Minister, thank you so much for your presentation. Standing on your feet for one hour is not always easy, but you did it extremely well.

Speaker, I want to just bring to your attention—as you know, there were a number of witnesses who came to committee who expressed concerns that there were provisions within the ministerial directives on policies and rules on racism and hate, and they were fearful that it could be a form of political interference on campus. I know you’ve heard this as well. They’ve also expressed concern that this could quash certain types of activism on campus; in particular, Palestinian activism. They also noted that it could threaten academic freedoms, which I know that nobody is really interested in doing.

There were also some witnesses who talked about the powers that the government already has—including the Anti-Racism Act, which is still up and running. Why is the government not using those powers to create subcommittees to address Islamophobia—anti-racism—anti-Black racism and anti-Indigenous racism?

Thank you to the member from London–Fanshawe for her excellent presentation.

As you know, the Ontario NDP has never supported any type of provincial carbon tax on regular consumers. We oftentimes have supported the cap-and-trade system focused on large polluters, which is where that focus should be.

When the Ford government proposed a new carbon pricing system by scrapping the cap-and-trade program that the Wynne government had put in, it effectively launched a new carbon pricing system in Ontario—a new provincial tax. That was launched January 1, 2022. Yet there was, on the bill right now, a piece of legislation left over from the 1990s Harris government called the Taxpayer Protection Act, which specifically said that any new tax had to go forward to a referendum. So, in some ways, it replicates what’s already in schedule 5. Yet, we know, in 2022, there was no new carbon tax referendum under the Ford administration.

So can the government bind any government to a referendum if they couldn’t even follow their own rules?

Thank you to the member from Toronto–St. Paul’s for your very passionate presentation. I know that education is close to your heart, and certainly, you are a subject matter expert.

I’m very interested—because one of the biggest contributors of stress and anxiety and depression for post-secondary students is financial stress. It’s the biggest barrier for students to actually seek support and treatment. The second, of course, is the wait-list to get access to those services, and the third is the lack of available services. These are all things that the government has the power to do something about. Is there anything in the bill that actually resources the students so that they can actually access the services that they need to combat anxiety and depression?

To the member across, thank you very much for your presentation.

The Enbridge Gas plans were reviewed by the Ontario Energy Board. It was a plan that looked at what was going to be happening over the next five years. The board then argued that the company’s proposal would lead to an overbuilt and underutilized gas system. They wanted to move the company forward to ensure that they were going to meet the needs of the future by moving away from fossil fuel towards renewable energy.

Minister, what in this bill actually does that for the homeowners and the future taxpayers of Ontario? How do we protect them from undue and unnecessary costs that this bill will actually bring upon them because we’re still using outdated technology?

Thank you to the member for her presentation.

With respect to this government’s claim that the reason to overturn local transit decision-making has oftentimes been the proposition they’ve put forward, that Metrolinx will build transit on time and on budget—and that’s what they said in 2019. They repeated it in 2020, and now we see the Ontario Line, which is, of course, already quite significantly delayed. But more importantly, it’s actually the most expensive transit project we’ve ever seen, which they like to brag about because it’s a billion dollars per kilometre. It is one of the most expensive projects being delivered around the world, in numbers and magnitude that we’ve never seen before.

My question to you is, how can the people of Ontario trust this government with any legislation that hasn’t gone through consultation with the community, that has no technical review—and that they expect us to just vote for? Can we trust them?