My question is for the Minister of Energy.

During a period of rising cost of living and high interest rates, it’s important for all governments to find ways to make life more affordable for people in Ontario. But the Liberal carbon tax keeps making life more difficult for the hard-working men and women in our province. I’ve heard from my constituents’ families and farmers in my riding of Lanark–Frontenac–Kingston about how much costs for gas and groceries have increased as a result of this tax. Everyone in Ontario is experiencing this.

Speaker, I understand small businesses across the province still haven’t seen any of the rebate money they were promised three years ago. That’s not right.

Ontarians are looking to our government for support. That’s why we need to keep calling on the federal Liberals to cut the carbon tax.

Can the minister please explain how the Liberal carbon tax is creating financial hardship for everyone in our province?

As I said, life is already expensive for the hard-working people of our province. But the Liberals in this Legislature, much like their federal counterparts, are only focused on raising taxes for Ontario families and businesses. People in our province need urgent relief.

Unlike the carbon tax queen, Bonnie Crombie, and her caucus, our government is focused on making life more affordable for Ontarians.

It’s time for the federal government to listen to what we have been saying for years and get rid of the carbon tax once and for all.

Can the minister explain what our government is doing to protect the people of this province from the costly carbon tax?

Thank you to the member opposite for her comments and really bringing to the House’s attention the reason for this bill. The stories that you’re telling are what we’re trying to prevent.

When I think about this bill—strengthening the inspections and the power of the inspectors when they go to sites, providing higher regulations and standards and communicating those out to the breeders and also educating the public so that these bad actors can be identified.

You mentioned the number of inspections, which actually have stayed fairly consistent, but the number of orders have declined. I think that would be my expectation as we improve the system and go through, and it will be further improved with this bill. I’m wondering if the member opposite would agree with that.

I’ll just start by suggesting to the member from Hastings–Lennox and Addington that he take some advice from our associate minister and put those tins of food in his pocket. Then your cat will pay attention to you.

One of the things I wanted to talk about is—again, back to the associate minister, who has got some expertise on animal nutrition—the positive parts in this. There are a lot of elements in it to strengthen enforcement, with bigger fines and bigger penalties—enforcing and making the bad actors pay attention, hurting them where it hurts: in the pocketbook.

But also on the positive side, I’d like to get your comments on identifying what good best practices are for a responsible breeder, and educating the public on what those are so they know the advantages of purchasing an animal from a responsible breeder, and those elements that are within the bill and how you think those will help with reducing the number of—hopefully someday eliminating—the bad actors in the puppy mill business.