My question is to the Premier. Parents have been calling me, distressed with the skyrocketing costs of baby formula. We all know that the cost of groceries is a huge burden on Ontario families. Baby formula prices are completely unaffordable. Sadly, families in Ontario in all of our ridings are forced to water down formula to make it last longer. While food prices continue to soar, continue to rise, grocery stores like Loblaws continue to post massive profits—straight-up price gouging.

So my question to the Premier is, why are you hiding from the pleas of parents and sitting on your hands while powerful retailers profit at the expense of our Ontario families?

I would remind the House, through the Speaker, that my question was about feeding babies, and this government chose to hide behind the carbon tax.

Ontarians see through your excuses. Ontarians are fed up with this government taking the side of powerful billionaires. They see skyrocketing grocery costs while at the same time corporations like Loblaws are shamelessly making record profits. And they—

Interjections.

Thank you, Speaker. I wish I saw the same kind of passion from this government for babies that can’t be fed properly in this province.

The people of Ontario see this government doing nothing, absolutely nothing, to help them feed their babies.

So, my question to the Premier, to this government: What will you do today for struggling parents to ensure that their babies do not go hungry?

Interjections.

Really?

As we have been hearing time and time again in this House, sexual assault survivors are not seeing their day in court. There were 1,326 cases of sexual assault thrown out before the court—there were over 1,000 this year, in 2023. So now we’re looking at almost 3,000 sexual assault survivors whose cases were thrown out, and we know those are the people who came forward. We know that more than 80% of sexual assault cases go unreported.

The MPP from Waterloo, Catherine Fife, brought this bill forward. It was her private member’s bill. This bill is named after Lydia, to represent a woman who was denied justice in the court.

What we saw today with this government discharging this important bill to committee is another example of Lydia and all sexual assault survivors not getting justice.

This government needs to understand that we had all kinds of women and sexual assault survivors who were prepared to come tomorrow to hear debate on this bill—important debate that you need to listen to. It’s your government. These are sexual assault survivors who are not seeing justice under your watch, but rather than hear what they had to say, rather than give them—they’re not getting their day in court, and now they’re not going to get their day in the Ontario Legislature to come forward and share their stories of survival, to help you act, to help you understand that the justice system is not working for sexual assault survivors under your watch.

We wanted to see recommendations 1 and 3 of the Auditor General’s report put into law. We need to see a Victim Quick Response Program.

This government, understandably, is concerned with people who steal vehicles going free. Sure, we don’t like to see that, but we also don’t like to see sexual assault criminals walk free in this province, which is what’s happening under your watch, and you discharged Lydia’s Law so that you can’t hear about it. I find that cowardly, and I’m disappointed.

I will absolutely add my name to this petition and give it to Glynnis to take to the table.

I have a petition entitled “Vulnerable Persons Alert.” This petition is put forward on behalf of the MPP for Hamilton Mountain, Monique Taylor.

This petition speaks to a private member’s bill that was brought before the Legislature. As we know, private members’ bills are an important opportunity for us, as elected legislators, to fulfill our duty and to have an opportunity to bring the people’s business before this Legislature. This was a very, very important private member’s bill. It was addressing a gap in our current emergency alert system. It would ensure that vulnerable persons—would help to ensure the safety of those loved ones when they go missing, because we know when they go missing, time is critical.

Over 90,000 people have signed an online petition calling for a “Draven Alert.” “Draven Alert,” much like Lydia’s Law, was named after a young child who could have used the benefit of an alert system that would have helped to find him in time. Unfortunately, it’s a story that ended in tragedy. Speaker, 6,000 people signed a petition called “Love’s Law”—same thing, for vulnerable people who go missing. This bill was a common-sense proposal and was non-partisan in nature, but just like Lydia’s Law, this government discharged the bill directly to committee and did not allow Draven’s family and all the families who supported this bill to come to the Legislature and hear debate.

It’s a terrible precedent that this government is doing—discharging private members’ bills that bring important business, important suggestions to this House. It’s a slap on democracy when you don’t allow MPPs and who they represent to debate their bills. So—

Apparently, the member from Chatham-Kent–Leamington thinks that bills that support sexual assault survivors and vulnerable persons who go missing is a waste of taxpayers’ time—

I would just add that what you consider unparliamentary language is simply your words; I didn’t add anything to it. You said “waste of taxpayers’ time.”

I will conclude by saying that this is an important private member’s bill, as all private members’ bills are, including Lydia’s Law. Discharging it to committee is a real failure of democracy in this province and in this House.

I’m going to add my name to this petition. I’m going to give it to Diya to take to the table.

Resuming the debate adjourned on May 14, 2024, on the motion for third reading of the following bill:

Bill 165, An Act to amend the Ontario Energy Board Act, 1998 respecting certain Board proceedings and related matters / Projet de loi 165, Loi modifiant la Loi de 1998 sur la Commission de l’énergie de l’Ontario en ce qui concerne certaines instances dont la Commission est saisie et des questions connexes.

This bill essentially is the government weighing in and overturning the ruling of an independent regulator. So this government kneecapped a regulator, and it really reduces the transparency, accountability. It also raises the concern that important energy decision-making is being done via backroom lobbying. It furthers the practice of this government of not being transparent and open and not doing the people’s business in this House.

I see a direct connection to you discharging Lydia’s Law directly to committee and overturning the independent regulator’s decision.

Can you speak to me about Lydia’s Law and how this connects to your government’s overturning of decisions that are made by regulatory bodies in this province?

You mentioned that the OEB decision didn’t include stakeholders. In fact, there are 134 pages of that report, and many, many stakeholders were consulted—just like Lydia’s Law, where End Violence Against Women Renfrew County spoke during the Renfrew inquest; the Centre for Research and Education on Violence Against Women and Children spoke; Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund, LEAF, spoke; the Sexual Assault Support Centre Waterloo Region brought their information to this important private member’s bill, on behalf of the MPP for Waterloo, Catherine Fife.

My question is, just like this government ignored the recommendations from your own regulator—keeping in mind that Enbridge is a regulated monopoly—just like you ignored decisions that you don’t like, why are you ignoring the Auditor General’s recommendations when it comes to Lydia’s Law and keeping sexual assault survivors safe in this province?

I sit on committee; you’re absolutely right. Every single time, your government uses their supermajority to squash anything that they don’t like.

With regard to this bill right now, we moved about 12 amendments, and your government voted every single one of them down. I have been in committee when you’ve moved into in camera for no reason; been in committee when you were reversing your greenbelt legislation, and you didn’t even let the people come to debate that.

If I can take the member at his word that he will use the power of his government to bring Lydia’s Law to the committee and that you will hold public and open hearings across the province—can I have your word on that?

I’m standing to speak to Bill 165, right on the heels of the member from Chatham-Kent–Leamington, who finished his debate by saying that anyone impacted should be able to make their case.

We have an example right here in this House. Lydia’s Law was discharged to committee. Those survivors of sexual assault were not able to make their case in this House. So your words “transparency” and “accountability” ring hollow.

This government does not hesitate in any way to interfere whenever it suits them. This is not a government that’s transparent and accountable. We only have to look to the RCMP investigation to understand how they’ve conducted themselves in the past. So while this government—

It is disappointing to hear the member from Eglinton–Lawrence say that transparency and accountability is not germane to this debate, because what we’re talking about is the decision this government made to big-foot, to overturn, to politicize a very important energy decision in this province.

Make no mistake: You acted swiftly to overturn the Ontario energy decision ruling. I would like to see you act more swiftly when it comes to other important things in this province, like sexual assault survivors. But you acted so swiftly when it came to the OEB ruling.

The Ontario Energy Board is an independent regulator—a regulator. They oversee Enbridge. Enbridge is an energy monopoly. They should be a regulated monopoly. But when you kneecap the regulator, what you are left with is a monopoly.

Let’s be clear: Your decision and this bill—it’s bad for new home owners. It’s bad for existing customers. And certainly, it’s bad for the environment. That’s just straight-up a no-brainer.

My question always remains: Who does this government listen to, and who does this government work for?

When it comes to the people of this province, this is a government that has sided with a huge corporation, Enbridge—against making sure that you could protect costs for them in an affordability crisis. This bill is called Keeping Energy Costs Down Act, but my question is, who is this keeping energy costs down for? Do you know who it’s keeping energy costs down for? Enbridge. It’s keeping energy costs down for developers. But who is stuck holding the bag? Four million consumers of methane—also known as natural gas—in this province. That’s who is left holding the bag, because this government doesn’t work for the people of the province.

Quite clearly, your actions, your policies, your bills and your lobbying registry shows who you work for, and that’s big corporations; it is connected individuals.

When it comes to the Premier’s office, this place is crawling with lobbyists who either did work for the Premier or are now working for the Premier or are working for corporations like Enbridge.

So you can stand up all you want and talk about transparency and accountability, but nobody is buying it. Remember Mel Lastman? “Nobody!” Nobody is buying it at all.

What I would like to say is that if you were truly concerned with the people of the province of Ontario, you would have listened to the Ontario Energy Board, whose job is to protect consumers. It should be what your job is—to protect consumers. Instead, what we saw is unprecedented political interference in order to help a powerful gas monopoly at the expense of consumers.

Again, this bill does exactly the opposite of keeping energy costs down for people in the province. It will only exacerbate their bills and make their bills go up higher, to the tune of $600 per customer. This bill would allow the government to add over $1 billion in costs to the gas bills of nearly four million consumers. How is this keeping costs down? It’s not. And what you are doing is, you’re taking away people’s choice—especially vulnerable and low-income people—their ability to make choices when it comes to their energy choices.

This government had, possibly, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, with an OEB decision that was clearly on the side of people who had to pay these energy bills: consumers.

You had an option of putting money back into people’s pockets. You had an option to finally start addressing the realities of climate change. Instead, you chose to stick with the same old. Instead of sticking with people who are going to be mostly impacted by climate change—the costs are going to be borne by homeowners, of climate change; we’re going to see people with basements flooding, people denied insurance costs—you have stuck with billion-dollar corporations. You have sided with them, as usual. You’re lining the pockets of billion-dollar corporations instead of looking out for the people you should be looking out for. I suppose I could say that I’m surprised, but I am not.

The government likes to stand up in here and say that, at the Ontario Energy Board hearings, they didn’t consult with people; nobody was involved. That is straight-up malarkey—134 pages of documents. I think it was over a hundred testimonies.

The Ontario Energy Board took one and a half, possibly two years, to come up with this ruling, and your government tabled this bill to overturn the ruling in a New York minute—I think it was the very afternoon that this decision was tabled.

What I want to be clear about is that you sided with Enbridge over consumers in this province. And who is Enbridge? Can we just talk about Enbridge? Enbridge is a huge international energy company in the province of Ontario. They have a monopoly. They’re not regulated anymore because you keep overturning any regulations. Enbridge made $45 billion last year—$45 billion. That’s who you’re sticking with, that’s who you’re trying to help: a corporation that made $45 billion.

The CEO of Enbridge earns $19 million—$19 million—and that’s for one year, not 19 years. That’s a lot of coin. At $19 million, the CEO, certainly, is not going to be concerned about the $600 that it’s going to cost them on their energy bill.

So that’s who you are siding with.

What I would also say is that people now are not given a choice, and what you’re doing—you say you’re overriding the regulator to support people, but evidence shows otherwise.

More and more, people want to look at more efficient heating options for their homes, because it’s expensive, and we know it’s only going to get more expensive. What you are doing is making sure that people are tied into new gas hookups rather than giving people affordable options, and rather than moving forward with subsidies to help people insulate their homes, to help people be more energy-efficient, to help people afford a high-efficiency heat pump, which heats and cools their homes. This is the direction that the world is going in, but this government is still going to side with a dinosaur fossil fuel strategy that is going to cost—not developers, not Enbridge, but it’s going to cost consumers a lot of money.

As has been said again by the member from Chatham-Kent–Leamington, that this government is all about transparency—and honestly, absolutely nobody believes that. Do you know what? You don’t even have to listen to their words. Just look at their actions.

I will say that, at committee, we moved a number of amendments that would have, in fact, taken this bill—and it would have made some amendments to make sure that we put into place protections for consumers. If the government was hell-bent and twisting themselves in knots to support Enbridge, we thought the very least that they could do is to support some amendments.

What amendments did we put in there? We thought it was very important that the government understood that you were allowing Enbridge to determine the cost future for how long that they can cost out the return on the investments that they’re making. Let’s again be clear: What we’re talking about is assets that belong to Enbridge. These are assets that belong to Enbridge, but who is paying for them? The people of the province who are relying on gas. That’s who is paying for these assets that Enbridge will owe.

We made a number of amendments, really, to help what is essentially an indefensible bill be a little more palatable—not much. You can’t polish everything. Do you know what I mean, Speaker?

We wanted to, number one, talk about the workers who work on these fossil fuel lines. It was something that I learned, that I didn’t know until I sat in committee and heard from the workers—that Enbridge has no requirement to provide reporting on methane leakage. They have no requirement to report on how they are going to repair these leakages. that’s really about the consumer interest, because not only is it a significant contributor to greenhouse gases and to carbon emissions; it also is an unsafe situation for workers. So we wanted the government to accept this amendment that would require Enbridge to report on these leaks, and they turned that down. Why wouldn’t they want to prevent and report on methane leaks? I don’t understand why the government used their supermajority to vote it down.

We also moved an amendment that would require the OEB to keep track of private contractors. I think this is really important, because this is a government that likes to talk about jobs, which are really important to the province, but they don’t ensure that workers are kept safe. This is the perfect example—when we talk about methane leakages. Also, despite ruling on the side of Enbridge, they don’t like to talk about the fact that Enbridge laid off a thousand workers in this province. Let’s recap, shall we? They’ve got a $19-million CEO. They made $45 billion in profits. They were going to make sure that every consumer—I grew up in Toronto wit—every methane gas user in the province is going to pay another $600 on their bill. But they didn’t say one single thing when Enbridge laid off a thousand workers in this province. So we moved that motion, and the government turned it down.

We also wanted to make sure that we had the notion of procedural fairness in there. A girl can only hope and dream, but given a government that we see just discharges the private members’ bill Lydia’s Law directly to committee so no one can have their day in court, if you will—this government voted against our amendment that would reaffirm procedural fairness. It actually says in the bill that procedural fairness doesn’t apply. The member from Chatham-Kent–Leamington can stand and talk about transparency, accountability, but the bill he’s defending says right in it that procedural fairness does not apply.

We moved an amendment that says the government cannot direct the OEB to approve a new gas pipeline if this harms consumer interests, because what we’re seeing is the politicization of the energy file. There’s no regulator left because you just overrule them. So is it going to be that all of these energy decisions are going to be made in the minister’s office, with Enbridge executives sitting around? I think it’s really important, if you’re not going to allow the OEB to protect consumers’ interests, that there’s a bill—in the bill, there’s the notion that we are going to protect consumers’ interests in that bill.

We did move—I guess it was a tongue-in-cheek amendment, but we wanted to change the name of the bill to “make Enbridge customers pay more act,” because this is the net effect of this bill. That’s what it’s all about. It’s about forcing existing gas consumers to pay the costs the Ontario Energy Board would otherwise have disallowed. It will increase costs for a typical household consumer by $600—a cost that the Ontario Energy Board said consumers shouldn’t have to pay. The government says consumers should pay it. They used their supermajority to make sure that your gas bills are going up. This is about making consumers pay more so who can make more profit? Enbridge. Because a $19-million CEO, $45 billion—not enough. We need to have a bill that ensures that they continue to be profitable.

A government that talks about working to keep costs down, making life affordable, is kind of ludicrous in the face of their actual bills that just drive up the cost of things that people have to pay. They cannot choose to not have heat in their homes. They may not have heat in their homes, not by choice, but because they’ve been cut off because they can’t pay their high energy bills. This is something that this government should really be concerned with.

Who are you protecting? Clearly, it’s not the people of the province of Ontario.

I could talk a little bit about stranded assets. Really, what that means is, as we move to decarbonize, to get off fossil fuels—which is happening all over the world, which we are supposed to do in this province—these pipelines will be obsolete. They’ll be stranded. But guess what? Someone is still going to have to pay for them. So the more consumers who get off gas, the fewer and fewer consumers who are going to be forced to shoulder the costs of these stranded assets. What that means is—for example, the hardest-to-decarbonize industries will be left holding the bag with these obsolete pipelines, assets. Low-income people who cannot afford to transition, who cannot afford a heat pump or other options, are going to be stuck with higher and higher and higher bills, as fewer people and fewer industries are going to be paying the same amount. So this problem is really only going to get worse.

I could talk a lot about this government’s climate denial and that this is a bill that will ensure that we continue to be hooked on methane gas longer than we should; that this is a government that has no programs in place to help people transition.

Let’s be absolutely clear: In the face of forest fires that we are seeing in BC; a forest fire season that started extraordinarily early in the province of Ontario; wildland forest firefighter teams who are short—

—200. They’re short 200 firefighters. Their equipment—you told me about a bomber that needs repair.

These are the impacts of climate change.

You don’t have a climate plan whatsoever. You quite clearly continue carbonization support—a huge monopoly plan. Where is your climate plan? There isn’t one. You couldn’t point me to it because it doesn’t exist.

I’m so disappointed. I continue to be disappointed that this government does not want to listen to an independent energy regulator, doesn’t want to listen to the people of the province of Ontario, and dispatched an important bill about sexual assault survivors directly to committee. It’s shameful.

You talk about your energy sector. Your government’s emissions go up year after year. You’re not reducing emissions, no matter what you may say. They’re going up every year.

This plan to support Enbridge, a fossil fuel company that also has no plan to decarbonize—why should consumers pay for Enbridge’s pipes in the ground? Why shouldn’t a huge corporation like Enbridge pay for their own assets?

This government does not want to hear opinions from people they don’t agree with. This is a government that doesn’t want to allow people to have input in huge decisions, like the cost of energy in this province.

This is a government that has absolutely no hesitation to big-foot independent regulators and has absolutely no hesitation to take a bill and send it out of this House to silence sexual assault survivors in this province.

I would like to just say that transitioning from our dependence on fossil fuels is not going to be easy, and who would know that better than yourself, the Minister of Energy? Absolutely, it’s going to be a long, hard road—but what I don’t see is you taking this urgently. With this decision, I see business as usual—“We support big companies. We support the lobbyists. This can wait. We’re going to punt this down to the next election, to 2026.” But I would say that other levels of government are taking this very seriously.

Speaker, 35 Ontario municipalities said that they passed resolutions to phase out gas power.

The city of Hamilton had a unanimous motion that basically said that they would send this to the Premier and that they do not support you overturning the OEB decision.

Quite clearly, they had their ducks all in a row. They had been hearing—what is it you said? They’ve got two shoulders, they’ve got—

Interjection.

So, who—Usain Bolt, Ben Johnson? I would like to see—we have a big hallway down here. Ready, set, go—let’s see how fast. Do you know what? You and I could see who can move faster.

Well, there’s gas that could be trapped in this House, I would say. Some carbon capture could happen here in this House.

I’ve already shared that we need to decarbonize, and absolutely, we need to have a stable energy system. It’s not easy. People rely on it in their homes, and industrial users rely on it.

This bill sets us back on our ability to decarbonize, because Bill 165 gives an incentive for developers to install new gas connections. Why? Because it requires no cost on their part.

So let’s be clear: Bill 165 prevents a levelling of the playing field on upfront connections between gas and electricity consumers. Let’s also be clear that the OEB said, “We don’t think it’s fair for consumers to pay.” Enbridge said, “Well, I don’t want to pay.” And the developers said, “I don’t want to pay”—

I always find it unusual when this government that is about the free market decides to put their thumb on the scale and tip in favour of a huge monopoly like Enbridge.

The Ontario Energy Board found that it was cheaper to build homes designed in the first place for heat pumps than to retrofit them afterwards for natural gas.

Even the minister, at the committee, talked about—I think it was about 900 metres of pipe for a new home in Peterborough and how expensive that is.

So this idea of only relying on natural gas, this idea of doubling down on stranded assets that consumers were paying for makes absolutely no sense. I think it’s $14 billion in capital expenditures that will be stranded assets, paid for by consumers.

If developers want to put natural gas in new hookups, that’s on them. Why should consumers be forced to have natural gas and not be given a choice between heat pumps and natural gas? Let the market decide.

I have a question. You didn’t mention anything about climate change or the emissions that Enbridge is responsible for. There was a proposal at a shareholder meeting calling on Enbridge to disclose indirect emissions from pipelines. Those emissions are methane gas—that’s what natural gas actually is. The CEO actually called employees and asked them to vote against this measure and also called shareholders. So I wonder if you think that a company should not be responsible to disclose when their business is emitting methane gas and that they have no responsibility right now to disclose.

There is a need for natural gas in the province. Is there a need for consumers to pay on behalf of Enbridge, a multinational monopoly? I don’t think so. Changing the amortization to 40 years is a gift to Enbridge and also ensuring that consumers are—if they had followed through with the OEB ruling, they would have saved a billion dollars over four years for consumers. Instead, now consumers are not given a choice whether they hook up to natural gas or whether they can choose, if they so choose, to have electric heat pumps—no choice, and they’re stuck with the bill that developers don’t want to pay.

My question to you is, why? Why would this government override an independent regulatory decision in favour of a multinational corporation and give consumers absolutely no choice?