill of substance, but this is tinkering around the edges and not accomplishing anything. It’s a giant nothing burger.

No, I don’t. I will say, last night, I had the opportunity to join a meeting of the local chapter of the Ontario Health Coalition in Durham region. A lot of folks with either connection to the health care field or just community members who are starting to interact with the health care system in different ways and realizing it’s not how it used to be, that it’s not what they remember, that they can’t access the services, and they’re quite concerned.

This is a government that talks about freezing things? Bill 124 froze wages that forced the hospitals to be fleeced and held hostage by these nursing agencies that were not just able to get a tow hold, but to take over. So the hospitals are bleeding money to these agencies, instead of being able to pay their own nurses what they would want to through fair, collective bargaining. So this government did that. So they’re standing here in a sort of sanctimonious presentation about making life better. It isn’t.

Today, this morning, we are talking about Bill 162. And Bill 162 has several schedules to it, and the primary purpose, from my point of view of Bill 162, is to address, in part, the issue of affordability.

As I was just saying a moment ago, there are several governments—municipal governments, the federal government—that are raising costs on the people of Ontario. For example, the federal government has raised costs on the people of Ontario by imposing a crushing carbon tax, which escalates on a regular basis higher, higher and higher—automatically.

Many municipal governments, for example, have imposed property tax increases—increases which are locked into your home, making home ownership more expensive. This is happening across the province of Ontario. But as I said earlier, only one government—only one government—is actually getting rid of fees and lowering taxes and that is the Progressive Conservative government of the province of Ontario.

Now, let’s give a few examples of how we are lowering taxes, lowering fees and making life a little bit more affordable for people. We have introduced and then extended the 10-cent per litre reduction on the price of gasoline. That makes life more affordable when you drive to work. It makes life more affordable when you drive to school. It makes life more affordable when you drive to hockey practice, and we think that’s important. Maybe other MPPs in this House don’t think that’s important.

We removed the fee on licence plate stickers. That saves the average family $240 per year. That’s $240 per year you can put toward your savings. Maybe you wanted to buy something special for yourself or your children or maybe even contribute to their RESP. We think that $240 per year makes life a little bit better.

We removed some tolls on highways, making driving less expensive. Now, it’s more affordable to drive where you want to go. Perhaps you’re taking a day trip or a modest vacation; now, it’s a little bit more affordable for you.

We think that those are concrete and important steps toward making life more affordable for everybody. Many times, it makes the simple pleasures of life more affordable. I think we have taken a position in the PC caucus which is quite good and makes life a little better for everybody.

What else is addressed in this Bill 162 is the crushing carbon tax imposed by the federal Liberal government. In the PC caucus, we believe the carbon tax is very bad. In fact, we think it’s so bad we fought it all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. That’s how bad we think it is. We got no support from any opposition party in our opposition to the carbon tax. When we fought the carbon tax all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, the opposition did not help.

Do you know what the Supreme Court of Canada said? The Supreme Court of Canada said that despite our submissions, the federal Liberal government, constitutionally speaking, had the authority to impose a carbon tax on Ontario. That’s what the Supreme Court of Canada said: The federal Liberal government had the right to impose that tax on Ontario.

We know the Liberals were very, very happy with that Supreme Court of Canada decision, because as we know, Liberals love taxes. Liberals think taxes cure all evils. In fact, we’ve heard it said, even in the assembly in the province of Ontario—this assembly here—we’ve heard it said by the Liberals; they think that the carbon tax makes the world more “habitable.” “Habitable” was the word that got used. A carbon tax makes the planet Earth more habitable—that was the argument put forward by the Liberals.

Madam Speaker, I thoroughly disagree with the Liberals. The carbon tax does not make the planet more habitable and never will. Now, let me tell you what does make the world more habitable. I’m going to reach back into the mists of time, way back to my ancient ancestors who were somewhere in Europe, hunting and gathering for their daily existence.

One day, one of my ancient ancestors woke up, and he said, “Today is the day. Today is the day when things change. I am not going to hunt and gather anymore. Today, I’m going to delve into the earth, dig into the dirt, and I am going to find precious things inside the Earth. Then, I’m going to take them out, and I’m going to use those precious things, and I’m going to make fascinating and important things out of them.” That ancient ancestor of mine was the first miner in my family.

Do you know what that ancestor did? I don’t know what his name was, I don’t know where he did it, but he took something out of the earth. Maybe it was copper. Then, he fashioned it into a bowl, and he gave it to his wife, and she used it to cook the meals for the family. Then, he took more copper; he fashioned it into a knife. He gave it to his son, and that son used the knife to cut wheat or to cut berries or to cut food for the family. Maybe he had more copper. He gave it to his daughter, and she used it to fashion beautiful instruments, ornaments to make things more beautiful. Those things were then fashioned and shared with others, and the whole tribe became more convenient. Everything for the tribe got better, and advances were even quadrupled after that.

My ancestor could have left that copper in the ground, but he didn’t. He took it out of the ground. He made things with it, shared it with his family, his tribe, his nation, and things got better. That is how the Earth got more habitable.

The Earth got more habitable because people took things, they mined things out of the ground, and they used human ingenuity to make life better. That’s how I say life gets better. That’s how I say the world gets more habitable, but the Liberals disagree, and I think the NDP disagree, too.

I think their opinion, among the NDP and the Liberal caucus, is that carbon taxes make life more habitable. I think that’s their theory. In fact, they’ve repeated it several times, haven’t they? They’ve done it over and over again.

Not more than 10 minutes ago, when I was speaking about freezing fees, they were saying, “How does that make life better?” It makes life better because it makes life more affordable. That’s why it makes life better.

You can ridicule the freezing of fees, but my constituents appreciate it. My constituents appreciate it when they walk into a ServiceOntario office, and the fee is the same as it was last year and the year before and the year before and they’re not being constantly nickel-and-dimed and gouged. They appreciate that, and I do too, because that’s what makes life more affordable.

The carbon tax does not make life more affordable.

Let me give you a few examples of how the carbon tax, imposed by the federal Liberal government and absolutely adored by the members of the Liberal caucus, makes life less affordable, makes things worse for people.

I’ve asked my constituents to give me examples of their heating bill, something which is absolutely necessary in everyday life—heating your home, which makes life more habitable.

The bill that I received from Meghan in my riding, a bill of $250.55, had a carbon tax of $71.86—28% carbon tax.

Here’s the bill I received from Peter, a $251 bill—$73 of carbon tax. That’s 29% carbon tax.

Here’s a bill that I received from Eric, a $277 bill—$81 of carbon tax. That’s 29% carbon tax on a heating bill.

The bill that I received from Audrey, a $203 bill—$57 of carbon tax. That’s 28% carbon tax, just to heat your home.

I ask the question, who can afford to live that way? Who can afford to heat your home when 28% and 29% of what you pay to heat your home is carbon tax? That’s not going to make life better. That’s not going to make life more affordable. That doesn’t make the Earth habitable.

I sincerely hope that the members of the Liberal caucus are listening intently to everything that I say, because I want every single one of them over there, who are listening very intently to every single word I say, to understand how bad the federal Liberal carbon tax is—having a bad effect on the families in the riding of Essex. That’s what I want them to understand.

We tested this in a vote recently, approximately two weeks ago. We tested it, and it was a vote on the carbon tax; more specifically, it was a vote to remove the carbon tax. And what happened during that vote? Every PC caucus member voted to kill the carbon tax, because that’s what we want. We want to scrap the carbon tax. That’s what we want. We make it plain and obvious. We stand up in our place and we do it.

I noticed that there was a brand new member in the House, the member from Kitchener Centre. She had barely been in the House three days—three days; a brand new member—and even that member was sufficiently educated on the issue that she stood up in her place and she let her vote be counted. Now, I don’t agree with how she voted, but I concede that she stood up in her place and she voted. She took a stand, as many members of this House did.

But what didn’t happen was—the Liberals didn’t take a stand. The Liberals bravely abstained. I use phrase “bravely abstained” facetiously. How can you not have opinions on the carbon tax? When your constituents send you here to speak on their behalf and vote on their behalf and even a brand new member votes in her place, how can you not vote? One would have thought that the Liberals would have an opinion on this topic.

That brings me to the portion of Bill 162 which is schedule 5. Schedule 5 proposes that any time a provincial government seeks to try imposing a new carbon tax, they shall be subject to schedule 5. And schedule 5 says that they have to take the issue to the voters. There’s a phrase for that; it’s called direct democracy. I think a little bit of democracy—maybe even direct democracy—is a good thing. This is a very common thing all around the world: direct democracy. I would like to know if there is anybody in this House opposed to some form of democracy.

Now I want to refer to some very thoughtful and insightful comments made by a newspaper writer. You’ll notice that I rarely quote newspaper writers in this assembly. Some people like to do that. I don’t. But I have a really great newspaper in my riding. That really great newspaper is call the Essex Free Press. Some people read other newspapers, maybe they don’t read the newspaper, but I read the Essex Free Press. It’s a great newspaper.

I don’t know who people take advice from. There are some people I think in the NDP caucus who take advice from a newspaper or an article or a journal called the Narwhal. I have never read the Narwhal. I don’t think I ever read anything written by an Arctic sea animal. I don’t think an Arctic sea animal is the kind of journal that I would read. But you know, I like to read a newspaper by somebody who lives in my riding, maybe a talented person who lives the kind of lifestyle I live, a hard-working person, down-to-earth, a person who cares about her community. She is able to speak to me and I’m able to speak to her eye to eye. We know each other. This person’s name is Sylene Argent.

I had a great conversation with Sylene Argent. Let me tell you what Sylene Argent wrote in the Essex Free Press. This is what she said, and this is very important: “I don’t want to rely on rebates. I don’t want to depend on the government for a subsidy here and there, when we can do a better job at looking at how we can reduce costs to make living essentials affordable, while also considering the environment.” That’s what Sylene Argent wrote.

I found that very interesting because I thought there was a lot of common sense in there. She is talking about how we can reduce costs, making living essentials more affordable. I say we can lower the tax on gas, and we did that, by 10 cents a litre. I say we can get rid of the fee on licence plate stickers, and we did that. I say we can get rid of tolls on highways, and we’ve done that, too. These are all ways to reduce costs and to make life more affordable on the essentials. Sylene Argent says so, and I agree with her.

Sylene says that we must also consider the environment, and I agree with her on that too.

Let me tell you about one of the most important environmental initiatives in the history of the province of Ontario. This government is helping to convert steelmaking furnaces in the province of Ontario. They’re going to be converted to electric arc furnaces. What that means is, once that’s completed, those electric arc furnaces are going to help produce steel in the province of Ontario. At the same time, it is the equivalent of removing two million automobiles off the roads of this province.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I’m not old enough to remember Premier Mike Harris. I’m not old enough to remember Premier Bob Rae. But of all the Premiers in the history of the province of Ontario, the one Premier who has taken the most important step to improve the environment of the province of Ontario, by removing the equivalent of two million automobiles off the roads, is the Premier we have today, Premier Doug Ford. That is correct. He is the one who has taken the single most important positive environmental step in the entire history of the province of Ontario.

I’d like to say to Sylene and to the other common-sense people in the riding of Essex, the people I represent, especially the people in the small towns—small towns like McGregor, River Canard, Cottam, St. Joachim and Woodslee—I read your newspaper, and your newspaper is for you, and this PC government has heard you. We’re going to keep costs down and try to make life more affordable for everyone, and it’s these steps that we’re taking in Bill 162 that are going to help us achieve that type of goal—a goal which will make life a little bit more habitable for you and for your family and for your children. I’d like to thank the people in those small communities, and I’d like to thank Sylene Argent of the Essex Free Press for her thoughtful words.

Next question?

I’m kind of in-line with what the previous member was asking as to—people have some worries. People would like the government to get it done on things that matter to them. The number one thing that matters to a lot of people is fixing our health care system so that the 2.2 million Ontarians that don’t have access to primary care do, so that the hundreds of thousands of people waiting for surgery get the care that they need. There is also a housing crisis that people would very much like the government to focus on as well as an affordability crisis.

Do you see anything in this bill that will address the priorities of Ontarians with health care, with housing, with affordability?

Thank you to our member for mentioning the work this government has been trying to do to get life more affordable. The people in Richmond Hill have been complaining about how everything has been so expensive, and I’m happy that this bill is getting to it with making life more affordable—with the exception of the carbon tax.

I just cannot understand why we still have this problem of the carbon tax. People in Richmond Hill have been complaining as they go to the gas pump, and they didn’t even realize about the heating problem—29%. How can we work on this, getting rid of the carbon tax?

On the subject of court cases and on another decision of the Supreme Court of Canada, I note that in a court case which this PC government undertook to defend responsible government in the province of Ontario, the Supreme Court of Canada said the following: “In Canada’s constitutional democracy, the confidentiality of cabinet deliberations is a precondition to responsible government.... Responsible government is a fundamental principle of Canada’s system of government....” That is from the Supreme Court of Canada, in a case which this government undertook to defend, defending the principles of democracy against an attack by the CBC. We had to fight that all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, and we won, because on this side, in this caucus, the PC caucus, we believe that responsible government and democratic traditions are very—

All of us together fighting the carbon tax will make a difference, because at a certain point something has to give. We can’t have carbon taxes of 28% and 29% on people’s heating bills. We live in a cold country. People need to heat their homes. We can’t have a federally imposed carbon tax, loved by the Liberals, pretending that they’re making life better for anyone through a tax.

Everybody knows this is not working. Everybody in Richmond Hill knows this is not working. The federal Liberal carbon tax has to die. We have to kill that tax. The PC government of the province of Ontario says, scrap the carbon tax.

But let me talk about the Supreme Court of Canada judgment that we actually fought all the way to the Supreme Court against the carbon tax. They didn’t support us doing that either, right? They didn’t want to fight the carbon tax, but the Supreme Court of Canada said it’s a federal Liberal carbon tax, and the federal Liberal carbon tax was imposed by Justin Trudeau and the federal government had the right to do that. Now, you can argue with me all day long, but you can’t argue with the Supreme Court of Canada.

It is now time for questions.

Further questions?

Response?

I want to thank the member from Essex for his comments. I often find the member’s eloquence very entertaining, for sure. It was like a National Geographic commercial—a lot of anthropology trips down memory lane there.

The member made a case that the Premier we currently have is one of most environmental Premiers ever. I actually wonder, from one perspective, if he isn’t good at recycling our time, because we spent 72 hours in this place undoing legislation that the members opposite have proposed. Let’s go through it, shall we? Bill 124, Bill 28, the greenbelt fiasco, the urban boundary dispute. The Premier is famous for recycling—but recycling hot air in this place. I’m wondering if it’s embarrassing, frankly, to be part of a government that brings legislation into the House only to redo it later. I think it’s a waste of our time. I think it’s a waste of time to be using the lawyers hired to serve the province of Ontario to go fight court cases that are unwinnable.

So I’m wondering, because the member has talked about making life more habitable, if he thinks it wouldn’t be more habitable for this House to be working on legislation that doesn’t just have to get ripped up a few months later.

It’s hard to figure out where to begin with the comments from my colleague from Essex, so let’s do a history lesson here, because they are saying the carbon tax is not their tax.

My colleague talked eloquently about the backtracking this government does. When the current Conservatives were elected to form government, we had cap-and-trade, which meant the big polluters—industry—paid for carbon emissions. This government came in and scrapped that and brought in the carbon tax. And so it is really—“comical” is the word I’m going to use, because the other word is unparliamentary—that the member opposite is talking about how great they are, because they went to the Supreme Court fighting the carbon tax, when it was your carbon tax.

In essence, what we have seen is another example of something like the greenbelt, where the government does something, gets caught, the public doesn’t like it, and they pretend they’re taking a hard stance and going in the opposite direction. I will remind the member opposite: Two days ago—

It’s great to have the member from Essex here. We can see how the people of southwestern Ontario support our government in electing you as our first member for Essex in many, many years, replacing the current opposition’s member from the NDP.

We know where they stand on affordability. We know where the opposition stands. The NDP and the Liberals never saw a tax or a fee they didn’t want to hike, whether it’s tolls, taxes, energy costs.

We’ve taken many initiatives within this government. Could I ask the member, how and what in this particular bill—how is it going to help regular families? How is it going to help them save costs in driving their kids to soccer etc.? How is it going to save money and put money back in their pocketbooks?

I thank the member from Oakville for that question. Clearly, he’s standing up for his constituency. He wants to fight the carbon tax, just like me. He’s standing up for a more affordable lifestyle. I thank him for joining us in that fight.

One of the things that this government is doing under this legislation is freezing fees. That’s going to make life more affordable because, as you know, some municipalities across this province are increasing their property taxes, some as much as 6% or 7% or 8%. We’re not going to let that happen with provincial fees. We’re going to freeze the provincial fees. In fact, this is the only government that I can think of at the present time—between the federal government and the municipalities—that’s actually lowering fees and lowering taxes.

I thank that member from Oakville for joining us in making life more affordable.

What an interesting morning. We’re debating Bill 162, the Get It Done Act. I actually prefer the member for Oshawa’s expression of the “giant nothing burger act.” I think that’s right on the nose. This is basically a nothing bill. I know the members opposite are going to criticize me. They’re going to point out a couple of little, tiny things. But honestly, the number one issue since 2022, when all of us were elected or re-elected, is affordability. Freezing a fee that already exists, these minor little steps that you’re doing, is insulting to the people of Ontario.

This weekend, I was going to make sausages for my kids. We like to barbecue a little bit. I stopped by the grocery store, and a pack of buns was seven bucks. I can afford seven bucks, but I am not spending seven bucks on a pack of hot dog buns, so we had something else for dinner. That’s the reality for people; it’s not that things are slightly more expensive.

Don’t tell me it’s the carbon tax forcing Galen Weston to gouge me for seven bucks for a pack of buns. It’s a greedy grocer gouging me. When you knock on doors, and you tell people that it’s not because you’re letting greedy Galen Weston get away with this, you are insulting their intelligence, and they’ll call you out for it.

This is a pretend bill. This is to slow down the conversations about the greenbelt scandal and the RCMP investigations. There are things that we could be doing—should be doing—here that would help people have better lives. That’s what we should be talking about this morning.

This morning I had an interview with the CBC, and we were talking about the wildland firefighters. Why don’t they have presumptive cancer coverage? We did it for urban firefighters, and I think it’s great that we did it. I want to thank Jeff Burch for that. I want to thank the Minister of Labour, the previous one and the new one—I’m not playing favourites. This is what we can do for people that makes their lives better, that makes their families better.

Wildland firefighters being told to put a wet handkerchief over their mouths—that doesn’t do anything. And I’ll be honest with you, I doubt they do that, because when you tell someone to do something ridiculous, that doesn’t make sense, they’re not going to do it.

For more than 200 days, these workers have been asking the Minister of Natural Resources and Forestry, “Can we have some decent PPE to protect ourselves?” The forest firefighter season has started already in Alberta. It’s going to be starting here soon. It was raining yesterday—in February. Asking for PPE for more than 200 days: There is silence. They have to do a written recommendation and still wait another 21 days for a response—silence. “Can we have the same presumptive coverage that the urban firefighters have?” Silence.

I brought forward an amendment to Bill 149 on this. Why don’t we just include them, all firefighters, treat them all the same? I told the Conservative government, “Look, if the argument is that they’re outdoors instead of indoors and they’re not going to be affected the same way, it won’t cost you anything. But if it isn’t accurate, if they are dying and suffering from an occupational disease, you could allow that to happen with dignity.”

The Conservative government voted again that amendment. The Conservative government won’t answer the phone calls of wildland firefighters.

We could be doing this. We could be debating this this morning. We could each speak for 20 minutes, and we could all vote on voice and get it through and help these people today. But, instead, we have this big nothing burger—nothing burger. The member for Oshawa thought I stole it, but I said this is what the bill should be called. This is a nothing burger bill, and you can tell this because the Conservative member earlier when debating, half of his debate was about a Stone Age man finding copper, somehow inventing the smelting process during the Stone Age, and going to hunter-gatherers. That definitely has nothing to do with this bill. There’s nothing in this.

There has been so much walking back of issues on this bill. We’ve had to walk back Bill 124—but not immediately. I stood here several times and said, “This is unconstitutional. You’re going to lose.” And when you lost, I said, “It’s unconstitutional. You’re going to lose.” Then you appealed and I said, “You’re going to lose the appeal.”

Even after the appeal, you didn’t walk it back. You were kind of non-committal and then waited for a Friday afternoon, when no one was paying attention, to walk it back. I haven’t seen this much walking back since Michael Jackson invented the moonwalk. It is unbelievable.

Gilles Bisson was the member for Timmins. Gilles Bisson described the government as “ready, fire, aim.” You have done nothing but prove that time and time again: Bill 124. Bill 28. Bill 28 is—I remember the Minister of Education and the Minister of Labour high-fiving each other when it passed—high-fiving each other. We were talking about workers going to food banks. These are workers who work for the government going to food banks with their kids, workers moving back in with their parents with their kids, and the Conservative government is stepping on their necks to force through this terrible deal. They walked that back in less than 24 hours.

The greenbelt scandal they had to walk back. The greenbelt scandal: We keep being told we have all the facts, but just, I think Monday, the Leader of the Opposition, our leader, New Democratic leader Marit Stiles, was finding out there’s new information that was given to the Integrity Commissioner that was reported unfactually. At what point do you think you’ll have the trust of the people? There’s that line from Bob Marley where you can fool some people some of the time but you can’t fool all people all the time. I don’t think you could fool anybody any of the time at this point.

The greenbelt, the urban boundary scandal—again and again, you get caught with your hand in the cookie jar and you’re like, “I’m sorry.” But listen, in this bill we need to be talking about health care and housing and the skyrocketing cost of living.

In 2022, every single door that all of us knocked on— every single door—they told me, they told you “affordability.” “I cannot believe how expensive it is.” And you have done little baby steps, but nothing substantial that makes life easier for these people. It continues to get worse. In my riding, and I’m sure in your riding as well, what I’ve heard more and more over the last six months is that it has never been this bad. It doesn’t matter if I’m talking to non-profits, it doesn’t matter if I’m talking to middle class, if I’m talking to wealthy people, if I’m talking to doctors—it doesn’t matter who I’m talking to—I keep hearing that it has never been this bad, and that’s a mouthful because in the Liberal government that went from a majority to losing party status, it was pretty bad. It was really bad, Speaker.

People were looking for a change, looking for hope. Now, we were hopeful it was going to be us, but they selected the Conservative government. What they wanted was change, what they wanted was life to get better, and more than half a decade later it has never been this bad. You can’t keep blaming the Liberal government after five years, after six years. It’s not their mess anymore, it’s yours.

We should be focused on affordability. We should be focused on health care. When I ran for the first time, in 2018, we talked about hallway medicine and how bad hallway medicine was—and it was particularly bad in Sudbury. We’re still struggling in Sudbury, but now it’s become the norm everywhere. In 2018, when we were talking about hallway medicine, we weren’t talking about operating rooms closing. We weren’t talking about ERs closing. We were talking about closing hospitals, but that’s what we’re talking about today after five-plus years of this Conservative government.

I was talking to students yesterday—this is about how we should be talking about housing—and telling them that when I went to school, I was a full-time student. I worked on the weekends and had my own apartment. I made a little more than minimum wage. I didn’t make a ton, but I had my own apartment. I was a full-time student and only worked on weekends. If I worked any other shift, it was just sort of extra money to pick up a jean jacket or whatever was cool at the time. I can’t imagine any student now not working several jobs. I can’t imagine any student today who doesn’t have several roommates if they’re not living at home with their parents. How can we get people to have more affordable, better-paying jobs if we can’t make it easier for them to get the education they need, to get the training they need? Why is the government putting more and more hurdles in front of people? Why are these students paying the highest tuitions and getting the lowest funding? And to brag about this—I know they brag about this, Speaker—we froze tuition. You froze it at the highest across the country.

Interjection: And reduced it.

To the member from Essex: This newest attempt of a Conservative bill has nothing to do with making life affordable as far as I’m concerned. It eliminates tolls that do not exist while ignoring the tolls that do exist, all in the name of making life more affordable, yet the only highway in Ontario raising their tolls in 2024 is the 407, the legacy of this PC government. However, instead of fixing that mistake or removing the tolls from the portion the province owns, they are choosing tokenism over real action.

How does the government justify these actions as sufficient responses to Ontario’s urgent housing crisis, health care system strains and the rising cost of living? I’m sure you see it all in your riding. Please explain to the people of Ontario how this Conservative government is going to make life more affordable besides getting rid of tolls that don’t exist.

Further questions?

It’s now time for further debate.

You reduced it. It’s still the highest across the country. It’s still the highest and by a long shot. It’s not a little bit. I think you have to increase it by 40% to catch up to the next province. I could be wrong, but it’s somewhere around there, 30%, 40% to catch up the next lowest. So we’re at the bottom of the barrel. There’s no embarrassment. The heckle was, “And reduced it.”

There are 2.2 million people without primary care in this province, and I’m one of them. We had the Ontario Medical Association come talk to us, and in the middle of the meeting, they were telling me about how people are exiting primary care, about doctors who don’t want to be family physicians anymore because of the amount of paperwork they have to do, about the struggle we’re having to get primary care all across Ontario. It used to be a northern Ontario issue, and now it’s everywhere—2.2 million people looking for family doctors, looking for primary care. I don’t have a doctor either. I’m relatively healthy. I don’t go to the doctor that often. My doctor retired.

There are a lot of people, I think, in Canada who deserve primary health care, who take for granted that you should have a doctor—even people who are healthy—that if I need to see a doctor, I should have a doctor.

Dr. Garrioch, God bless him—once you get to your seventies, you want a little family time. Dr. Garrioch has been taking care of me since I was 15. Maybe it’s time to retire. He has had a full career.

Where are the new doctors? We don’t invest in it. We don’t encourage it.

Bill 124 crippled our health care industry. In the middle of a health care crisis, we treated health care workers, lab technicians, nurses, the people who provide our primary care in the hospitals—the Conservative government treated them like dirt. Those who could retire retired. Those who could retire early retired early. Those who could leave left, and they left for other provinces that treated them better. And when they rescinded Bill 124, the Conservative government didn’t even have the grace to let these workers know that it’s gone, so that more of them don’t leave.

There are simple things we can do for affordability. In Bill 149, there’s a digital workers’ rights protection act that gives these digital app workers the right to be paid less than minimum age—enshrines it into law. Basically, it tells you, if you’re an app worker, you do not have the right to the Employment Standards Act; you don’t have the right to the Labour Relations Act; you have no other rights that other workers are allowed; and that these multi-billion dollar companies can get away with paying you about six bucks an hour—sometimes as low as two bucks an hour, after your expenses. You can complain about it, but they have the right to do it, so that complaint won’t go anywhere. We could fix that. That would help ten of thousands of these workers. It would change their lives today. We’re not doing that. We’re colouring around the edges. “What can we say in the news that sounds good but doesn’t accomplish anything?’ That’s the theme of almost every bill we debate here—“Let’s give it a catchy title, but have nothing in the middle.” All sizzle, no steak.

I was meeting yesterday with fruit and vegetable wholesalers, importers, who provide fruit and vegetables for almost all of southern Ontario—a really amazing organization. One of the things they were telling me was that insurance rates for trucking have gone through the roof; that if you want to help keep the price of food down, if you want to help business survive in Ontario, you’ve got to do something about these insurance companies that are gouging our trucking industry.

We saw this two years ago, when the insurance companies were gouging the snowplow companies, and all these small snowplow companies—these farmers who take care of the churches in their communities aren’t able to do it anymore because the insurance rates are so high. Some of these industries who are doing snowplowing—they have to go to Lloyd’s of London to get insurance, and we’re talking about millions of dollars of insurance. So the little guy is falling out of it, and even the bigger players are trying to find ways to sell to somebody else, because the insurance company keeps coming back for another chunk and another chunk. There’s no one looking into that gouging.

There’s no one looking into the food price gouging. We know it exists. This would help people.

A couple of times this morning, Speaker, I’ve heard the Conservative government brag about how they’re freezing fees and how municipalities are raising property taxes. It is unfair to the municipalities to blame them for raising property taxes because the Conservative government is downloading developer fees: $5 billion worth of developer fees have been downloaded to the municipalities, fees that used to be collected and given to the municipalities, but now the municipality has to make up that shortfall. And a municipality can’t run a deficit, so the only thing they can do when the Conservative government at the provincial level says, “Hey, take the hit for $5 billion,” is reduce services or increase fees.

I said it before, I’ll say it again, I’ll continue to say it, that when you look at your property taxes and you’re mad at them going up, save some of that blame that you’re aiming at your mayor and city council and put it where it belongs: the Conservative government. They made that call in record unaffordability. They said, “Wealthy developers shouldn’t have to pay anymore; you pay for it instead.” That’s not fair to people.

A lot of this bill Speaker—I said “a giant nothing burger” before, from the member for Oshawa, but a lot of this bill really can be, “It’s the same as it ever was”—the “same as it ever was” bill. Let’s remove tolls from places where there’s no tolls. Why don’t we remove tolls for the trucking industry to get on the 407 so we can move things around quicker, so we can help industry, so we can help business? Why don’t we, for the 407—I wish the Conservative government hadn’t sold it off so many years ago—collect $1 billion that they owe us instead of waiving it and saying, “We’ve got this one. We’ll pick up that cheque. It’s just a billion dollars. Don’t worry; our taxpayers will pay for it”? Why don’t we allow transport trucks on the 407—waive those tolls, allow people to drive? Less transport trucks on other roads, more people driving around—that’s not part of it.

One of them has to do with licence plate fees. They’re going to enable automatic licence plate renewal. I talked about backtracking before. The reason they have to do this is because people were getting tickets because they hadn’t renewed it. The Conservative government removed the cost but forgot to implement a system where people were reminded to renew, and so people didn’t and were getting pulled over. They also did the same thing for the health cards. People were going to hospital for emergency care with expired health cards. This isn’t you doing an amazing new thing, this is you fixing a mess that you made before. This bill is a giant nothing burger.

So you’re all over the place talking about everything, but what I really want to know is why you can’t commit to saying that the carbon tax is not good for the people of Ontario. Why can’t you say that?