I’m honoured to rise today to speak to Bill 165—the “keeping costs down for Enbridge act,” I think is what it should be called, and “making the people of Ontario pay the bill for Enbridge’s operations act.” It’s outrageous, frankly, for the government to take the unprecedented step, for the first time in Ontario’s history, to intervene in the independent decision of the Ontario Energy Board, the regulator designed to protect the people of Ontario. It’s outrageous for the government to intervene in that way in order to continue to subsidize Enbridge, a giant multinational corporation, to expand fossil fuel infrastructure in this province, especially at a time when we’re facing a climate emergency.

Canada is on fire yet again. The toxic smoke from western Canada is blowing into Ontario as we speak, leading to more toxic air that we breathe.

The international energy association, an incredibly conservative organization, has made it absolutely clear that if we’re going to meet our climate obligations, we can’t continue to expand fossil fuel infrastructure.

The OEB, a very conservative organization, finally made a decision that actually takes into account the climate crisis and, quite frankly, what’s good for energy consumers in this province, and in less than 24 hours, the government asked to overturn it. We now know from the FOI request around the emails around this decision that even the government’s own lawyers were worried about the government taking this action, but the government said “No, no, no. We’re not going to listen to the lawyers. We’re not going to listen to the independent regulator. We’re going to listen to Enbridge and their $19-million CEO and actually put Ontarians on the hook for the stranded assets associated with ruling out fossil gas infrastructure.” And do you know what makes it more galling? If there was no alternative for people, then you might say the government has an argument here. But people can have heat pumps. The OEB decision, backed up by mounds of evidence, shows it will actually be 13% cheaper for people to install a heat pump rather than fossil gas infrastructure.

So we have to ask, who is the government acting for? Is it the people of Ontario or Enbridge Gas? It’s clearly Enbridge Gas.

An analysis independently done by Brandon Schaufele from the Ivey school describes it as this: Effectively, the OEB decision “shifts the upfront gas connection cost onto home developers in a manner similar to development charges for water and sewer connections,” other forms of infrastructure. “Unlike water and sewer, however, developers could decide to skip a natural gas connection altogether,” and install heat pumps, which would actually save people money.

“The government’s decision explicitly undermines the OEB and threatens credibility of” the independent regulator and “energy investment in the province.”

It’s a bad outcome for customers, but it’s a good outcome for Enbridge. So why is the government doing this when we’re in the midst of a climate crisis?

We know that investors around the world are pouring not billions, but trillions of dollars into the green energy transition. As a matter of fact, last year alone, $1.88 trillion went into the green energy transition—half of it into wind and solar, because they’re now the lowest-cost sources of electricity generation, but a big and growing chunk of it into heat pumps. Do you know why? Because heat pumps save people money and reduce climate pollution at the same time. That’s exactly why, over the last two years in the US, more new home developments have installed heat pumps over fossil gas. It’s better for the climate and cheaper for the people.

In Europe, right now, a 40% year-over-year increase in heat pump sales—do you know why heat pumps are growing so fast in Europe? They’re cheaper for people, good for people, good for the economy, good for creating jobs manufacturing heat pumps—not so good for giant corporations like Enbridge.

So which side of the ledger is the government on? I want to know.

What is especially infuriating about this is, not only are they ramping up fossil-gas infrastructure, which is going to increase climate pollution; they’re doing it at a time when Ontario has the worst performance in climate pollution now. The data released just 10 days or so ago shows that the province with the largest increase in climate pollution in the entire country in 2021-22 is the province of Ontario. As a matter of fact, 60% of the increase in climate pollution in Canada during that period comes from the province of Ontario.

This government not only wants to expand fossil-gas infrastructure for buildings, but they want to ramp up gas plants, which is going to increase climate pollution from the electricity sector by 580%.

I’ve heard the members opposite say what a clean grid we had. Yes, it was 96% clean when they took office. Now it’s 87% clean and going down, because they’re going to increase climate pollution by 580% for the rest of this decade, at a time when we’re all paying the price for the climate crisis.

Last year, in Ontario, one million acres burned. We had toxic air pollution all down the eastern seaboard. As a matter of fact, in just four days, from June 4 to June 8, in the province of Ontario, the health care system paid an additional $1.28 billion due to hospital admissions from toxic air exposure.

We know from the Financial Accountability Officer that the cost to infrastructure in the province of Ontario alone—just public infrastructure, just this decade, the next six years—is going to be $26.2 billion.

According to the Insurance Bureau of Canada, the damage to insured assets last year due to the climate crisis was $3.1 billion. They estimate that the cost of uninsured assets is three times that, almost $10 billion, costing everybody in this country an additional $750.

The cost of the climate crisis is only going up. We’re all paying for it.

We have solutions that will save us money, like heat pumps. We have solutions that will create jobs—by installing things like heat pumps. And we have the opportunity to actually move in that direction. We have an incredibly conservative energy regulator actually saying, “Do you know what? We should maybe start thinking about this. If we’re going to do a 40-year amortization period starting in 2025, that takes us to 2065, 15 years after the country’s commitment to be net-zero, so why would we make a decision like that, leaving the stranded assets on the backs of energy consumers in this province?” It will be the people of Ontario who will pay for it. That’s exactly what the OEB decision said.

When we have a truly competitive market, people would make a financial decision and say, “We’re not going to take on that risk.” But Enbridge doesn’t have to make that decision because they’re a regulated monopoly, and the regulator said, “Do you know what, Enbridge? We’re going to make you decide to take that risk by removing the 40-year amortization period, because the people of Ontario should not bear the risk of your business decisions, especially when there are cheaper, cleaner, better alternatives.”

Thank you to the member from Carleton for her presentation. I know you mentioned the importance for rural areas—of getting gas infrastructure there and getting the supply to those communities so that they can have natural gas. I know how important natural gas is as an energy source in rural communities as well. I just wonder if you could tell us, for your riding, is this an important addition to make sure we have the natural gas infrastructure to build new homes?