SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

Ontario Assembly

43rd Parl. 1st Sess.
May 14, 2024 09:00AM

I want to thank the member opposite for his question. I’ve got the OEB’s report on the natural gas expansion program here on my computer, and it shows that Charlton and Dack, Harley, Latchford and Timiskaming, Kincardine, Larder Lake, Virginiatown and Kerns have all asked for natural gas expansion in their communities. So I guess I’d like to ask you if—you’re certainly saying it today—you wish to stop your constituents from heating their homes with natural gas even though they are asking for it.

Now, fast-forward to today, when a headline in the Windsor Star from—this is going back a bit, to March 25, 2014: “900 Riverside Families Jolted by Huge Electric Bills.” They were reporting costs of over a thousand dollars a month because of electric heating. The decision to not put natural gas connections into that neighbourhood was fatal for the affordability of this neighbourhood, even though the express intent was to have an affordable community.

I could talk about this situation for, really, the remainder of the time, but honestly, I think we’ve had enough debate. So, Speaker, I move that the question now be put.

198 words
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