SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

Ontario Assembly

43rd Parl. 1st Sess.
April 16, 2024 09:00AM
  • Apr/16/24 11:00:00 a.m.

Thank you to the great member from Kitchener–Conestoga for the question. He’s absolutely right; the carbon tax is driving up the cost of everything, including the food items we buy.

Let’s just take a little ride with a loaf of bread—the loaf of bread that you get at the grocery store. The Grain Farmers of Ontario expect to pay $2.7 billion in carbon tax by 2030, driving up the cost of grain. But it doesn’t stop there. Businesses that mill the grain into flour and then turn that flour into bread pay a carbon tax on their operations, and then there are carbon taxes on the fuel to get it to the distribution centre and to the grocery store. And the grocery store pays carbon tax on their operations, including their heating and their cooling and everything else. It’s a never-ending saga under these Liberals.

The fact is, if the federal government would understand the damage that they’re doing to people all across Ontario, they would scrap the tax.

Energy is a great subject for us to be talking about; not so much by the Liberals, because they could never figure it out.

We’re doing everything we can to make energy affordable here in the province of Ontario so families and businesses can survive and businesses can invest in their operations. We’re ensuring affordable home heating through our Clean Home Heating Initiative and the natural gas expansion program. We’re building the next generation of affordable nuclear energy in this province so we will have guaranteed energy for decades to come.

Speaker, they failed in energy policy. They’re failing in their approach to the carbon tax.

We’re going to continue to make life more affordable for the people of Ontario.

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  • Apr/16/24 11:10:00 a.m.

I want to thank the great member from Flamborough–Glanbrook for that question.

Speaker, Chrystia Freeland is more interested in photo ops and getting a new pair of shoes than she is in helping the people of Canada and Ontario.

We’re focused on relief for the people of Ontario. We are cutting the gas tax, cutting the tolls on the 412 and 418, and we’re keeping electricity costs down. But the federal government continues to work against us. The whopping 23% increase in the carbon tax on April 1 raises the price of everything, including the prices in grocery and shoe stores, and heating bills.

I’m asking the Liberal members on the other side to join us in telling your federal counterparts the carbon tax is punitive and is hurting families all across this province. Stand up with us. Ask them to scrap the tax.

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  • Apr/16/24 11:20:00 a.m.

Thank you to the member for the supplementary question.

Our government has been working hard to make Ontario the best place for business by cutting taxes, reducing red tape and expanding our use of clean energy.

Everything is getting more expensive here in the province of Ontario because of the carbon tax.

But there’s an additional problem, Speaker. You see, in spite of what the federal government tells the people, their intended effect of the carbon tax isn’t working; in fact, it’s noted that the emissions are not going down as a result of that. So the carbon tax isn’t even doing what the federal government said it was going to do.

So here you’ve got something that is not working, but it is succeeding in driving up the cost of everything in Ontario, hurting families, hurting businesses.

For goodness’ sake, Speaker, do they not understand it is time to scrap the carbon tax?

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  • Apr/16/24 11:40:00 a.m.

There’s too much heckling in here.

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