Thanks to the member from Etobicoke–Lakeshore for the question this morning.

This is the number one issue that we’re hearing about across the province—the increased cost of living in our province, but also across our country, and the impact that the federal carbon tax, supported by the queen of the carbon tax, Bonnie Crombie, is having on their household bills. Gas bills for their vehicles, home heating, grocery bills—they’re all going up, and they’re all a result of the increasing federal carbon tax year after year.

We’ve taken a different approach in Ontario. We’re lowering the cost of living, the price of gas, taxes, fees. We have reduced taxes across the province. And our plan is working.

As a matter of fact, this morning, the Premier and the health minister and the Minister of Economic Development announced another major investment in health sciences, at Sanofi in north Toronto.

We’ve done as much as we can to lower the cost for those folks in the GTHA to get around with One Fare that the Associate Minister of Transportation has introduced, saving those who take transit up to $1,600 a year.

We’ve cut the gas tax by 10.7 cents a litre here in Ontario, but at the same time, the federal carbon tax continues to drive up the price at the pumps, which makes it really difficult for people to get out and visit beautiful parts of our province like Prince Edward county and Kingston and Essex and Windsor counties and, in northern Ontario, beautiful places like Kakabeka Falls that are wonderful this time of year.

It’s the federal carbon tax that’s making it more difficult for those people.

We should all, in this Legislature, be supportive of Premier Ford’s motion to scrap that tax in Ottawa.

Thank you to the member opposite for the question this morning.

The federal government has imposed this torturous federal carbon tax on the people of Ontario and the people across Canada, and we know that the queen of the carbon tax, Bonnie Crombie, is happy to have this carbon tax in place. Her counterpart federally, Minister Guilbeault, her buddy on Parliament Hill, has said that the queen of the carbon tax is happy to have that federal carbon tax in place. We know that the caucus here supports that increased tax and what it’s doing to drive up the cost of everything. The NDP supports that tax, and the Green Party leadership here supports that, as well.

I want them to hear this: Last night, I was speaking at the net-zero forum put on by the Transition Accelerator. They applaud our plan, which is reducing emissions and growing our province’s economy.

We are doing a lot. She referenced the massive energy procurement last week for storage. The largest storage facility is actually going to be in the riding of our good member from the riding that’s way too long to mention—the Brockville region. That’s going to ensure that there is secure, reliable electricity in eastern Ontario for future growth, the kind of growth that we saw yesterday, with Asahi Kasei—I said that wrong, but the Minister of Economic Development is going to support me on this. It was an almost $2-billion announcement down in the Niagara region yesterday, building on the $43 billion of new investment that we’ve seen across the province.

Our Powering Ontario’s Growth plan is working. Even the environmental organizations that I met with last night at the Transition Accelerator are endorsing the Powering Ontario’s Growth plan because we’re reducing emissions, providing reliable clean power for our province and watching our economy grow at the same time.

Thanks to the member opposite for the question this morning.

Since day one, on receiving the OEB ruling that they would be—which, I should point out, by the way, was a split decision, which is rare at the Ontario Energy Board—that this decision was going to make the price of home ownership soar, we have been ready and ensuring that we were going to protect future homeowners so that they could afford to buy homes in our province.

The other thing that we’re very focused on here since I’ve become the Minister of Energy, and prior to that—basically, since we became the government in 2018—was ensuring that we kept the price of energy low in our province, and as a result, we have seen the results. We have seen massive investment in our province. We are building over a million homes in our province.

What we’re doing on the energy file is working, ensuring that our growing province is going to have the electricity and the energy that it needs, that we will have a reliable, affordable and safe electricity system. That’s what we’ve been focused on at the Ministry of Energy since day one, and the proof is there: billions of dollars of investment in our province.

I can assure the NDP that our government and the Ministry of Energy are focused on ensuring that we have the energy we need for our growing province, and that includes natural gas, something that the members of the NDP are opposed to. They say that natural gas is not healthy. They say that nuclear isn’t healthy. They would get rid of nuclear energy. They would get rid of gas, which is the insurance policy that keeps our lights on and keeps over 70% of our homes heated during the winter months.

We’re ensuring that we have a reliable, affordable energy sector in Ontario that is going to support our growing economy, support our growing population in this province.

The last time the Liberals and the NDP were in charge of our energy sector, we saw electricity bills triple. We won’t stand for that.

We’re going to make sure that home ownership is also affordable for new home buyers. That’s why we stepped in.

First of all, it’s unbelievable for the people of Ontario to think that the NDP are for lower gas bills. The NDP are for a carbon tax. The NDP have members in their caucus who were calling for the highest carbon tax not just in North America, but in the world. The Liberals are fully on board with that as well.

There’s one party in this Legislature that actually gives a darn about the affordability for people in this province, and that is Premier Ford and our team here on the PC side. We have been fighting since day one for more affordable electricity bills, not the tripling of electricity bills that we saw under the Liberal-NDP coalition or what we’re currently seeing with the Liberal-NDP coalition up on Parliament Hill that has us driving to the pumps today, where it’s a buck eighty a litre—that’s because of the punitive carbon tax that the queen of the carbon tax, Bonnie Crombie, Jagmeet and Justin have slapped onto the people of Ontario.

Thanks to the member for Newmarket–Aurora for a great question this morning.

Once again, I’m going to stand up in the Legislature, as I have for the last several months—or, actually, a couple of years now—and talk about the fact that the federal carbon tax imposed by Justin Trudeau and the Liberals is driving up the cost of everything, from gasoline to food. People are choosing between heating and eating in this country.

And the huddle has broken over here. The Liberals are back on the line. We still don’t know exactly how they feel about the queen of the carbon tax Bonnie Crombie’s position today. She revealed it about 45 minutes ago—that she won’t be imposing a provincial carbon tax.

Our question for the Ontario Liberal caucus—because we know we’ve had members of that caucus stand up and say that people in Ontario and people in Canada are better off with the federal carbon tax than they would be without it—is what will they say today to Justin Trudeau and the federal Liberals? Will they join us in asking for them to scrap that tax?

Will she stand with us? Will these Liberals that are here, the nine of them that are here, stand with us, and will they stand with our friends in the NDP, who are calling for an end to the federal carbon tax? You all should stand up as join us this morning as we call for Justin Trudeau and the federal Liberals to—

Interjections.

Thanks to the great member from Niagara for that question this morning. The carbon tax is having a huge impact on families, at the gas tank, at the grocery counter and on inflation that’s affecting everything.

As the member rightly points out, two weeks from today, on Easter Monday, on April Fool’s Day, the federal government is going to be increasing the carbon tax again by a whopping 23%. What does that actually mean? It means, for the average family, members of that member’s riding in Niagara, are going to be facing an extra $366 in carbon taxes just on their home heating bill.

But as I mentioned, it’s going to drive up more than the cost of just the natural gas bill, Mr. Speaker. It’s going to drive up the cost of everything.

We’re opposing it. The NDP are actually opposing it. What are the Liberals doing?

But as Toronto Star intrepid reporter Robert Benzie broke at 10:01 a.m. this morning on X, the queen of the carbon tax, Bonnie Crombie, has said that she won’t impose a new provincial carbon tax. But what she didn’t do is say that she’s opposed to the federal carbon tax, the one that’s actually going to rise in two weeks from today by a whopping 23%.

I see the Liberal caucus is huddled here right now trying to figure out what they’re going to do. Are they going to join us? Are they going to join the NDP? Or are they going to sit with the Green Party and their federal cousins and continue with the—

Interjections.

Well, you did your hair this morning.

Thank you, Speaker. I recognize you too. It’s good to see you this morning.

I would like to welcome a couple of dear friends of mine from Riverview, New Brunswick, my hometown. Believe it or not, I was the best man at their wedding a long, long time ago, when I was a younger, slimmer, more handsome man than I am today, if you can imagine that. I’d really like to welcome Peter and Heidi Foster.