Colleagues, Tuesday morning I had the pleasure, along with Ministers Todd Smith and Lisa Thompson, of attending a great event at the Toronto board of trade, at which Bruce Power presented its 2023 annual review and energy report. It was an excellent presentation that outlined all the terrific things the company is doing.

Let me give you a few highlights. Operations at Bruce Power are going very well. Bruce Power is the largest operating nuclear power plant in the world—amazing. To keep these great operations going, the company is actively under way with its historic life extension program, Ontario’s largest private sector clean energy infrastructure project, which will extend the life of the existing units to 2064. Under this program, unit 6, which powers more than 900,000 homes in Ontario, was returned to service last fall on budget and ahead of schedule.

Of course, there’s Bruce Power’s exciting work with medical isotopes. For cancer patients, medical isotope technologies and treatments allow for fewer hospital visits, shorter treatment durations and hospital stays, and fewer side effects. They have the potential to revolutionize cancer care—truly amazing.

To CEO Mike Rencheck and the thousands of hard-working staff at Bruce Power, thank you for all you’re doing to produce clean energy that will power Ontario now and into the future and for your exciting work to beat cancer. This is legacy work and is truly appreciated by us all.

My question is for the Minister of Energy. People in my riding of Bruce–Grey–Owen Sound are concerned about the harmful impact of the federal carbon tax. So far, the federal government has increased the carbon tax not once, but five times.

To make things even worse, they plan on increasing it another seven times by 2030. This is ridiculous. Since the implementation of this tax, Ontarians have been paying more and more every single day for food, for services and for transportation. These dire effects are felt by our trucking industry, which serves a crucial role in transporting the goods we need in our daily lives.

Can the minister please further explain the impact of the federal carbon tax on Ontario’s trucking industry?

The bill gives the government the authority to set up affordable energy Ontario to finance and organize the deep retrofit of homes across Ontario and the provision of distributed energy, primarily solar, to homes and communities across Ontario. And a gripping bill, it is, Mr. Speaker—a gripping bill it is.

MPP Wong-Tam moved first reading of the following bill:

Bill 173, An Act respecting intimate partner violence / Projet de loi 173, Loi concernant la violence entre partenaires intimes.