I listened with great interest to the critic from the opposition, as I always do. And he said a couple of things that—one, I want to take exception to. He talked about people who were accountable, that the government essentially said that we are not accountable. Well, is there anybody more accountable than those that go to the polls every four years—in fact, like we did in Milton this past week? The government is accountable; it’s called an election.

The member also said something about, “The government doesn’t like to answer questions.” Well, I’d like to ask him a question. Maybe he can do it the way that he says the government doesn’t do. Is it not in fact that the way that this legislation would put back into place the same system that we’ve had for decades, ensuring that natural gas distribution as it is built is spread across the distribution network, the customer network, so that no one is left with a bill that is exceeding what they can afford—it’s spread across the gas network, the same way it’s been for decades: Yes, or no?

But I want to ask you a little bit about rural Ontario, because you’re talking about—you were saying marginally increasing the cost of housing, if we come back with this system that’s been in place for decades. But I come from rural Ontario; you don’t. And I know what it costs, and we’re hoping to get natural gas moved into many of our rural communities. People are begging for it. Farmers are begging for it.

So do you believe that it’s fair, then, that the cost of a new home in a riding like mine, in Renfrew–Nipissing–Pembroke, should go up by tens of thousands of dollars for that person, just because they have to absorb all of the costs of bringing natural gas to that home when the distribution gets there? Are you saying that, in rural Ontario, you’ve got to pay the full cost, where all over—the last 30 years or more—it’s been shared by everyone?

The member for Elgin–Middlesex–London, Associate Minister of Housing—he remembers that.

Sometimes you have to do things for the good of all. This program that we have in Bill 165 to continue that is absolutely necessary to continue to build those 1.5 million homes. That’s why I say to our colleagues across the floor, don’t get caught up in your old ideology. Think about what is important for the future. Building 1.5 million homes is the highest priority we have in this province today. Don’t get caught up in your own ideology. Support this bill. It is good for the province.

I didn’t mean to throw the minister off like that, but I didn’t want Bill Walker to hear about that. He’s a good friend to all of us.

It is a pleasure for me, as the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Energy as well as the member from Renfrew–Nipissing–Pembroke, to echo Minister Smith’s remarks on the importance of the Keeping Energy Costs Down Act and what it means for Ontario families and businesses across the province. After serving for years as the opposition energy critic, it is now my honour to serve as Minister Smith’s parliamentary assistant and to speak to third reading of this important bill.

I must preface by reminding people—some of them would have been here—of when the Liberals brought out the soon-to-be proven-disastrous Green Energy Act. It was passed in 2009. I was the critic at that time. We had a third-party assessment and analysis done of the Green Energy Act that concluded exactly what would happen and what it would mean to the province of Ontario and the people who call it home and have businesses here—how many would lose their jobs, how many businesses would leave the province because of what it did to electricity pricing, which, as the minister indicated, went up triple during the Liberals’ term. That is one of the prime reasons that this Liberal government ran out of runway. They couldn’t fool the people any longer when 2018 came along, and the people said, “Hey, no. It’s time for you to go.” We have to remember that from 2009 on, the NDP supported that Green Energy Act that turned out to be such a disaster, and we’re seeing the effects of that still today.

I’m going to confine my remarks mainly to this prepared speech that has been given to me—but it is critical to Ontario, and critical, certainly, to Ontario’s municipalities.

In particular, Bill 165 proposes to streamline the leave-to-construct process for small energy projects, making reliable and affordable energy options available to communities, homes and businesses in a more cost-effective and timely manner.

This is all about building Ontario. I do want to say—I’m going to digress a little bit here.

Bill 165—I was there, of course, for the hearings on the bill and the clause-by-clause, and one of the things that we kept hearing from the official opposition was that they were absolutely opposed to the minister intervening to change a decision that was made by the Ontario Energy Board. Well, the Ontario Energy Board is there for a very important purpose. In fact, it was our old Premier, Bill Davis, who brought in the Ontario Energy Board. It serves a very, very important role here in the province of Ontario, but its role is not to write or rewrite government policy. That’s a critical difference, and that’s where they strayed off, out of their lane. The minister, to his credit, moved swiftly to correct that error so that we could continue to build homes.

I say to the honourable member the critic on the opposite side, who I respect very much—I actually quite have a liking for him. He is very passionate, but he is wrong about many of these decisions. This one here, about wanting each and every homeowner to be responsible for the cost of bringing that natural gas to their home, would have been a disaster not only just in urban Ontario, but an absolute, critical disaster in rural Ontario, where obviously you’ve got more gas lines to build in order to serve those homes.

On one hand, they keep telling us that we need to build more homes; on the other hand, they’re standing in the way of things that will actually lead to building more homes. I don’t understand the conflict that they’re living within themselves on that issue. Building more homes means all hands on deck and doing everything we can to get that done.

I want to talk about the leave to construct. Bill 165 proposes to streamline the leave-to-construct process for small energy projects, making reliable and affordable energy options available to communities, homes and businesses in a more cost-effective and timely manner. I just repeated that.

As it currently stands, anyone looking to build a new home or business and connect it to Ontario’s reliable and affordable natural gas supply must get a leave-to-construct approval from the Ontario Energy Board if the expected cost of the pipeline will be over $2 million. The Ontario Energy Board reviews the application and grants leave to carry out the project if it is deemed to be in the public interest to do so. However, the existing exemption of $2 million, which has been in place for more than 20 years, is causing major delays for cities and towns all across Ontario. This is especially true for rural communities, like my riding of Renfrew–Nipissing–Pembroke.

Like Minister Smith and many other MPPs across the province, I have heard concerns from municipal leaders who want to build new housing and who want to get their constituents off more expensive and emitting forms of energy, like home heating oil. This includes communities in my own riding that still do not have access to natural gas. These leaders are as frustrated as our government is, since the $2-million threshold for small pipeline projects, which was first set in 2003, has not been updated to reflect inflation and increased construction costs. These municipal leaders are concerned that even the smallest projects will no longer receive the exemption that was originally intended. These projects can include something as small as connecting a new home, which should receive an exemption, especially during a housing crisis. As a result, they have put forward clear asks specifically in support of raising the current leave-to-construct cost threshold.

The changes we are proposing would allow the government to prescribe conditions in regulation to exempt small projects from the leave-to-construct process, while maintaining the crown’s obligations related to rights-based consultation with Indigenous communities, ensuring opportunities remain for their input into proposed new projects. Specifically, if Bill 165 is passed, the government intends to introduce regulations to streamline the leave-to-construct process by exempting small pipeline projects that cost between $2 million and $10 million, provided the crown’s duty-to-consult obligations with Indigenous communities have been met.

I want to be clear: Whether there’s a leave-to-construct proceeding or not, proponents will continue to require authorizations from Ontario ministries and municipalities, including permits and other approvals relating to technical, safety and environmental requirements needed to support the construction.

These changes would improve the timelines for pipeline construction and expansion by cutting red tape and expediting the installation of natural gas to rural, remote and underserviced communities, and helping to support a reliable and cost-effective provincial energy supply.

It is well known that natural gas in Ontario is more affordable for home heating than other sources of energy, such as oil or propane. Expanding this access makes the cost of living more affordable for all constituents, but specifically for rural residents, especially those in northern Ontario, where even high-efficiency heat pumps may not be an option on the coldest days of the year. Not only is natural gas more affordable, but expanding it will also increase economic development and job opportunities within communities.

I want to make it very clear: Natural gas plays an important role in meeting Ontario’s energy needs. If you look broadly at our province’s entire energy needs, natural gas currently meets 39% of demand, while electricity only meets 21%.

When you look at home heating, natural gas plays an even bigger role. It is the primary heating source for approximately 70% of the homes in the province, or about 3.8 million homes. While our government understands that some households will choose new options, such as a switch to hybrid electric heating systems, we need to ensure that all Ontarians have access to all forms of heating, including natural gas.

Expanding natural gas makes the cost of living more affordable for all constituents, but especially those in rural and northern Ontario. Just take Quebec, which uses mostly electric heating: Over the past few years, Ontario has had to step up to supply electricity from our natural gas generating stations on the coldest days of the year to keep the heat on for Quebec’s homes and businesses.

Maintaining access to natural gas ensures reliable access to heat on those coldest days. In fact, natural gas will need to continue to play an important role in meeting Ontario’s energy demands for the near to medium future.

The changes to the leave-to-construct process will make it easier to develop and connect to natural gas pipeline projects, which is not only essential for heating, but it also contributes to overall energy efficiency and improving the quality of life for residents.

To give members an idea of how desperately Ontario needs the leave-to-construct threshold increase, I’m going to speak to what the Minister of Energy’s office has heard from municipal leaders.

The Eastern Ontario Wardens’ Caucus, which represents my riding of Renfrew–Nipissing–Pembroke, is the voice for 103 rural municipalities, representing about 800,000 residents. They expressed their concern with the current exemptions. Renfrew county, of course, is within the region, and this region spans 50,000 square kilometres. To give you an idea of that expanse, it’s about the size of Nova Scotia. We continue to see significant growth throughout this region, which brings with it increased pressure to develop the gas pipeline network. Under the current leave-to-construct threshold, municipalities represented by the EOWC are seeing significant delays in getting natural gas to development sites.

It’s just a fact that gas pipeline costs in Ontario have significantly increased due to higher labour and materials costs over the past 20 years, just like they have across Canada, and $2 million is no longer a meaningful threshold. Ontario is constantly growing, and we need to ensure that every sector in this great province stays modern so that we can continue to keep shovels in the ground and create those all-important jobs.

Meredith Staveley-Watson, who is the manager of government relations and policy for the EOWC, reached out to the Minister of Energy’s office directly to highlight the importance of modernizing the leave-to-construct threshold. She stated: “Modernizing these outdated regulations would reduce delays and costs for economic development initiatives including new industries seeking to locate in Ontario and create jobs”—or continue to expand existing jobs—“transit projects, community expansion projects, housing developments, connections for low-carbon fuel blending ( ... natural gas, hydrogen), as well as residential and business customer connections.” She’s absolutely right.

Our government understands how important this modernization is to Ontario’s families and businesses. And to help modernize Ontario even further, if passed, the Keeping Energy Costs Down Act would allow for the development of regulations to exempt small pipelines that cost between $2 million and $10 million from the leave-to-construct process.

The Eastern Ontario Wardens’ Caucus also made the point that increasing the cost threshold to $10 million in Ontario would more closely align with the situation in other Canadian jurisdictions. For example, the thresholds in British Columbia are $15 million for electricity and $20 million for natural gas.

The South Central Ontario Region Economic Development Corp. has also expressed their frustration with the current leave-to-construct threshold. SCOR is a not-for-profit corporation owned by the counties of Brant, Elgin, Middlesex, Norfolk and Oxford, and represents just under one million residents in southwestern Ontario. This group of municipalities supports our government’s direction in modernizing the leave-to-construct process and recognizes that the $2-million cost threshold established in regulation in 2003 is outdated and does not reflect the current costs associated with infrastructure projects.

The steps we’re proposing in Bill 165 will update this threshold and support our government’s objective of building 1.5 million homes across Ontario, helping to expand transit, cut red tape, and lower the cost of access to our affordable, reliable and resilient natural gas system.

The delegation from the Western Ontario Wardens’ Caucus also expressed support for an increase in the leave-to-construct threshold. The Western Ontario Wardens’ Caucus is a not-for-profit organization representing 15 municipalities, 300 communities, 250,000 businesses and 1.5 million constituents across rural western Ontario. This group aims to enhance prosperity and overall well-being of rural and small urban communities across the region, which have seen significant growth in the past decade—once again, bringing additional pressure to build out the gas pipeline network.

Speaker, much like the previous organizations I have just mentioned, the Western Ontario Wardens’ Caucus recognized that Ontario’s outdated regulations are causing the current leave-to-construct threshold to apply far more broadly than intended when it was established more than two decades ago.

In fact, the Western Ontario Wardens’ Caucus expressed concern that rural western Ontario could lose out on significant opportunities for economic development in their regions, due in part to the current threshold, which was never updated by the previous government. It’s unbelievable that they did all that with the Green Energy Act, which just about bankrupted the province, but they couldn’t update the leave to construct.

Our government understands that these lost economic opportunities are simply unacceptable. This is why Ontario needs to act now to modernize the Ontario Energy Board’s leave-to-construct process in order to bring reliable and affordable energy options to communities, homes and businesses in a more cost-effective and timely manner. We simply cannot lose any more jobs and economic opportunities in Ontario.

The leave-to-construct changes proposed in the Keeping Energy Costs Down Act will help to promote and protect economic development and job creation opportunities, especially in rural municipalities across the province.

The united counties of Leeds and Grenville have also expressed how their municipalities are facing delays and problems in ensuring natural gas expansion into commercial and industrial parks, as well as some residential areas. There are significant economic development implications to these delays, as you can understand, Speaker. It goes without saying. Of course, we know the only real solution is to improve the necessary infrastructure.

Like many rural communities, economic development in eastern Ontario and the united counties of Leeds and Grenville has been historically driven by a competitive tax structure, the availability of serviced land, and an educated workforce. However, we know that today’s economic development efforts require a more comprehensive and collaborative strategy, particularly in our post-pandemic era.

That’s why our government is focused on supporting a broader regional network of infrastructure to reflect and support the reality of business, industry supply chains and trade. This is true in all rural communities across Ontario, like the united counties of Leeds and Grenville, that are constantly in competition with larger urban markets for commercial and industrial business.

Not only is natural gas more affordable; expanding access to natural gas would help to increase economic development and job opportunities within communities.

Ontario’s natural gas expansion initiatives, like the natural gas expansion program, have helped to bring natural gas to a number of underserviced rural communities. For example, the township of Huron-Kinloss expressed that the expansion has provided residential and commercial ratepayers in Huron-Kinloss with more choice in how they meet their energy needs. The clerk from Huron-Kinloss stated: “The township has benefited from natural gas expansion initiatives of the province, making it affordable to bring natural gas to underserviced rural areas. This has provided residential and commercial ratepayers with choices in how they meet their energy needs in an affordable manner, and helps to provide heat sources, during even the worst winter storms.”

Our government understands that it’s more challenging for rural customers to transition to natural gas as it currently stands. That’s why Ontario is focused on bringing regulations forward that would allow equal opportunity to natural gas supply that is built in a sustainable manner. And it truly spans across the map.

The municipality of Red Lake, up there with Mayor Fred Mota—which is in northwestern Ontario, not far from the Manitoba-Ontario border—expressed their need for the threshold increase. This small community is poised for significant economic growth over the next decade as a result of several nearby mining projects—another thing, that our government has turned Ontario into a mining powerhouse again, after languishing under the former Liberal government. However, they do not currently have the capacity to provide the needed natural gas and electrical power service to support these projects or support the additional housing and services that will be required with the influx of workers and new residents who will be coming to their community.

Similar natural gas concerns were brought forth by the municipality of Oliver Paipoonge, where other energy sources like wood, electricity and propane are very expensive for heating. The municipality expressed concern that their residents are experiencing issues with insurance companies becoming increasingly reluctant to insure properties that use wood for heating.

These are just some of the municipalities and municipal organizations that have voiced their concerns to our government. Similar concerns were shared during last year’s Association of Municipalities of Ontario conference. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

Our government knows that the Keeping Energy Costs Down Act is a step in the right direction to preserve customer energy choices by ensuring that natural gas remains an available and affordable option for all Ontarians. Our government understands that supporting new projects in municipalities is critical not only to help communities grow, succeed and thrive, but for Ontario’s economy to prosper as well.

A streamlined leave-to-construct process that exempts small pipeline projects, while maintaining rights-based consultation opportunities with Indigenous communities, will help get small pipeline projects that support new housing and new jobs built by cutting unnecessary red tape and putting shovels in the ground faster.

Speaker, I want to stress that both the government of Ontario and the OEB will ensure that Indigenous communities will continue to have an opportunity to bring their views forward and to inform any decisions that may impact their rights or interests.

Project applicants would continue to contact the Ministry of Energy early in the planning process and provide the ministry with a description of the proposed project, including the need for the project, its terminal points, characteristics such as the length and diameter of the pipeline, and the proposed route. Along with any additional information requested, the Ministry of Energy will assess whether the proposed project triggers the duty to consult. Where it is triggered, the OEB would then determine whether the crown has adequately discharged its duty to consult prior to granting such applications.

The Keeping Energy Costs Down Act builds on Powering Ontario’s Growth and the work we are already doing to ensure we have affordable, reliable and clean energy for all Ontarians and to ensure this province remains an attractive place for businesses to invest and families to call home. The changes we’re proposing in Bill 165, including increasing the leave-to-construct threshold, would cut red tape and get housing and energy connections built faster while controlling costs for new gas customers.

In addition, Bill 165, if passed, would improve Ontario Energy Board processes, building on the work of OEB modernization started back in 2018. They will ensure that the entire energy sector and other impacted sectors have more input into OEB decisions, and that future OEB decisions take into account government policy priorities, including protecting ratepayers.

As we plan for a prosperous future for our province, we must ensure we have an energy system that can deliver reliable and affordable power for all Ontarians, including those in smaller, rural communities, including the ones I have talked about today, and particularly in my riding of Renfrew–Nipissing–Pembroke.

Making life easier and more affordable for Ontario families and businesses is at the heart of the Keeping Energy Costs Down Act—as well as in every decision we make.

As energy demand continues to grow across Ontario, we will continue to work hard to ensure a reliable supply of energy continues to be available for all Ontarians, now and in the future.

I urge the members of this House to think of every Ontarian across our great province and support the Keeping Energy Costs Down Act.

Speaker, I don’t have a lot of time left, but I do want to reiterate how important this entire act is.

When we think of many years ago, when they were building an electricity system across the province, a distribution and transmission system across the province—this is where I differ greatly with the position of the New Democrats.

By the way, spreading the cost of gas pipeline expansion has been the way we’ve done it in the province since 1998. I never recall in my time here the NDP ever bringing forth a motion in the House to change the way that that was done, and I don’t ever recall them having that in one of their election platforms. But all of a sudden now, this was the biggest issue for them in this bill. How critically wrong they are.

When we had the energy expansion across the province of Ontario many decades ago, do you think we would have actually gotten electricity to parts of Ontario like where I live, in Renfrew county, in a big way—other than the small little local generators—if we didn’t have a program that provided that Ontario saw the importance of getting electricity to as many people and communities as possible and built out the transmission grid to supply all across Ontario? That was done so that those communities would have electricity without having to bear all of those costs, and each homeowner didn’t have to bear the costs of building those wires all across the province.

The same thing happened with the Bell telephone system. All across Canada, the people made sure that people would have access to those services. Yes, it was a little slower in coming. Some people may remember what they called “party lines” in rural Ontario—you might remember, Speaker; I remember. Those changes were made—

Interjection.