With that, I seek unanimous consent that this House acknowledge that the kaffiyeh is a culturally significant clothing item to many in Ontario’s Palestinian, Muslim and Arab communities, and should neither be considered an expression of a political message nor an accessory likely to cause disorder and should therefore be permitted to be worn in the House.

In December, the Ontario Energy Board ruled that consumers should no longer have to subsidize Enbridge’s gas expansion. But instead of listening to the experts, the government decided to keep forcing consumers to pay the subsidy.

Yesterday, the Narwhal revealed that the Premier’s top officials weren’t just communicating with Enbridge on this; they were actively coordinating their response together.

Again, this is to the Premier. Did the government give preferential treatment to Enbridge when it intervened pre-emptively to undermine the regulator and drive up costs for consumers?

Maybe the minister doesn’t really understand what’s going on here. This is passing on an additional cost to consumers in this province, on their gas bills.

On the morning of the OEB ruling, the chief of staff to the Minister of Energy reached out to the Premier’s staff and called an urgent meeting to prepare a response in case the OEB ruled against Enbridge in favour of consumers. It just happens that the minister’s chief of staff is—guess what?—a former lobbyist for Enbridge.

So my question to the Premier again is, was this chief of staff in a conflict of interest when he decided to put the interests of his former employer ahead of the interests of Ontario gas consumers?

Government lawyers warned the Premier’s staff and the former Enbridge lobbyist, who now, I will remind everybody, is working as the minister’s chief of staff, that intervening in the OEB decision carried legal risks. They did it anyway. They announced a plan to overrule the OEB only 15 hours after the decision was published. I have never seen a government so determined to overrule an independent regulator and drive up gas bills for Ontarians.

Why is the government risking legal action in order to give preferential treatment to this gas monopoly over the interests of hard-working Ontarians?

Interjections.

As millions of Ontarians struggle to find a family doctor, private companies are seeing an opportunity to make a profit.

Instead of making sure everyone has access to primary care, the government is letting so-called executive health clinics continue to charge patients thousands and thousands of dollars to see a doctor.

Does the Premier believe people who can afford it should be able to use their credit card to skip to the front of the line?

I want to make sure that the government truly understands this. These concierge clinics are promising patients 24/7 care and access to a dedicated team, but there’s just one catch: Patients are expected to pay a whopping $12,000 a year. In the middle of a severe primary care shortage across this entire province, this is clearly creating a two-tiered health care system where those who can afford it are going to move to the front of the line at the expense of everybody else.

So my question, again, to the Premier of this province: Why is this government allowing for-profit clinics to compromise the integrity of the public health care system?

Interjections.

Public health care providers out there are calling this government’s strategy for funding primary care the “Wild West.” The government isn’t just allowing these companies to take advantage of patients; they are, in fact, encouraging it.

I want to ask the Premier, why are you allowing these for-profit clinics to get away with this while ignoring the model that we know works here in the province of Ontario?

Interjections.