Good morning. Let us pray.

Prières / Prayers.

Mr. Fraser, on behalf of Madame Collard, moved second reading of the following bill:

Bill Pr32, An Act to revive Allied Contractors (Kitchener) Limited.

Second reading agreed to.

Mr. Fraser, on behalf of Madame Collard, moved third reading of the following bill:

Bill Pr32, An Act to revive Allied Contractors (Kitchener) Limited.

Be it resolved that the bill do now pass and be entitled as in the motion.

Third reading agreed to.

MPP Wong-Tam moved second reading of the following bill:

Bill Pr34, An Act to revive Bongo Studios Inc.

Second reading agreed to.

MPP Wong-Tam moved third reading of the following bill:

Bill Pr34, An Act to revive Bongo Studios Inc.

Be it resolved that the bill do now pass and be entitled as in the motion.

Third reading agreed to.

Ms. Bell moved second reading of the following bill:

Bill Pr35, An Act to revive Winchester Design Build Inc.

Second reading agreed to.

Ms. Bell moved third reading of the following bill:

Bill Pr35, An Act to revive Winchester Design Build Inc.

Be it resolved that the bill do now pass and be entitled as in the motion.

Third reading agreed to.

Mr. Pang moved second reading of the following bill:

Bill Pr36, An Act to revive Eastern Children of Israel Congregation.

Second reading agreed to.

Mr. Pang moved third reading of the following bill:

Bill Pr36, An Act to revive Eastern Children of Israel Congregation.

Be it resolved that the bill do now pass and be entitled as in the motion.

Third reading agreed to.

Ms. Smith moved second reading of the following bill:

Bill Pr37, An Act to revive Doreen Scolnick Investments Limited.

Second reading agreed to.

Ms. Smith moved third reading of the following bill:

Bill Pr37, An Act to revive Doreen Scolnick Investments Limited.

Be it resolved that the bill do now pass and be entitled as in the motion.

Third reading agreed to.

Ms. Hogarth moved second reading of the following bill:

Bill Pr38, An Act to revive The Six Brewing Company Inc.

Second reading agreed to.

Ms. Hogarth moved third reading of the following bill:

Bill Pr38, An Act to revive The Six Brewing Company Inc.

Be it resolved that the bill do now pass and be entitled as in the motion.

Third reading agreed to.

Mr. Byers moved second reading of the following bill:

Bill Pr39, An Act to revive 1082472 Ontario Limited.

Second reading agreed to.

Mr. Byers moved third reading of the following bill:

Bill Pr39, An Act to revive 1082472 Ontario Limited.

Be it resolved that the bill do now pass and be entitled as in the motion.

Third reading agreed to.

Mr. Cuzzetto moved second reading of the following bill:

Bill Pr42, An Act respecting the Luso Canadian Charitable Society.

Second reading agreed to.

Mr. Cuzzetto moved third reading of the following bill:

Bill Pr42, An Act respecting the Luso Canadian Charitable Society.

Be it resolved that the bill do now pass and be entitled as in the motion.

Third reading agreed to.

The House recessed from 0911 to 1015.

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.