That’s not the same subject as the original question.

Member for Ottawa Centre, come to order. Leader of the Opposition, come to order. Member for Brampton North, come to order.

I think there’s still some time. Start the clock.

Government House leader.

Final supplementary.

I remind all members that we don’t make reference to the absence of any member, because on any given day, one of us might be not here, as we know.

Interjections.

Start the clock.

The government House leader can respond.

The Leader of the Opposition is, of course, speaking of a member of her caucus whom she removed from her caucus.

Having said that, I think the Premier has been very clear on where he stands. It’s a decision that the Speaker has made.

At the same time, Speaker, I am quite concerned that the Leader of the Opposition continues to suggest that the members of her caucus or any caucus should be compelled to make a decision. That is not the way this place works. I am somewhat concerned that the Leader of the Opposition is suggesting that she’s compelling her members to make a decision.

We will continue to follow the rules, as established by this House, until those rules are changed.

Interjections.

I speak very directly to the people of the province: The government of Ontario has not banned anything. In fact, it was this government and this Legislature, led by that Minister of Transportation, who, in the last Parliament—

Interjections.

The Leader of the Opposition really ought to be ashamed for what it is that she is doing here today—suggesting to the people of the province of Ontario that the government has made a decision that it has not done. This is a decision of the Legislative Assembly. If those rules change, of course we will follow those—

Interjections.

What Progressive Conservatives do on this side of the House is stand up for all of the people of the province of Ontario. We don’t sit on our benches, compelling our members. We stand up for everybody, no matter where you come from, no matter what you believe in. We don’t use this chamber as a place to divide people. That’s not what responsible parliamentarians do. It is what she does and—

Interjections.

Stop the clock.

Members will please take their seats.

Interjections.

Interjections.

Interjections.

Start the clock.

The next question.

Minister of Energy.

I’ll remind the members not to make reference to the absence of another member.

Start the clock. Supplementary.

The Minister of Energy can reply.

In fact, we’re not cutting funding for affordable housing.

Do you know who’s cutting funding? The Liberal-NDP government in Ottawa. That is who is cutting funding, by billions of dollars, for the people of Ontario. It’s an agreement that they signed in 2018 with the previous government, that we have honoured. We have overachieved, thanks to the actions that we have taken and our partnership with municipalities across the province of Ontario. Speaker, 426% of renovations have been completed under this government—because we inherited a mess from the others—11,000 of the 19,000 units that had to be built over 10 years were already there. But unilaterally, the NDP-Liberal government in Ottawa has decided to cut billions of dollars from the people of the province of Ontario for affordable housing.

I ask the member opposite—they have an opportunity to call their federal cousins in Ottawa to say that they will not support the federal budget unless the federal budget includes the restoration of the billions of dollars in funds that were unilaterally removed from affordable housing in Ontario.

There’s one—one—government that is opposed to affordable housing funding, and that is the federal Liberal and NDP government, who unilaterally decided to cut funding to the province of Ontario. They didn’t cut funding anywhere else, just Ontario. And do you know who’s staying silent? It is the NDP in Ottawa. They have an opportunity to vote against the federal budget or to say, “Add the funding back in for the province of Ontario and then we will support the budget.” But they’ll stay silent, because they’re just like the NDP here: irrelevant.

My question is for the Premier.

Ontario’s housing crisis has become beyond parody. An Airbnb owner says she posted three tents in a room as a joke, but people are so desperate that the joke has become a reality: $720 a month for a tent in a shared room—but hey, they come with their own lock. I call this hitting rock bottom.

Can the Premier tell me whether these three tents will count as affordable housing homes or one tent will be counted as affordable housing under his own strategy?

My question is for the Minister of Energy. People across this province and in Whitby are struggling with out-of-control costs due to the federal carbon tax. This tax is punishing hard-working families and costing them hundreds of dollars more than the rebates they receive.

Speaker, it’s unfair that the federal Liberals are making everything more expensive at a time when many Ontarians continue to face affordability concerns. But it seems like Justin Trudeau and his ally Bonnie Crombie don’t care about reaching further into our pockets to achieve their own political objectives. This has to come to an end.

The carbon tax has to come to an end.

Could the minister please explain what our government is doing to support the people of Ontario without—

Speaker, the hard-working people of this province are paying higher prices for everything because of the sky-high carbon tax.

It’s absolutely disgraceful that the carbon tax queen, Bonnie Crombie, and her Liberal caucus support a tax grab that punishes hard-working families and local businesses. They must come to their senses now and join our government in calling for an end to this disastrous tax.

Can the minister please—

Speaker, the member is right; we’re not imposing a carbon tax in Ontario.

As a matter of fact, we’re giving the people of Ontario tax breaks at the pumps—10.7 cents a litre until the end of this year. We’re lowering taxes, we’re lowering fees, and as a result, we are seeing multi-billion dollar investments in our province.

As a matter of fact, right now, the Premier is standing in Alliston, Ontario, announcing the largest investment in our country’s history, at the Honda plant.

We’re seeing record investments, multi-billion dollar investments.

We have a plan for Ontario. It doesn’t—

The queen of the carbon tax, the leader of the Liberals, combined with the NDP—they want to have the highest carbon tax in the world.

We have a plan called Powering Ontario’s Growth. And the Premier announced, this morning, the largest investment in Canada’s history, in Ontario—a $15-billion investment in Alliston, at the Honda plant. That’s on top of the multi-billion dollar investments, in what were previously the largest investments in Canadian history, at Volkswagen in St. Thomas and LG-Stellantis in Windsor and the Umicore plant in Loyalist township. We have seen $45 billion of investment in Ontario’s EV supply chain, because our plan is working. It’s called Powering Ontario’s Growth.

My question is to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. New government documents obtained by Global News reveal that this government continues to underfund affordable housing. The Conservatives have cut funding to community housing programs even though the wait-list for an affordable home has ballooned to well over 65,000 people.

My question to the minister: Why is this government cutting funding to affordable housing at a time when the homelessness and housing crisis has never been worse?

The NDP.

Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

Supplementary question. The member for Toronto Centre.

Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

If denying solutions to the housing crisis was an Olympic sport, this Conservative government would be setting new records with their performance and denials.

Just a week ago, a landlord in the Premier’s own Etobicoke riding placed an advertisement renting out half of his bed. The kindest thing that I can say about this posting is that this landlord is at least making more housing than this government.

But this is just another serious story that Ontarians are living with because this government is refusing to bring back real rent control.

Will the Premier restore real rent control, or is he simply satisfied that more Ontarians will just rent out half of their beds to desperate tenants in order to respond to the housing affordability crisis?

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker, I don’t actually have to answer a question. Do you know why? Because every question they ask just highlights how bad a party and how irrelevant they are to the discussion in the province of Ontario.

Let’s look at this this way: They had one Premier, Bob Rae, in their history, and he was so embarrassed to be an NDP member, he fled the party.

Some of the best relations I have right now are with the former leader of the NDP, who is now the mayor of Hamilton. She is telling me that she loves working with this government, because we’re getting things done—and it’s not just her; it’s the former leader of the Liberal Party in Vaughan, who tells me that the housing crisis started under the Liberal government, and that we are finally taking action to get more homes built across province of Ontario.

So do you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to ignore the most irrelevant party in the history of the province of Ontario—

Interjections.

I’ll tell you what, I’ll take the good advice of—

We are breaking records. We’re breaking records on new purpose-built rental housing, more than ever before; the most new housing starts over the last three years than we have had in over 30 decades. I’ll continue breaking those records every single day.

I thank the member from Essex for that question.

As we all know, the carbon tax that has been inflicted upon us is hurting the cost of building houses throughout this province. Even still, in the last three years, we’ve built more homes—in the 1980s. And even more importantly, we’ve set a record—27% increase, last year, in purpose-built rentals.

Let’s look at another factor. In the last five and a half years, we built more purpose-built rentals than in the entire 15 years of the Liberal government.

And we’re going to do more. We’re going to pave the way for more housing to be built. We’ve lowered the HST on purpose-built rentals. We’ve lowered development charges. And we are investing in massive infrastructure—billions in infrastructure across this province, to get shovels in the ground faster.

But when I talk to modular home builders, they complain about the cost of transportation to get from A to B—their homes. The carbon tax—

Mass timber construction is an innovative technique that has the potential to lower our carbon footprint while building more housing in Ontario. It’s sustainable, it’s energy-efficient, and it lowers our carbon footprint. I’m proud that our government is expanding the use of mass timber construction. However, mass timber materials are heavy. They need to be transported. And guess what hurts that transportation cost? The carbon tax. We need to get rid of the tax. Building with mass timber uses 50% less carbon than building with steel.

Let’s axe this tax. Let’s make it affordable for all Ontarians to get into the housing market. Axe the tax.

My question is for the Associate Minister of Housing.

Before the previous Liberal government took office in Ontario in 2003, Ontario was registering 85,000 housing starts per year, but then, after the Liberals took office in 2004, that rate fell below 80,000 units per year, and it never came back until the Liberals were thrown out of office.

Speaker, the housing supply crisis that we inherited was a result of the failures of the previous Liberal government—supported, of course, by the NDP.

And now the Liberals, under the carbon tax queen, Bonnie Crombie, are supporting the federal Liberal carbon tax, which is a tax driving up the price of everything, including housing.

Can the minister please tell us how our government is building more homes, delivering for Ontario, and fighting the carbon tax?

Despite the challenges imposed by the federal Liberal carbon tax, our government is delivering on our commitment to build more homes in Ontario. The carbon tax queen, Bonnie Crombie, and her Liberals, on the other hand, are propping up their federal buddies in Ottawa with a pricey carbon tax every step of the way.

Speaker, Ontarians are already struggling to make ends meet, and this regressive tax is only adding strain to their household budgets.

We know that in order to provide more affordability and more housing solutions, our government must continue to show leadership by undertaking robust efforts to build thriving communities across the province.

Can the minister please explain how the Liberal carbon tax is making it more expensive to build houses in Ontario?

It was the previous Liberal government, propped up by the NDP, that cut half a billion dollars in education funding while calling it savings. This included special education funding.

For the 2023-24 school year, we’ve invested over $3.4 billion for special education, the highest investment ever in Ontario history. This represents $125 million more compared to the 2022-23 school year and nearly $541 million more than the 2017-18 school year.

We are the government that is ensuring equal access to top-quality education in Ontario. Under this Premier, our government continues to make record investments to support the next generation of Ontario leaders, including those with special needs.

My question is for the Premier.

The Conservative government continues to underfund the education system. With inflation, per student funding has fallen by $1,357. When school funding doesn’t keep up with inflation, school boards struggle to offer special education and supports for children with higher needs.

For example, the Rainbow District School Board in Sudbury has an almost $19-million shortfall.

Kale is one of the students in Sudbury who’s being hurt by these Conservative cuts. Kale is in kindergarten. He has autism. And because there’s not enough school board funding, Kale can’t get the supports he needs to be safe and successful at his school.

My question is, why is school funding so low that schools can’t support students like Kale?

Kale’s parents are working tirelessly to get their son the supports he needs to be safe and successful. They’ve already been waiting for years on the Ontario Autism Program wait-list. They’ve already been paying out of pocket for autism supports for Kale. On top of those financial burdens they’re paying because of this government, Kale’s parents are trying to find a school with the supports Kale needs. There’s not enough funding to provide the support at Kale’s current school. There’s not enough funding to enrol Kale at the closest next school.

Will the Premier explain to Kale’s family why there’s not enough funding to support Kale?

We’re opposed to the federal carbon tax—as all Premiers across Canada have done, of all political stripes. They’re opposed to Justin Trudeau’s, Jagmeet Singh’s and Bonnie Crombie’s federal carbon tax. The queen of the carbon tax is happy to support that federal carbon tax, which went up a whopping 23% on April 1.

We’re lowering the price of gasoline by 10.7 cents a litre. We’re cutting taxes. We’re cutting fees. We’re ending tolls. We’re bringing in One Fare so transit riders can save up to $1,600 a year.

We’re powering Ontario’s growth with clean, reliable electricity by investing in our nuclear facilities, our hydroelectric facilities, and building other new non-emitting generation. As a result, the plan is working.

While manufacturers were headed south of the border six years ago, under the previous Liberal government, they’re coming back in droves—including a historic $15-billion Honda investment today—

In spite of all that, our plan, Powering Ontario’s Growth, led by Premier Ford, led by our Minister of Economic Development and our entire team, has brought historic investments to our province.

The Honda announcement made this morning is the largest in Canadian history—$15 billion. That Honda accord, in partnership with our federal and civic partners, is piloting a new direction for Ontario, putting us back on top as the economic engine not just of Cana but of North America. We all in this House should be celebrating that kind of an achievement today—$15 billion—

My question is for the Minister of Energy.

The carbon tax isn’t just increasing our energy and gas bills; it’s also driving up the costs of food, housing, and more. That’s unacceptable to Ontarians who are already struggling to make ends meet.

Speaker, we know that the NDP and Liberals in this House will not stand up for their constituents. Instead, they are choosing to do nothing and watch this terrible tax triple by 2030.

Their inaction is exactly why our government will not stop advocating for Ontario workers and families. We will continue to call on the federal Liberals to put a stop to this disastrous carbon tax.

Could the minister please explain what steps our government is taking to keep costs down for Ontario families—

Speaker, it’s perplexing how the Liberals and the NDP in this House, after hearing the widespread frustration towards this tax grab, can sit here and still support the federal carbon tax.

Unlike the opposition, our government will always support the people of Ontario. We will persist in urging the federal government to abolish this regressive measure.

Could the minister please explain to the House why it’s imperative for the federal government to terminate this costly tax?

The response, the member for Burlington and parliamentary assistant.

Interjections.

Interjections.

Restart the clock. Member for Beaches–East York.

The Minister of Energy can reply.