Thank you to the member from Ajax for that question. We know things are hard for the people of Ontario right now. High interest rates and high inflation are driving up the cost of food, driving up the cost of gas. Even the Bank of Canada has said the carbon tax drives up inflation, yet somehow, the Liberals continue to support it. The government should be working together to drive down the costs for Ontario families. That’s why our government is keeping costs down by extending our gas tax cut until the end of year and helping Ontario families save hundreds of dollars.

But we need the federal government to do their part. I’ll renew another call I made before, the Premier has made before, all of us have made before to the federal government: Join us in driving down the cost of living in ending the carbon tax once and for all.

It’s very simple, Mr. Speaker: You cannot tax your way to prosperity. There are two types of governments. There are the ones that raise taxes and add tolls and increase the cost of living, and there are the ones that cut costs, ban tolls and put money back in the hard-working pockets of the people of Ontario. And, under this Premier, I am more than proud to be part of the second group. In our budget, we delivered historic new cost-saving measures and are providing billions in savings across the province. But politics is a team sport. We are seeing the price of gas spike across the province, and we all know why.

So, to the federal Liberals, to the queen of the carbon tax, to that party over there: Join us in making life more affordable for Ontarians and finally scrap the carbon tax.

My question is for the Minister of Finance. The federal carbon tax is creating financial pressure for Ontario families, who are being forced to pay more for everyday essentials. Small and medium-sized businesses in Ajax tell me that they are concerned about rising energy bills and fuel costs. Business owners are seeing soaring expenses affect their bottom line, threatening their livelihood and that of their employees. This really must come to an end.

While the carbon tax queen, Bonnie Crombie, stands with her federal buddies, our government will always support hard-working people of this province.

Speaker, can the minister please explain how our government is helping Ontarians cope with rising costs driven by the carbon tax?

Just a few weeks ago, the minister delivered a budget that is continuing our plan to build a better Ontario while ensuring people keep money in their pockets.

Speaker, back to the minister: If the Ontario Liberals won’t help and the federal Liberals won’t listen, what is our government doing to build a better future for Ontarians and our province’s economy?

The next question.

Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

My question is for the Minister of Energy. At a time when families across Ontario struggle to cover their basic living expenses, the federal carbon tax is an additional burden to their already stretched budgets. Despite the hardship people in Ontario are going through, the Liberals, led by the carbon tax queen, Bonnie Crombie, and the opposition NDP, want to triple this tax by 2030.

Speaker, Ontarians need urgent relief from the negative impacts of this devastating tax. And despite the Liberals’ persistent advocacy for higher taxes, our government understands the need to alleviate financial pressure and deliver real affordability for the people of this province.

Speaker, can the minister please tell the House what actions our government is taking to combat the carbon tax?

On April 1, the federal Liberals, alongside their NDP allies, enacted a staggering 23% carbon tax. That’s crazy. This is unacceptable, Speaker.

This tax hike inflicts further harm on families across Ontario, forcing an additional 17.6 cents per litre to their gas bills. It’s not surprising that Ontarians across this province oppose this unjust measure. But it’s unfortunate that the Liberal and the NDP members in this House care more about playing politics than advocating on behalf of the people they represent.

Speaker, Ontarians need relief. The federal government needs to abolish the carbon tax now. Could the minister please elaborate on how this recent tax hike imposed by the Liberals is adversely affecting Ontarians?

I’m not sure if the member opposite is suggesting that the $2 billion that we fund Cancer Care Ontario to allow hospitals across Ontario to provide exceptional cancer treatment is not what she thinks is appropriate. I believe that we must continue to rely on clinicians, to rely on expert data to drive our decisions.

I will not put the risk of people of Ontario into suggesting that these are political decisions. They must be made by experts, by our specialists, by our clinicians working in the field. I will continue to rely on their expertise because, frankly, our numbers show that we are doing an excellent job in Ontario, including, of course, making changes that increase access to cancer treatment in Ontario.

And the supplementary question.

The Minister of Health.

The Premier.

The experts at Colorectal Cancer Canada, Canadian Cancer Society and Sunnybrook Health Science Centre’s Young Adult Colorectal Clinic have noted the rise in people under 50 with colorectal cancer.

Colorectal Cancer Canada says that diagnoses “rapidly climbed in recent years,” and referred to it in a recent news story as an “alarming reality.” And many would add that this rise is especially acute for racialized, Indigenous, Black, people of colour, but this government does not collect race-based data. We’ve asked for this for many, many, many years.

My question is back to the Premier: Can this government share with all Ontarians, including BIPOC Ontarians in their twenties, thirties and forties fighting colorectal cancer, if they are prepared to lower the age criteria for a colonoscopy, and if not, what is their provincial plan for early detection to help save lives like Bishop and countless others?

Interjections.

Thanks to the member from Thornhill. As a matter of fact, we’ve done a lot: We’ve reduced the gas tax until the end of the year, we brought in One Fare. The great minister of One Fare with great hair, he introduced that earlier this year, saving those who take transit $1,600 a year. We have never raised a tax, as the Premier just said, or a fee.

Now, you’ve got the Liberals over here, led by the queen of the carbon tax, who are in full support of the federal carbon tax that—you know, this is like déjà vu all over again, Mr. Speaker. I remember standing in this House as an opposition member when those Liberals brought in the Green Energy Act, and all we saw were tail lights headed for the US, as 300,000 jobs left for the southern part of the United States.

Now, they’re doing it again at the federal level with the carbon tax. They’re doing their best to stop the work that’s happening in here, those 700,000 new jobs that have come to Ontario since Premier Ford and our government have taken office. We’re on the right tack—

Interjections.

I mentioned last week I was down in Niagara Falls for that massive refurbishment announcement. We have massive refurbishments going on at our Candu nuclear facilities at Darlington and also at Bruce, and about to get under way at Pickering. That’s going to ensure affordable, safe, reliable energy for the next 30 to 40 years.

As a result of those investments, including the small modular reactors we’re building at Darlington—last Friday, I was with MPPs Riddell and Dixon in Cambridge, and we saw an $80-million expansion at BWXT: 250 new jobs. That’s on top of all of the jobs that these refurbishments are creating.

We have a plan for Ontario. It’s working, and it—

Last week, I sent the Premier a can of gravy to symbolize the runaway gravy train that is his office, more that than doubling his budget to $6.9 million, going from 20 to 48 people on the sunshine list.

The average salary of the Premier’s sunshine staff is twice that of the median family income in Ontario—not individual; family income. For those families, life is more expensive than under any other Premier in Ontario’s history. So Speaker, how is the Premier’s runaway gravy train helping Ontario families at all?

The truth is, the Premier’s gravy train is leaving Ontario families behind. Every day, more and more families are forced to use their credit card instead of their OHIP card. Rent is skyrocketing because there’s no real rent control. Small landlords are being bankrupted by delays at the Landlord and Tenant Board, and now we hear that the Premier wants to start charging people for testing their well water.

So, Speaker, when will the Premier and his office stop the gravy train and stop leaving Ontario families behind?

Interjections.

It’s very hard to take the member seriously. This is the person that invented the gravy train. His government ran the gravy train right into the ground, losing 300,000 jobs from this province. Talk to the 300,000 people that don’t have a paycheque because of his government, supported by the NDP.

Talk about what we’re doing today: Over 700,000 more people are bringing home a paycheque because of our policies. We’re building new hospitals in the province. We’re building new long-term care. We are building the largest subway expansion in North America. We’re building roads and highway and bridges.

Our economy right now is one of the strongest in North America, one of the strongest in the world. We have become an economic powerhouse—no matter if it’s the EV batteries or being the number one in the world when it comes to having six of the largest auto manufacturers right here. That’s what—

You know, Mr. Speaker, the gravy train was going full steam under this government. We’re the only government—think of this—that has never raised a tax. We reduced taxes. We got rid of the licence registration. We cut tolls on the 412 and 418. We reduced the gas price by 10.7 cents a litre.

We’re going to continue putting money back into people’s pockets, unlike the Liberals and NDP. They know one thing: tax and spend.

Thank you very much.

The next question.

Minister of Energy.

Supplementary.

My question is to the Premier. Employment service providers help job seekers find meaningful long-term careers, helping people break the cycle of poverty and homelessness.

Employment services funding has been stagnant for well over a decade. Why?

The numbers speak for themselves. When people have help finding good, stable jobs, it represents savings for the province and happy, productive lives. Yet ESPs are now being forced to take over Ontario Works responsibilities on top of their core mandate to help people find work.

Why do Conservatives always expect hard-working people on the front line to do more with less?

My question is for the Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. The Liberal carbon tax hurts Ontario farmers and limits their potential to grow our agricultural and food industry. Since the implementation of this punitive tax in 2019, our farmers have seen production costs increase exponentially.

People in my riding of Thunder Bay–Atikokan and all across the province rely on Ontario farmers to grow high-quality, healthy food for their families. It’s not fair that the federal Liberals are continuing to punish farmers who already use environmentally responsible practices with a tax that does absolutely nothing to reduce emissions. They need to scrap the tax now.

Speaker, can the minister please share what she has heard directly from Ontario farmers about the impact of the carbon tax on their businesses?

The carbon tax harms hard-working individuals, business and farmers, but, Speaker, the Prime Minister keeps saying that farmers are exempted from the carbon tax. As we just heard from the minister, that is not the case. Ontarians won’t be fooled by the Liberals’ money-grabbing schemes and their carbon tax.

Speaker, can the minister please explain how the federal carbon tax is negatively impacting Ontario’s farmers?

Speaker, that’s just categorically not true. We increased employment services’ funding when we led employment service transformation across Ontario.

But, Speaker, to look at that in isolation would be doing a disservice—a disservice to the hundreds of thousands of—

It would be doing a disservice to the hundreds of thousands of men and women trained through the Skills Development Fund for better jobs with a bigger paycheque. We’ve been helping racialized, marginalized, socio-economically disadvantaged groups all across Ontario have access to a meaningful job, Speaker.

And I visited the justice-affected individuals at Oaks Revitalization centre. I’m meeting with them—I think it’s this week or next, Speaker—to talk first-hand with men and women literally who have had run-ins with justice, but today, thanks to this Premier, this government, they are taxpaying members of society working on the front lines of skilled trades.

Speaker, to the Premier: Today is Earth Day. The Premier’s Bill 165 will increase people’s Enbridge bills and force them to finance expansion of the gas system. That will mean people will be poorer and the world’s climate will get hotter.

This Earth Day, will the Premier abandon Bill 165 in order to protect people’s pocketbooks and avoid climate disasters?

Again, this Earth Day, will the Premier abandon Bill 165 and protect people’s pocketbooks and futures instead of Enbridge’s profits?

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker, I just answered a question about all of the things that our government is doing to ensure that we have clean, reliable, safe, affordable energy for our province going forward. That includes multi-billion-dollar refurbishments that are happening at Bruce and OPG’s Darlington station and multi-billion-dollar investments at Pickering, something that that member is opposed to. He’s opposed to the 76,000 jobs in our nuclear sector and the baseload power that comes from those facilities, providing up to 60% of our power every day.

We rely on natural gas in our province, Mr. Speaker. Over 70% of homes—do you know what they’re heated by? Natural gas, something that member would pull out of people’s homes tomorrow if he had the chance. We’re going to ensure, through Bill 165, that we keep energy costs affordable, and we’re going to keep all of the new homes that we’re building in Ontario affordable as well, something that the NDP is opposed to.

They supported the Green Energy Act that the previous provincial Liberals brought forward, and we know how the current Liberal leader, the queen of the carbon tax, Bonnie Crombie, feels about the federal carbon tax. It’s driving people into energy poverty as well.

Our Powering Ontario’s Growth plan will ensure that we have non-emitting baseload power going forward that our province can count on, to see the type of investments that we have been seeing under the leadership of Premier Ford and our Minister of Economic Development, Minister Fedeli, out there beating the bushes and bringing back billions of dollars of investments into our EV, EV battery and manufacturing jobs, back to this province.

I’m pleased to rise in the House today and first and foremost acknowledge the great member from Thunder Bay–Atikokan, who’s doing a beautiful job advocating for his riding as well as all of northern Ontario.

We’re meeting with farmers every day, and just a couple of weeks ago, Drew Spoelstra, president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, joined the Premier and myself and the President of the Treasury Board at a rally in Holland Marsh. Drew spoke to people and shared that he dried 2,200 tons of grain last fall and it cost him $4,500 in carbon tax alone—and that was before the 23% increase that we realized as of April 1.

Drew explained that the carbon tax makes Ontario farmers less competitive against imports and it also makes Ontario products less competitive around the world.

Ladies and gentlemen, Beef Farmers of Ontario are in the House today and the chair of the BFO shared earlier this morning that 40% of all beef produced in Ontario is exported. So, for goodness’ sake, we need to be doing everything we can to make sure that Ontario farmers are competitive, not only in Ontario and North America but around the world.

The queen of the carbon tax needs to jam on the brakes of that minivan and—

Greenhouses are really getting hit hard. Drew, the president of OFA, also explained that one greenhouse relied on natural gas and their total energy bill of $13,614 included nearly $4,000 in carbon tax alone—and, again, that was before the April 1 increase.

Ladies and gentlemen, there’s one way that we can stand by farmers in Ontario, and it’s by joining together and telling the queen of the carbon tax to get to Ottawa and tell those federal Liberals once and for all to scrap the tax.

Again, the only people in this House who want these men and women to do more with less is the NDP, because they voted, every time, against budget measures that have put more funding into programs like the Skills Development Fund.

I would encourage that member to join me in the union training halls in his own riding, look them in the face and explain to those business reps why he voted against SDF funding that’s helping people who are out of work get access to a job. It’s because he doesn’t want to build the hospitals. He doesn’t want to build the schools. He wants misery. He wants government handouts. He doesn’t want to give these people a leg-up.

That’s what we’re doing with this government. We’re giving people dignity and purpose, and I’m proud of it.

Interjections.

My question is to the Minister of Health. Despite recent assurances that there have been no changes to water testing, communities like Niagara depend heavily on Public Health Ontario’s free drinking water testing. They need to know the minister is committed to keeping those labs open.

Last Friday, the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority urged a reconsideration of the plan to close those labs and essential services. They pointed to Niagara’s high instances of bacterial contamination—a revelation only made available because of PHO’s free water testing program.

Can the minister explain why the discontinuation is still under consideration when so many experts are telling you it’s a big mistake?

Given your previous assurances that no changes have been made to the water testing program, can you clarify why the government is not completely committed to keeping these labs open, ensuring the health and water quality for our families and children across Ontario remain safe?

I have some visitors all the way from Foleyet. Joel Theriault is here with Stop the Spray Ontario. I also have a group of Traditional Ecological Knowledge Elders from the Robinson-Huron Treaty territory who are here for the petition: Jodi Koberinski, Caroline Recollet, and Jo Boyer. And we have the coalition of elders, environmentalists, hunters and anglers who say, “Stop the spray,” who will also be joining us momentarily.

Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Ms. Ghamari moved first reading of the following bill:

Bill Pr45, An Act to revive 1828469 Ontario Inc.

Here is what the petition that 300,000 Ontarians—actually, 302,000 Ontarians have signed. I have problems with math, sometimes, in English. But here it goes:

“Stop the Spray.”

They want the government of Ontario to realize that there is a wide variety of non-chemical alternatives to what is currently being used to effectively meet vegetation management needs.

Quebec has banned the use of chemical herbicides by their forestry industry since 2001.

We had a report done by the Senate, of the committee at the federal Legislature, that looked at the boreal forest, and they published a report entitled Competing Realities: The Boreal Forest at Risk. The committee recommended that all herbicides and chemical pesticides used in the boreal forest should be phased out as soon as possible. They did that in 1999, 25 years ago, yet here we are in Ontario in 2024 and we still use those chemical herbicides. Don’t get me wrong; they are not being used in southern Ontario. Toronto has banned it. Many areas of the province do not allow chemical herbicides to be used. But on crown land in northern Ontario, on First Nations territory in northern Ontario, they are used all the time. They are a threat to our environment. They are a threat to the health of the population. Many, many cancers are directly linked to the use of those sprayed herbicides. It doesn’t have to be that way. We have other ways to do this. So they hope for the government to listen.

Ban the use of non-essential chemical herbicides throughout Ontario.