Thanks to the great member from Haliburton–Kawartha Lakes–Brock for the question this morning.

We are continuing to increase the province’s supply of clean, affordable, reliable and safe nuclear power in the member’s own region with four small modular reactors—world-leading small modular reactors that are going in at the Darlington OPG site. We’re refurbishing the Candu reactors that are there. OPG and our building trades and skilled trade workers and engineers are ensuring that those refurbishments aren’t just on time and on budget, they’re actually ahead of schedule and on budget, which is a tremendous success story, and that’s given us the confidence to move forward on the refurbishment of the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station.

Just yesterday, I was down announcing a $1-billion refurbishment of the Sir Adam Beck hydroelectric facility in Niagara Falls—clean, reliable water power for our province’s future. We’re building out a clean grid, but it’s the queen of the carbon tax, Bonnie Crombie, and her friend Justin Trudeau, that are increasing the carbon tax, driving people into poverty.

Speaker, 76,000 people are working in Canada’s nuclear sector every day, and 68,000 of them are working in Ontario’s sector, in the supply chain and operating the plants. Those are hard-working people—skilled trades, engineers and plant operators—who get good paycheques every single day. They’re providing almost 60% of the province’s baseload power—clean, reliable, affordable electricity.

It’s our party, it’s our government, under the leadership of Premier Ford, that is supporting not just the current crop of skilled trade workers and nuclear operators, but those who are training to become nuclear engineers in our universities and who are going to be operating the new Candu or large nuclear plants that are being built at Bruce, and the small modular reactors, which are world-leading in the G7, that are coming online later this decade, that are going to continue to provide our province with the clean, reliable, affordable electricity we’ll be able to count on for decades to come.

I’m going to bring some more good news for the residents of Richmond Hill this morning: Our government is actually trying to make life more affordable for people by reducing the cost of gasoline by 10.7 cents a litre.

Unfortunately, I do have to deliver some bad news, but it’s not because of anything our government is doing. If you heard the organization this morning, Canadians for Affordable Energy, on news, on TV and radio this morning, they’re talking about a 14-cent jump at the pumps tonight.

Part of this is because of the federal carbon tax that increased a couple of weeks ago—a carbon tax that Justin Trudeau, when he had the opportunity to hit the pause button or take it off of the cost of living in Ontario, decided, “No, I’m going to increase it by a whopping 23%.” So, tonight, we’re going to see the price of gas go to a buck 80—a buck 80, on average, across the province. And the teeny, tiny Liberal caucus here is more than happy to support Justin Trudeau’s carbon tax—

Yesterday, the federal Liberals up on Parliament Hill had an opportunity in their budget to provide some relief for the people of Ontario, and they didn’t provide any relief. And now, as a result, tonight, we’re seeing the price of gas increase by 14 cents a litre to a buck 80. It would be a buck 90 if we weren’t taking 10.7 cents a litre, approaching $2 a litre, but that’s what Justin Trudeau and that’s what the queen of the carbon tax, Bonnie Crombie, want to do. They want to make the price of gas more expensive. That’s why they’re putting this federal carbon tax on there, and the queen of the carbon tax is happy to have that federal tax in place.

It’s unacceptable for people who are living in an affordability crisis in Ontario and across the country to have this punitive carbon tax in place. Do what we’re doing: Try and make life more affordable for the people of Ontario.