It’s always an honour to stand in the House. Today we’re doing Bill 162. The working title is the Get It Done Act. I’ve got to say, Thursday afternoons, we’re all struggling. A few of us on the government side aren’t struggling; I appreciate that.

Before I get into the formal remarks, today is the last day for the current group of pages, and I’d just like to make a thank you again for all their work. We couldn’t survive without them.

There’s another group of people who are here for longer periods, our ushers, and they all should have a medal of honour because they actually have to be here all the time and listen all the time. That’s pretty tough. One particular usher, this is his last day: Steve. Steve and I have a bit of a love-hate relationship, I’ve got to say, because Steve—where is Steve? There’s Steve. Give us a wave, Steve. Come on. Get up there. Give us a wave.

Steve has got the meanest evil eye. I come around the corner and I’m running my hand along the banister; that’s a rule that I found out you’re not supposed to do. There’s Steve. Another day, I come and I’m just finishing my muffin, so I have some in my hand, and there’s Steve. I’ve got to say, on all our behalf, to all the ushers—especially to Steve on your last day—thank you very much for your service to this province.

The last time I spoke to this bill, at second reading, I spent quite a bit of time talking about how it was called the Get It Done Act. It’s still the Get It Done Act and in northern Ontario, we hear “get ’er done.” And I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this, but we don’t think of smart, thoughtful things when we hear “the get ’er done act.” We just don’t. When you hire somebody and he goes, “I’ll get ’er done,” you just know that it might work, but it might not work very well. I might go back to that a little bit later.

But I listened very intently to the minister. I have a lot of respect for all the members of this House. I do. I respect this place. I respect people’s points of view. I often disagree and they often disagree with me, and that’s what makes this place cool.

He said, “Our track record speaks for itself.” The member from—

—Spadina–Fort York just brought up that this government has had to rescind seven bills. I would say that that part of the record also speaks for itself. That’s a lot of getting ’er done and then thinking “oops.” That’s a record. Your record speaks for itself, that you are the undisputed, unqualified get-’er-done kings and queens. No other government has put forward such egregious legislation that the same government has had to say, “Oops. Oops. We’ve got to get that undone, because we got caught.”

Again, we disagree with some things on philosophy. You won a majority government; I get that. I get that. We’re not disputing that. But some of the things that you do, you know it yourself. You know it yourself and you still let it happen. And that’s why, when I’m listening and listening to the minister say, “Our track record speaks for itself”—and those seven, these weren’t little things.

I can talk about a couple. The famous blue licence plates: That’s not going to change the world. Actually, no; it could change some people’s lives, because as soon as those things came out, you realized that you couldn’t see them at night. That’s a bad thing, right? And that wasn’t one of the seven bills. So then it was, “You know, okay, yes. Our careful planning and changing the colour to the Conservative blue—yes, okay, we’ll get rid of those.”

I have a friend who bought a car in that period—and I’m going to talk about cars later, because we all want to have the car industry be very robust in this province. He bought a car, a brand new one, with the blue licence plate, and I said to him, I remember—he’s a good friend of mine. I said, “Do you know what? The government just said that these things are no good, but when they send you the new one, hold on to it, because it’ll be a collectors’ item, kind of like a penny that wasn’t minted correctly.” And we waited and we waited, years and years and years, and then the government came out with their plan how they’re going to get rid of the blue licence plates: They’re just going to wait until they fall off. That is the plan.

Interjection.

That’s just a little thing, but some of the things that you’ve had to rescind—the greenbelt grab—it was obvious right when it happened, right when you announced what you were doing. It was obvious to almost everyone in the province that that wasn’t going to fly. It just wasn’t, and it didn’t, and you had to back up on your legislation. There are still problems, and I’m not going to dwell on it, but you have a few hangovers from it, particularly an RCMP investigation, so obviously this isn’t a philosophical difference. That’s much deeper than philosophical—much deeper.

So when you say that your track record speaks for itself, I would say you have to take that with a huge—not a grain of salt, but a big cube. I always use farm references, and I’m not going anywhere where people think I’m going, but anybody who has ever been on a farm—cows need salt, and farmers buy big blocks of salt. You can buy white ones, blue ones or red ones. So when this government says that they have this track record that speaks for itself, you need to take it with a big blue block of salt.

The Minister of Transportation also said that bumper-to-bumper traffic is tough on your mental health. I agree with that. I come from northern Ontario. I don’t do a lot of bumper-to-bumper traffic until I drive here. My trip here, if traffic here is good, basically from Queen’s Park to my home, is six hours—if traffic here is good. If traffic here isn’t good, it’s six-plus hours. I get bumper-to-bumper traffic.

Now, the government is very aggressive on Highway 413. We disagree philosophically. But bumper-to-bumper traffic is happening now, so even with the things this government is trying to do with the 413—actually, some of them might slow things down, because when you don’t do your due diligence, people push back much harder. If you’re going to do a quality, qualified environmental assessment, it might seem like it’s taking a long time, but if you don’t do it, you’re going to run into protests and it’s going to be much tougher. I’ll get back into that with the Mining Act.

So let’s say it takes—anybody got a guess? How long is it going to take to actually start and complete the 413? Twenty years? Ten? Let’s go for 15.

Interjection.

So we’re talking about the 413, the planning, blah, blah, blah. Who owns the land around the 413 also might run into some investigative problems. But all that time, people are still in bumper-to-bumper traffic. So although we differ philosophically completely on the 413, there’s something that the NDP proposed that we could do tomorrow and would help people’s mental health tomorrow—

Take the tolls off the 407 for trucks. The government forgave the company that owns the 407 a billion dollars in fees because, during COVID, they couldn’t come up with them. So, instead of forgiving that billion dollars, say, “Okay. We want, as a start, a billion dollars of coupons for trucks,” and get the trucks off the 407 so people can actually get home on the 401. That’s something that would help people tomorrow. The 413 is going to help them—if it helps them at all—20 years from now. The government is very opposed to that. We put that forward—maybe they’re just opposed to it because we put it forward, the official opposition put it forward.

Something else that the Minister of Transportation said is that we are opposed to everything. Actually, that’s not true, but I am very proud, extremely proud that we voted against every one of those bills that you had to rescind. We’re very proud that we had nothing to do with the bills that are causing that RCMP investigation—very proud.

We vote against your budgets because there are always financial measures in those budgets that we are opposed to. But when this government puts forward—and amazingly, I give credit where credit’s due. Sometimes they put forward legislation that moves the bar forward in certain areas, and we support them, as much as some days it pains me. But if legislation moves the bar forward, we’re happy to vote for it. That’s our job. It’s our job to criticize, to oppose, to propose, to hold the government to account, and also, when the government puts forward legislation that we agree with, to support. But that is not, it appears to us, the way the government operates.

Again, the Minister of Transportation said that we have some of the most congested highways in North America. We have them today, I think we could all agree, except for the 407. It’s not congested. The 407 was actually—if I remember, they didn’t actually sell the 407, right? A previous Conservative government didn’t actually sell the 407; they leased it out for 99 years. Didn’t they just lease out something else for—oh, no, Ontario Place. They only leased it out for 95—only 95. Nothing to see here, folks. Nothing to see here at all. What could go wrong with a 95-year lease? I’ll tell you what could go wrong. A 99-year lease on the 407, that could go wrong. We can’t change that because you can’t—any good government, you have to live by—I guess, when a government makes a law, when that law is passed and when companies base their decisions on those laws, you can’t retract. That’s the way our system works.

Actually, this government did for the first time—at least the first time since I’ve been here. I’ve been here a while, Speaker. Like, I’m not one of these 30-year-type people, but I’ve been here 12 and a half. In dog years that would be a lifetime, but in legislative years it feels like a lifetime, too. If it was 12 and a half years of Thursday afternoons, it would be tough, and as the Speaker sitting here Thursday afternoon, you know that, Speaker.

Now, I’ve completely lost my place. Oh, yes, now I know where I am. Okay. I do actually have notes for this speech; I just haven’t got there yet. I just haven’t got there yet. I’m just hoping that nobody does a point of order that I have to stay to the speech, because I can get really quiet and dry if you want me to. Okay.

But when this government was first elected, if you will recall, the former Liberal government was not actually supported by the NDP, because the only time the Liberals were supported by the NDP was between 2011 and 2013 or 2014. That’s when I first got elected, in the minority. And after that, there was an election, and do you know what happened in that election? The people of Ontario picked the Liberals over the Conservatives and over us, and they had a majority. And then they did it again. So, that had nothing to do with the NDP supporting the Liberals for those two majorities. That had to do with the people of Ontario making a decision. I didn’t agree, either. I didn’t vote for the Liberals in those two elections—obviously, I hope.

Getting back, when this government was first elected, the Liberal government prior had created the Green Energy Act and they tendered contracts for private companies to create power, wind and solar, and do you know what? Those contracts were far too high. I think we can all agree. They were not good contracts, but they were tendered by a duly elected government, and then this government made legislation to cancel those contracts. Again, a government can do that. But what this government did, and it should never be done, is they had a clause in that bill that the companies involved who lost those contracts could not sue or could not have remedy to keep themselves whole.

So, if you’ve got a great deal on a wind turbine or on solar panels and the government was wrong enough to do it, or miscalculated to do it—and then the next government says, “Okay, you got that deal. You spent untold millions of dollars building those windmills,” and then the next government says, “We’re going to cancel that, and do you know what? You can’t even sue us to get that cost back.” It said that in the legislation. I know it did; I had a long talk with the President of the Treasury Board at that time. That is the kind of rash decisions of a new government, kind of like the blue licence plates—much worse than the blue licence plates. And this government didn’t actually learn, because after that is when they started taking these big bills and then having to rescind them—basically things that they saw that the people of Ontario rejected wholeheartedly and completely.

Something else that the Minister of Transportation said in his speech—and I’m taking all these subjects, Speaker, from the minister’s speech, not directly from the legislation, but I listened intently to his speech. He talked about how the government was going to upload the Don Valley Parkway and the Gardiner Expressway from the city of Toronto. That’s something that we understand. I think I would agree with that. Those aren’t really city streets; they’re major provincial thoroughfares. But coming from northern Ontario, there are miles and miles—or, okay, we’re metric now, right?—kilometres and kilometres and kilometres of former provincial highways that were downloaded by a former Conservative Premier, Premier Mike Harris. Kilometres and kilometres—imperial is not unparliamentary, eh? No.

But anyway, I’ve got the town of Iroquois Falls. It’s got more kilometres of former provincial highway per person than anyone else in the province, and they’re having to close bridges, because do you know what? Their tax base just can’t maintain it. Does it make sense for the province to upload major thoroughfares that actually aren’t really part of the city’s infrastructure? I’ll give them that. But in farm language, we have what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. So if it’s good for Toronto—and Toronto is a huge part of the GTA. When you’re from northern Ontario, we basically think of Toronto as anywhere south of Barrie, really. I didn’t really start to differentiate until I got elected, because for us, that’s where it starts to get busy. We get it. For a northerner who doesn’t go south very often, we start to get really nervous around Barrie, because that’s where it gets busy—not from the people, but just the congestion. So we just think of that as Toronto.

But now I’ve been here for 12 and a half years, so I live here six months a year, and now I know. I know there’s a big difference between the downtown and Scarborough and Milton and Mississauga. I know there’s a big difference, and I’ve learned a lot, actually. I really enjoy the Legislature for that, because when I listen to other people’s speeches—and I do the same thing, right? We all focus on the places we’re from, and we do that for our own reasons too, so the people know that we are representing them. But it’s really interesting, if you listen to what drives different places. I really find that interesting.

Something else I really find interesting is listening to people—what they did before; their pasts—because there’s a lot of lived knowledge. It really makes a difference.

But getting back to the roads: You want to upload the Gardiner and upload the Don Valley? Go to it. But how about we also look at uploading roads not just in—I know northern Ontario, northeastern Ontario. I know my part in northern Ontario. Northern Ontario is a big place. But what about those roads? It’s easy to forget.

Another issue: I wasn’t going to talk about this very deeply, but I think I’m going to. There was a big announcement today about Honda EVs. I think everyone in this House wants to have a robust car industry, and right now, we’re in a transformational change between fossil fuels and EV. I don’t think there’s anyone here opposed, at all. But there’s a few—not “buts”; we’re not opposed at all. But it’s our job to say, “Have you thought about this? Have you thought about this? Have you thought about this?” That’s our job too, because we come from all across the province.

I think one of the reasons why big companies are coming here and making investments in battery plants and car plants is that we have a stable society—which we do. Compared to much of the rest of the world, we have a stable society, which I’m very proud of. And we should have access to natural resources, to supply—and the government’s good at talking about this, and I agree—the supply chain. I agree with that. But parts of the supply chain, you haven’t fully thought through.

The member from Kiiwetinoong asked a very important question this morning. I’m here asking it again, and it’s not something I fully understand either. But free, prior and informed consent, not just from one or two First Nations, but from the First Nations that are involved—obviously I’m not First Nations and I cannot speak for them, but I can speak for how we’ve gone through this cycle in northern Ontario too.

I come from a mining area, and I’m very proud of it. We have great mining companies. One of our biggest mining companies is Agnico Eagle. They’re very good to work with. They have a very good environmental record. But it has been that the minerals come from the north, the industry is in the south, and then when something changes, the north is just left. And no one knows that better than First Nations because it’s happened time and time again. I’m sure that the companies that you’re dealing with need the assurance that those minerals are available, and we have them. But I’ll tell you something, and this was very early on: When the Premier said that if the road wasn’t quick enough, he’d get on the bulldozer himself, that sent a chill through northern Ontario, because what that said is, you know what, we don’t really matter. If the south needs it, it’s going to happen. That is not going to speed things up.

I’m not saying this to—we want this to succeed, as Ontarians. We all want this to succeed, but when you’re going to pick one or two and leave three or four behind and say, “Oh, we’ve consulted everybody,” you’re going to run into problems, perhaps much bigger problems than you’ve ever envisioned, and that, that is a problem—I’ve said problems a couple of times. That could potentially slow this down, slow your EV supply chain down way more than some of you are considering, and we don’t want that to happen.

So we need—please, when someone asks if it’s going to be free, prior and informed consent, it means something. It really means something, because for First Nations in northern Ontario, they’ve signed treaties that no one has ever lived up to. So having us say, “Trust us, we’ll give you this and this; just trust us, everything is going to be fine,” they’ve heard that song and dance before. Northerners have all heard that song. And as a white son of an immigrant, I can’t speak for First Nation people at all, but as a northerner, I can speak to this: that we have all heard that song and dance before.

We need to make sure that the people of the north are actually partners, true partners. And I think that the companies we’re dealing with want that too. I heard the Minister of Transportation talk about mining and how they’ve changed, they’re removing the red tape. And the mining companies I’ve talked to—it does take too long to permit a mine in Ontario, right? We’re not disagreeing with that. But changing, removing the red tape and regulation isn’t actually the problem.

So one of our major mining companies in my area—they have gold mines in my area—Agnico Eagle, they also have a gold mine in Nunavut. Nunavut has stronger environmental regulations than Ontario—much stronger—but the permitting process is much faster. So that’s the issue, because modern mining has a good reputation. Mining didn’t always have a good reputation. We have lots of old mines in our area that left environmental degradation, lots, but modern mining now doesn’t. They need to protect that reputation, and that reputation is protected by regulation, so I’m not sure that you’re actually solving the problem. I’m not sure, because for mining to be accepted in a region—and we have lots of mines; we have some new ones being built—everyone has to be confident that everyone will be protected by the regulations.

Saying that we’re going to get rid of red tape and get rid of regulations is not actually doing that. Saying that we need to make the permitting process faster—have actual hard dates for mining—that’s really important. I’m sure it’s really important for the EV companies too, that they have hard dates, because when they’re talking about billions of dollars—the government is putting in billions of dollars—they have milestones and goals that they have to hit, because they also have to have major investors. This is a tough gig, so you need dates.

You don’t want surprises. I’ll give you a little surprise: You want to get to the Ring of Fire? You want a road to the Ring of Fire? Okay. But the road we have now from North Bay to there will never handle the equipment you need to get there.

I hear the Minister of Transportation say, “We’re going to improve Highway 11.” On Highway 11, to the former Minister of Transportation’s credit—Minister Mulroney—she actually got the 2+1 passing lanes approved. I give credit where credit is due. She did that. We worked very hard along with the GEMS committee to get that done, but that is not going to help you get to the Ring of Fire. You’re going to need millions—billions—of dollars. I don’t know how much it costs to build good roads, exactly, but from North Bay north you do not have the roads. Forget where you don’t have a road at all—you’re going to have to build a lot there too—but the roads from North Bay north aren’t going to get the stuff there either. That doesn’t come from me, that comes from the president of the Ontario Road Builders’ Association.

There are a lot of things that we’ve got to do and that we would support you on, but let’s really talk about this.

Before I run out of time, I actually better look at some of these notes. There’s one other thing—and it’s in the notes too. I do believe the actual name of the bill has something about carbon tax, that there’s not going to be any new carbon taxes allowed without a referendum or something.

This government is very opposed to the federal carbon tax, as the NDP has never been in favour of federal carbon tax, by the way—ever. We think it’s regressive. We did vote for cap-and-trade. This government scrapped it. The minister said, “We got rid of cap-and-trade. We took the government to court on the carbon tax.”

Just for the record, the federal carbon tax is a backstop program. If the province has its own program and it meets the goals of taking carbon out of the atmosphere, you don’t have to pay the carbon tax. Quebec doesn’t pay the carbon tax. Please correct me if I’m wrong, because I’ve been known sometimes to have the occasional misinformation—not on purpose—but Quebec doesn’t pay the carbon tax because they have cap-and-trade.

The province cancels cap-and-trade, then fights the federal government on the carbon tax, spends millions of dollars and loses the court battle. Now it’s basically become a political battle. They’re helping their federal friends and they’re blaming every problem on the carbon tax. Again, let’s make it clear: We are not in favour of the carbon tax.

Now they have in this legislation that if another government wants to put any other carbon pricing system in, they have to hold a referendum. The only carbon-pricing system that’s exempt from that is the one that this government itself implemented. They have a carbon tax. It’s an industrial compliance fee for carbon.

I’m not going to say who said this, but I had a conversation with one of the members. And when I asked him about it, he said, “Well, it’s more than two words. Nobody will understand it.” But this government has an indirect carbon tax. So because of this government, Ontarians are paying two. They’re paying a federal one, which we don’t agree with either, but they’re getting rebated for most of that. But for the industrial compliance fee, there’s no rebate.

Some of the government’s arguments I believe. The government continues to say that if you had a cap-and-trade system, the extra costs of cap-and-trade will filter through the system and end up making things cost more. You know what? That’s fairly good logic. So the government’s own industrial compliance fee for carbon—that cost will also filter through the system and make things cost more. So there’s no rebate for that.

I really would like a good debate on this. Don’t quote me on the number; I don’t have it in front of me. But I believe last year it was $140 million, $150 million, what the government brought in. Where does that money go?

Again, I think people have figured out by now that I’m not—we have a few PhDs in economics; I am not. I use farmer economics. Since the federal carbon tax is a backstop program—if you have your own program, you shouldn’t have to pay the federal carbon tax. To me, the government has that program, the industrial compliance fee for carbon. Maybe it’s not robust enough to meet the goals. I’m not qualified to say that. Maybe it’s not. But you would think the government is also spending quite a bit of money to change the Hamilton blast furnaces to electric, but that also reduces carbon, and all the EVs. Couldn’t the government actually use that to make the argument that we have a robust enough program so we wouldn’t have to pay the carbon tax? Like, put some horsepower behind it to actually do that?

I’m seeing a lot of noes, but the fact is, we do have a provincial compliance fee, which is very similar to cap-and-trade—very similar. So you cancel cap-and-trade, and you put in something else, but you don’t talk about that. Nobody wants to talk about the compliance fee, but it’s there. It’s there. So even if you make the argument: “You know what? We’ve already got our own system. Maybe we should pay less carbon tax than the other provinces because we already have at least a partial system”—but you don’t want to admit that you actually have a system. That’s crazy, because you should be proud of anything you do to reduce carbon, even if we disagree on how you’re doing it. For the life of me, I don’t understand.

You go through the theatrics of trying to tie a future government—or maybe your own government, because this government has been known for flip-flopping. So maybe you have in your caucus a big bunch of people who are pro carbon tax, so you’re trying to stop yourselves from putting in another carbon tax. I don’t understand. But the referendum—I really don’t understand what you’re trying to do, because you have your own carbon tax and you’ve exempted your own program from the referendum. What are you doing?

There are things in here—we’re going to get back to the 407. We’re not going to have any tolls. I didn’t know this coming from northern Ontario, I didn’t know this until very recently—I always thought that when the massive mistake was made to lease out the 407—that the whole 407 belonged to some private—is it a Spanish company? I don’t know where they’re from.

Brazil, wherever. Anyway, it doesn’t really matter. It doesn’t belong to us.

But that’s not actually the case. I was mistaken. Believe me, it’s not often that I’m completely mistaken, but part of the 407, I believe the 407 east, does belong to the province. You kept the tolls on there. “No new tolls. We’re the anti-toll party—except for this stretch of highway.”

Again, a lot of these regs and rules seem more for political purposes than actual legislation that’s going to improve the lives of people living in Ontario. I think one thing we can all agree on, regardless of our political affiliation, is we all want to improve—our lives, let’s be honest, but particularly the lives of young people, like the pages, the lives of the many people who want to come to Ontario and the lives of the many people who want to stay in Ontario. We want to do that for everybody, regardless of our political affiliation. But I’ve got to wonder sometimes—referendums, except on things we’ve done.

You’ve spent days and days and weeks and weeks in question period about the carbon tax. I know what you’re trying to do; you’re trying to brand the new Liberal leader. I don’t mind that. I’m going to be upfront; I don’t mind that. But you don’t seem to be focusing on the things we can actually do in the province so that people don’t have to pay as much carbon tax. We’re being double charged. In a way, we’re being double charged.

I hear constantly about the 10-cent rebate in gas. Is it 10—

The one thing about the reduction in gas tax, I don’t think we felt it in northern Ontario, because there’s nothing stopping—again, every business, big or small, but especially businesses that control the market, are going to go for their maximum profit. I don’t blame that. That’s free market. But in gas, I think you just gave up your 10 cents and the gas companies got it, because there’s nothing—you didn’t put anything in to say that 10 cents actually has to go to consumers. We hear this all the—I drive every week, and there is sometimes 15 cents, 20 cents difference in my drive. No, that’s not transportation.

I have a member here I used to do business with, and he’ll know exactly how much extra transportation it is to get—it’s not 15 cents or 20 cents on a litre of gas, it’s not, because sometimes the farther ones are cheaper than the closer ones. It’s whatever the market will bear.

So on the carbon tax, again, we’re not in favour. I don’t know how many times we have to say that. We’re not in favour of the carbon tax. We are in favour of a pricing system. We believe that we need some kind of pricing system so that we can use less fossil fuel and also help people use less fossil fuel. I hope that’s one of the reasons why this government is pushing for electric vehicles so hard. We get that, but we just don’t see why you’re not putting in the safeguards so that when you make decisions, that those decisions actually benefit the people because, sometimes, the free-market system—when you have the public and the free-market system working together—will grab what it can grab.

As a farmer—I’ve got a few other farmers here. Right now, beef is really expensive, and cattle are really expensive. Farmers are selling cattle at expensive prices. No farmer is going to say, “You know what? That’s really expensive, so how about I give you”—a Holstein or a beef calf now is like a thousand bucks. “Well, that’s too expensive, so how about I’ll give you $500 back?” No free-market person is going to do that, and neither do big companies. They wouldn’t be in business long.

So when the government is going to give somebody a deal like taking taxes off, and they’re going to stand there and they’re going to say, “We’re making your life easier,” they haven’t ensured that they have. They’ve ensured that they’re getting less income themselves and they’re hoping that that tax break flows through, but there’s no reason that it will.

Now, I better start reading some notes here. Protecting against the carbon taxes act: I’ve covered that. Removing tolls from non-tolled highways: I think I’ve covered that. Highway 413: There is a huge difference of opinion on Highway 413—I’m going to talk about something personal. Where we massively disagree with the government, massively—now, not on development. We understand the population is increasing. When you have industries, now with a huge change for EVs, you need development. We get it. What we don’t understand—and I’m going to use an example—what’s happening right now in Wilmot—and please, in your questions, correct me if you’re wrong because maybe I’m misunderstanding something here. So the government has basically put out that all municipalities, if they want to be shovel-ready in case another big—I’m sure the government is working on other announcements, other industries. That’s your job, it’s all our jobs. So municipalities need it, okay.

So in this case, a private developer somehow figured out that something might be coming so they tried to scoop these farms, and when the scoop didn’t work—so you have to wonder where the intel came from for the scoop—then the next step is expropriation. Now, expropriation has a place. If there’s a new highway, but expropriation for industrial development—well, wait a second. You are taking farms—and this could happen anywhere in Ontario. You decide we’re going to need this thousand acres, so we’re going to expropriate it for whatever cost, but that thousand acres has been developed by those farmers, and if there’s a better use for it—you have to make a really good argument to me that there’s a better use for farmland than growing food, but if you can’t prove that, that land shouldn’t be expropriated.

You should actually treat those farmers like the business people they are—and they are—but that’s not what this government seems to be doing. They seem to think that big business trumps all and that that thousand acres—they’re not stealing it; expropriation isn’t that. But let’s be honest: If there’s a factory that’s going to come there, that is industrial land. That is not agricultural land. The value of the land has just skyrocketed, and that price didn’t go to the people who actually had that land. It went somewhere else. That’s not right.

I can’t believe that Conservatives, who would claim to be business people, buy that. No, I can’t believe it. I’ve got a few hundred acres. If somebody wanted to build, I personally would say you would have to prove to me that it’s better than somewhere else that maybe can’t grow food as well. But then, whoever has that land should be a part and should be paid for that land what it’s actually worth. That’s not what expropriation is; it isn’t.

Interjection.

No, it isn’t. Anyone knows that if you want to buy a house on a street, and there are 10 houses, but you want the one that isn’t for sale, you just can’t take the average of the other houses in the town and say, “Well, that’s what we’re going to give you,” because that house isn’t for sale. It’s a whole different thing, and anyone who doesn’t understand that has never really thought it through.

I’m a farmer, and if your family has built that farm up for the last 100 years or the last 10, and somebody says, “We’re going to build something else there,” well, do you know what? That’s worth a lot more than the going rate per acre. It is, because there was never a “for sale” sign there, and I don’t understand why no one, especially Conservatives, understands that.

I talk to a lot of farmers. Another one they didn’t understand was the three severances per lot that this government was going to implement. That works for some places, but if you have a livestock farm, three severances per lot is going to kill your farm, because if your neighbour sells a lot next door to you, because of minimum distance separation, you can never expand.

Oh, I’ve only got four minutes left. I don’t think I’ve got really much more to say—I probably said too much already. I’m hoping the Speaker hasn’t fallen asleep. I tried hard not to—anyway, I think the biggest thing with this bill is that a lot of the things you’re doing seem to be more for political purposes, more for messaging purposes, than actually moving the province forward. We’re not against moving the province forward, as I said. The announcements for the EV plants, we’re in favour. St. Thomas—not everybody is happy about St. Thomas, but that went through the House no problem. And we understand not everybody is ever going to be happy. That’s why we have the system we do. But please understand how things actually should work.

Rail about the carbon tax all you want. We agree that there shouldn’t be one. But tell people about your industrial compliance fee for carbon. Tell them the truth.

Thank you, Speaker.

Actually, I said that we were proud that we voted against those seven bills. We have voted for lots of bills that you’ve put forward. We don’t vote for your budget bills because we disagree, as the loyal opposition, with many of your budgetary policies. The first term, you were always talking about how we propped up the Liberal government. Now, with this question, I’ll look up the figures—I don’t have time right now—but actually, we looked it up, and we voted for the Liberals, I think, 60% of the time and you voted for the Liberals 50% as opposition. We don’t vote against everything. It’s our job to hold the government to account.

And on the registration for cars, you know what, you should maybe rethink that, because there is a loophole now where car thieves, because we are not going to register cars, have an easier time selling them. So, look before you do things, and there’s a difference between careful legislation or having to rescind whole—

But farmers are business people. They are. I don’t think anyone is going to disagree with that. Treat them like business people. They know the value of what they have built. They know the value of that land if there is going to be an industrial project put on it. They know that. And they know that when that land is expropriated that their value is being taken, and that is where the government is going to run into trouble.

That’s actually—I don’t disagree with his statement, because of what happened. So a developer shows up, offers you money for the farm and then you don’t accept that offer. Then, there’s a threat of expropriation by the municipality. Okay.

But because of the directive of the provincial government that you need shovel-ready spots, right—I listened to the Minister of Job Creation, who said several times about St. Thomas and about—that it was not expropriated, and that’s the issue. If the threat of expropriation is taken away, regardless of which level of government, it’s a whole different story. But the threat of expropriation, which comes from the directive from the Premier, regardless of who’s doing it—the directive is from the Premier, we all know that.

And if you’re going to get your critical minerals from northern Ontario, it has to come somehow. And right now, it’s not ready. The problem with Highway 11 is that Highway 11 runs like a main street. There’s 1,800 trucks a day now that go on Highway 11. It’s two lanes, 1,800 trucks a day. It’s closed on a regular basis, miles of trucks waiting—

My question is, you have implemented your own carbon tax scheme: the compliance fee which you charge. Why don’t you use that as a wedge to try—so that your residents and my residents don’t have to pay the individual carbon tax? Put some horsepower behind that instead of just blaming it all on the feds.