Thank you to the great member from Niagara. It’s just wonderful to hear his concern for the people in that area, and everybody across this province, with regard to the carbon tax.

The carbon tax increases the cost of everything, from the farmer’s field to the fork, everything between and everything that goes into it. And this summer, whether it’s the cost of a hotel or a campsite or the propane to cook on that barbecue, it’s going to cost more, and the fuel to get there is going to cost more.

We’re reducing the cost of living for people in Ontario by reducing the gas tax by over 10 cents a litre, removing the cost of licence plate stickers, removing the tolls on Highways 412 and 418, and, of course, the One Fare, which is going to save people $1,600 per year.

While the carbon tax caucus over there and their leader, the queen of the carbon tax, Bonnie Crombie, wants to raise the cost of living, we’re lowering it, making it better for families. We’re doing it without that punishing carbon tax.

We’ve got shovels in the ground on projects across the province: nuclear refurbishment going on at Darlington, at the Bruce, and soon to be at Pickering, to make sure on that energy; new build nuclear is going to be happening at Bruce; refurbishments at the Niagara Falls and in Cornwall for our great hydroelectric power—the basis, where it started; and, just recently, the largest procurement of battery storage in history, almost 1,800 megawatts. That’s enough to power 1.8 million homes.

Speaker, we’re making sure that the Ontario of the future has the power it needs to generate, to support those families, and we can do that without a job-killing carbon tax. The Crombie caucus over there has to stand with us, stand against the federal Liberals. This is the last day we’re going to be here. Call them. Tell them to—

Interjections.

Thank you to the great member from Kitchener–Conestoga for the question. He’s absolutely right; the carbon tax is driving up the cost of everything, including the food items we buy.

Let’s just take a little ride with a loaf of bread—the loaf of bread that you get at the grocery store. The Grain Farmers of Ontario expect to pay $2.7 billion in carbon tax by 2030, driving up the cost of grain. But it doesn’t stop there. Businesses that mill the grain into flour and then turn that flour into bread pay a carbon tax on their operations, and then there are carbon taxes on the fuel to get it to the distribution centre and to the grocery store. And the grocery store pays carbon tax on their operations, including their heating and their cooling and everything else. It’s a never-ending saga under these Liberals.

The fact is, if the federal government would understand the damage that they’re doing to people all across Ontario, they would scrap the tax.

Energy is a great subject for us to be talking about; not so much by the Liberals, because they could never figure it out.

We’re doing everything we can to make energy affordable here in the province of Ontario so families and businesses can survive and businesses can invest in their operations. We’re ensuring affordable home heating through our Clean Home Heating Initiative and the natural gas expansion program. We’re building the next generation of affordable nuclear energy in this province so we will have guaranteed energy for decades to come.

Speaker, they failed in energy policy. They’re failing in their approach to the carbon tax.

We’re going to continue to make life more affordable for the people of Ontario.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Niagara West for continuing to stand up against this punitive, regressive carbon tax. And he’s absolutely right: It has raised the cost not just at the pumps; it’s on the grocery shelves—it’s everywhere. Everything is going up as a result of the carbon tax. And we’ve been standing here and fighting for the people of Ontario and trying to reduce their costs, reducing the gas tax $320 to the average family in the course of a year—that’s going to save them money. We’re removing the cost of licence plate stickers on the cars—that’s going to save them money as well. All of these things, while the Liberal government continues to raise the carbon tax 23% on April 1.

Justin Trudeau had a choice. He could have sided with the people or sided with the ideologues. He chose the latter. It’s time to side with the people and scrap the tax.

We’ve reduced the cost of doing business in this province by $8 billion. That gets passed on to the consumers because businesses have had more freedom to operate here in the province of Ontario, creating more jobs. All this while Bonnie Crombie stands with her leader from Ottawa in supporting the carbon tax.

Speaker, we are doing everything we can to put money back into the pockets of people in Ontario. We know they’re suffering under the carbon tax. It’s time for the Liberals and the NDP to support what we’re doing: Help us scrap the carbon tax.

I thank the member for her comments today. Boy, there was a lot to unpack there. I have to start with—now we’re going to start dictating to international companies where they’re going to establish their facilities here in the province of Ontario. That’s a surefire way to make sure that new plants are built in Virginia or Georgia or Tennessee and not in Ontario.

But I do want to ask the member—because she talked about cost-of-living issues, and she talked about new homes in her riding and hoping people can afford them. Well, one of the biggest drivers of inflation and increases in costs in construction and everything else these days is the carbon tax. Your party was in favour of the largest increase in carbon tax ever in history.

I’m asking you, will you join us today in asking the federal government to not proceed with an increase in federal carbon tax on April 1?