I guess what I would say to the member is, I think tuition reductions and freezes are fine, but, if on the other hand, the funding envelope coming into the university intensifies the financial crisis on campus, that ultimately doesn’t serve anybody.

If you can’t afford to have an educator in front of a classroom of 20 for a small seminar—instead, it has to be 42—what is that educator likely to do? Are they going to be testing people’s writing skills, deliberative skills, debating skills, or are they going to be doing multiple-choice tests? Because, ultimately, that’s all you manage when the school’s funding is being cut because of the tuition revenue coming down.

I look at other countries around the world. I look at a great country like Germany. This is country where, if you meet the standards, you can study as an international student there for free at over 200 universities, paying modest ancillary fees. What do they get from that, one would ask, if you were a German citizen paying taxes? They get the benefit of people coming from all over the world to enrich the debate at that campus.

I actually see Ontario going in the opposite direction. We are using international students, often, as revenue sources, as cash cows—what many of them tell me—at a time when the funding to our campuses is cut off.

I salute the member’s interest in keeping the costs for students low, but we can’t do that at the expense of finances for the campus, which is what’s happening now.

Let me just be a lot more specific. Saint Paul University, which is an independent campus at the University of Ottawa, which is in Ottawa Centre, they do what they can with what they have. One of the programs they have, which helps our mental health strategy for the city, their psychotherapy students participate in offering people in need of free or pay-what-you-can counselling sessions overseen by a trained professional. That’s them maximizing their budget, collaboratively, doing whatever they can to help people in distress.

So when people come through our constituency, we have areas of referral: Counselling Connect, which I’ve already talked about; workplace sites, if there is one; an employee wellness program, where there is one; or the Saint Paul campus, playing a huge role for the city. That’s collaborative. I would invite the minister to be as collaborative in this bill.

There was a moment a little over a decade ago—if I have my calendar in my mind correct—when Ontario decided to phase out coal-fired electricity. That was critically important. That was a decision that made the air cleaner for our kids, that made huge strides for Ontario in its climate responsibilities. I salute it, even though it was done by a government that has a different political shade than mine. It was the right move. Was it easy? According to people I know who served at that time, no, it wasn’t easy. Did it involve a lot of discussion, planning, industrial policy, thinking through the impact on businesses and consumers? Absolutely it did, but it was a decision that was taken.

And now, when we’re faced with the really important responsibility of deciding how the energy needs for Ontario are going to be met in the next 10, 20 or 30 years, what are we doing with this bill in this House? We are passing a specific piece of legislation to overturn a decision made by an independent regulator of this House, the Ontario Energy Board. Not a partisan organization, a research-based, adjunct entity of this House that is obliged to give us the right advice—and the energy partners in the sector—on what we do to make sure we do right by the energy needs of the province. And when we’re living in a time of such climate chaos, that advice could not be more important.

I’m sure everybody did the same this morning when you got up and you checked the news on your phones. You saw the news from the west end of this country, the wildfires that are blazing. The member from Thunder Bay–Superior North has talked about the woodland firefighters who are putting themselves in harm’s way. They did it last summer and—are they already doing it now? They are in the middle of prepping for it right now.

My wife’s family lives in Calgary, Speaker. We are planning—we hope—a family reunion this summer where we can finally get together with some of her cousins from interior BC and from Calgary. But we’re booking cancellation insurance on those plane tickets, believe me, because it’s highly possible that by the time later July comes around, the air will be so thick with smoke that it will be impossible, particularly for the elders in our family, to safely have this family meeting. And we’re just one anecdote in a larger scenario here, Speaker, but we’re living in a time where climate chaos has real impact on people’s lives.

So the decision the Ontario Energy Board made—for the record, it’s been stated a number of times; I’ll just repeat it here: The Ontario Energy Board told Enbridge, which holds the monopoly on the distribution of gas in the province of Ontario, that they needed to pay for the costs of all the infrastructure for new home developments up front. They gave that advice because they believed the gas sector was being unduly subsidized at a time when more climate-friendly options—heat pump and geothermal installations—were making huge inroads. The costs of these technologies are coming down, and the Ontario Energy Board looked at the evidence—10,000 pages of documents, extensive consultations, including housing providers, subject-matter experts—and they rendered the opinion, two of the three adjudicators on that board rendered the opinion that it was not feasible to tell Enbridge that they could continue to expect a subsidy from the province of Ontario for a particular kind of home heating fuel. If people wanted to choose gas for their homes, they could. If the developer community wanted to install it in those homes, they could. But the province of Ontario would not be on the hook for a significant subsidy to a highly profitable energy company whose CEO made $19 million last year at a time of climate chaos.

My friend the Minister of Energy over there has installed, as I understood it from debate, a heat pump in his home. The PA, my neighbour from Glengarry–Prescott–Russell, a great riding where I grew up, has done the same thing for his home. I would like to see every single Ontarian, whether they live as a renter in an apartment building or whether they have their own home of any type, have the same options that the members of the government have shown through their own leadership. And we do have—we’re groping towards it; we’re inching towards it—the Independent Electricity System Operator of Ontario is offering some subsidies, modest as they are, to low-income Ontarians so they can start disconnecting from fossil fuel-based heating and cooling systems to electrical or geothermal systems.

But we’re nowhere near the ambition of the province of Prince Edward Island, which is at the moment run by Conservatives. In that House, in Prince Edward Island, they set the objective much larger than we have here. They have, if I understood the Premier’s latest comments correctly—35% of the homeowners and residents in that province had made the switch to heat pumps, because if you make less than $100,000 a year and if your home is worth less than $400,000, the province will buy you a heat pump. And I believe it’s a similar strategy for the multi-level apartment buildings in the bigger communities like Charlottetown. I mean, that’s an ambitious strategy.

I look at the city of Vancouver. The city of Vancouver decided to take the choice that for new hookups for new apartment buildings they were going to require that it not be automatically going to their monopoly natural gas holder, Fortis, in that province. They were going to say, “No. We see our climate obligations for what they are. We are going to insist that new hookups be electrical. You’re not going to have a subsidy.”

But for some reason, here in Ontario, we are absolutely determined to do Enbridge a favour, and I don’t understand why. Over the last four years, profits for the fossil fuel industry, oil and gas, are up 1,000%. And have those companies done anything to help consumers at the pump or at their homes for their heating costs, their transportation costs? Have they paid any of that forward? Absolutely not. The only instances where they have been compelled to pay that forward are in countries that have made conscious policy decisions.

Let me just cite another one: A Conservative government in England brought in a windfall profits tax, and with that windfall profits tax, they are generating billions in revenue to make life more affordable in England—a Conservative government. But what are we doing with this bill before the House here? Will Enbridge be required to make energy costs more affordable? No. Will Enbridge be required, as they say they are, by law to hit certain targets in the transition to cleaner heating and cooling options in Ontario? No. We’re essentially saying we’re going to continue the regime we have.

The primary reason I got into this job, Speaker, when my family and I decided to make the leap back in 2017, of all the issues—they are all important, but ensuring that there was a viable future for our children was the first one. When I look at independent research organizations that look at the decisions made by this government on this particular matter with Enbridge and reversing the OEB decision, or the decision to embrace gas-fired electrical as we refurbish nuclear stock, this is going to absolutely impact our ability to deliver on our climate obligations in the province of Ontario.

I honestly don’t understand why we’re making that decision, except for the fact that Enbridge likes it; except for the fact that the lobbyists who circulate in this building for Enbridge are well paid, I’m sure articulate and make all the right short-term calls to help this minister deal with the problem, the problem being that people need heating and cooling options. They have an affordability crisis, and half the people in our country—that was the last comment I remember hearing from my federal leader, Jagmeet Singh: Half the people in this country are living from paycheque to paycheque. One in seven kids are still going to school hungry in Canada. We do have a huge problem. In that reality, I don’t understand why we are making life easier for Enbridge.

I’ve also noticed that for months, my friends in government are very interested in having a debate about the federal price on carbon. That has been a big focus for them as they deal with the affordability crisis. But what I honestly don’t understand—and I had to seek out a consultation with environmental experts at home—is how it becomes the only thing in the environmental policy file to talk about. It takes up all the space: the federal levy on carbon, the provincial carbon tax that we have because we decided to get rid of the cap-and-trade initiatives of the previous government. This has taken up all the space.

I went back home and had a specific consultation with environmental leaders back home who do a number of different things I’ll talk about in a minute. I asked them, “Help me out. Is this the only thing worth talking about with environmental policy right now, given the obligations we have?” We talked specifically about the Ontario Energy Board’s December 21, 2023, decision. They said, “No. Absolutely, Joel, it’s not.” That OEB decision was the first that they had seen that actually reckoned with the evidence of saying, “This is where we have to get to by 2030 in our climate emissions; this is where we’re going, now that we’re embracing gas-fired electrical,” and the two didn’t square.

I talked to my landlord back home, the Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corp. The biggest non-profit houser in Ontario is in Ottawa, my landlord at 109 Catherine Street. Sarah Button, who’s their ED, said to me, “Joel, one thing we could do is bring back advantageous financing options for co-ops like ourselves, for non-profits like ourselves, for housing.” With that advantageous financing—which Ontario could do, because we regulate credit unions—we could get back into the business of building the kinds of sustainable, environmental homes that people want to live in.

My office sits at Beaver Barracks. People know Ottawa; it’s an old military base that was transformed into a series of residential properties powered, heated and cooled by geothermal sources. It is absolutely even heat and even cool when you’re in there. Come visit us any time if you’d like to sample it yourself. It’s wonderful. We don’t have a big space, but it’s a great place for residents to interact with us.

The folks in the buildings all around us really appreciate their living conditions, too. But it required a significant investment by CCOC on the infrastructure side. They took on a large debt obligation, because they didn’t get the help they needed from the federal or provincial governments. They got some, but not enough. Sarah Button said to me, “Joel, can you imagine what we could do for environmentally conscious housing if there was an active partner at Queen’s Park and an active partner at the federal government?”

Just in case my colleagues in government think I’m only holding them to account, let me just say clearly for the record that the federal housing strategy, the 10-year housing strategy, insofar as how it has done its job to provide affordable, sustainable housing, has met 3% of its target. Those 3% of the homes built under the strategy five years in are 30% of the residents’ income. We are subsidizing highly profitable corporate landlords to build housing that people can’t afford at the federal level. Just in case the government thinks I’m only having concerns about them, I have massive concerns with how the federal government has fallen short of its obligations—some changes lately, but that’s the reality.

But back to Enbridge. If you think about the amount of money we are shovelling to Enbridge, and you think about what we could use it for—I think about a subject near and dear to my heart: public transit. Talk to a transit user in the city of Ottawa, and you will get a look back of massive consternation. We, through this bill, are going to be offering a subsidy to Enbridge of billions of dollars. But our city right now, in this year, is 74,000 service hours less with the buses we have on the road, bringing people around to where they need to go because of cuts from Queen’s Park.

The latest new deal we signed with the government which has some stuff in there that we could work with on community safety, security, emergency housing. There is absolutely a goose egg for transit. There’s nothing for transit.

And hey, I’m not sure what the Premier is thinking. Maybe his view is that everybody works for the federal government, has a wonderful salary with benefits, and that’s what Ottawa is. That is not—some people in our city meet that description, but in Ottawa Centre, we have the highest number of rooming houses in Ottawa. A rooming house is a multi-unit building where people rent out a room. Conditions are often squalor in many of these buildings that I’ve had occasion to visit neighbours in. We have a lot of deep poverty in Ottawa Centre too. What do those people rely on to get around? Transit.

So I think if we were to propose a climate solution, following the advice we’ve given to this government, through all levels of this bill, it makes a lot more sense—excepting the fact that the OEB made a decision that upset Enbridge, certainly. But it set us on track, were we to have followed it, to do a lot more by the climate. Ottawa has been the recipient of some significant weather emergencies. We’ve had tornados rip through the west end of our community. We’ve had floods on the east and west. We’ve had a historic derecho that happened literally during the provincial election where all of us were competing for our seats. We had to shut down our campaign for two days so we could check in on neighbours who had power lines falling across their verandas or their apartment buildings by phone and signalling to emergency services where there were emergencies—like this is the world we’re living in. We’re having more and more significant weather events, and the decisions we make on the big files—the big files being housing, transportation and this one, energy—set the pattern for everything else.

Some 45% of the emissions in the city of Ottawa come from buildings, come from housing. When I think about one in particular, I’ve got a great relationship with many of the residents in the apartment buildings all over the downtown. But I think of one in particular, on McLeod Street, the Golden Triangle area of Ottawa Centre. If you walk up to McLeod—it’s a community housing building—in the dead winter in January, you will see at the top of the building, the windows are wide open. Ottawa winter; the windows are wide open. Why are they wide open? Because literally the families and the people living in those units, because of the nature of the heating system they have, which works in one direction only: on 100%—they’re sweltering. They might as well be living in a sauna. They find mould all over their units, because of the amount of condensation that drips into their homes.

If you talk to Ottawa Community Housing, you talk to people like Stéphane Giguère, the executive director or Brian Billings who is the properties manager. They shrug their shoulders, like “Joel, we’re doing our very best, but there’s no magic pot of money for us to be able to refurbish our buildings and to embrace the technologies that are becoming more and more affordable right now.” So windows are left wide open in the middle of January. And we are paying, the province is paying—as we direct subsidies to municipalities for community housing, because they are unsustainable—to have heat escape into the air. Oil boilers in these buildings makes absolutely no sense.

So instead of giving a multi-billion dollar gift to Enbridge and continuing that regime, why wouldn’t we consider doing what we ran on in the last provincial election and the NDP proposed, which is a significant retrofit program for community housing and apartment buildings right across the whole province, where we would make a big upfront investment, create a lot of jobs for skilled trades workers, create jobs for manufacturers of heat-efficient windows and heating in cooling units? We could make sure that people don’t live in a sauna in the winter if they live in community housing. We could spend the people’s money wisely, but instead, no, we’re not doing that. We’re giving a gift to Enbridge.

Now, Enbridge has also said that they want to be part of the energy transition, they see the value of homes making this shift towards electrification or geothermal sources of heating and cooling. The words are nice, and the anecdotes that you see every now and again in the Enbridge brochures are great, but, ultimately, this is a company that has a lot of influence in this province. This is a company that has a monopoly agreement in the province for the transmission and distribution of gas. We here in this House get to sell the rules by which they exercise that monopoly right.

I want to believe that if a Conservative government in Prince Edward Island can undergo a revolution in the heating and cooling of homes there, we can do it here. I want to believe that if a Conservative government in England can say to energy giants like Enbridge or other oil companies that, “Hey, you’ve been doing fantastically well. Time for you to share some of that wealth with the societies in which you live so people can get access to the things they need”—that makes a lot sense, but I don’t see that in this bill.

What I see in this bill is continuing a very favourable playing ground for Enbridge. I didn’t get elected in this House to work for Enbridge; I got elected to work for the people of Ottawa Centre. All of us have our responsibility to look our residents in the eyes and say in this moment we made the right climate decisions, and that involves voting no to this bill.

I want to thank the member for her hour lead on this manner. In a previous life, prior to my time here, I was a university professor, and I can definitely say, one of the more challenging things, as the member detailed, is the necessity for us to make sure that campuses are welcoming environments where a conflict of views can be heard but people feel safe at the same time. It’s not an easy balance to walk.

What I worry about in Bill 166, and I’d like the member to elaborate based upon what she said, is that we don’t seem to be putting a lot of faith in colleges and universities to be able to do that.

Given the real and present dangers, some of which the members talked about, where many students, many faculty, many staff at our post-secondary education campuses do not feel safe, do not feel like they have the ability to express themselves without undue censorship, without undue ability to have that foreclosed, what was the advice you heard at the committee stage to make sure that this government could put faith in the campuses so we could set up those learning environments where we encourage the conflict of ideas but not the conflict of people?

I’m very happy to be rising for this motion this afternoon. I would like to believe, when I hear the government members talk and talk about themselves being friends of education, that they know what a friend actually does. We on this side of the House don’t judge our friends by what they say; we judge our friends by what they do.

Let me tell you something that’s happening in our community at home right now in Ottawa Centre, Speaker, because I want to believe that some of the great kids in our high schools right now will go on one day to post-secondary education, and some of those kids might choose Carleton University. But guess what? Carleton University is on strike today. And do you know why Carleton University is on strike today? They’re not on strike against that university administration; they’re on strike against Bill 124, legislated by this government, which arbitrarily capped wages at 1% for the last three years. Did they cap their own salaries? Did they? Did they cap the salaries of their deputy ministers, who they pay handsomely to drive their policy? Do they cap any special interest group favouring the Conservative Party at any single point? Do they cap them?

Interjection: No.

It points out how we really need to have good, strong process at a campus level.

I will say what people behind the most recent Queen’s University campaign I cited said recently, when they noted some of the complaints that came through the Instagram campaign. Some university officials said that it was too difficult to track down individuals, and that maybe they should consider drinking less at campus events—and the year is 2021 when these comments are being made, not 1991.