Thanks very much again to the member.

We’re doing a lot. We have reduced the cost at the pumps by 10.7 cents a litre until the end of this year. We’ve brought in One Fare—the minister here is outstanding, saving those who ride transit $1,600 a year. We’ve scrapped the tolls. We’ve scrapped the licence plate fees.

We are doing everything we can to ensure that life is more affordable for the people of Ontario, but the queen of the carbon tax, Bonnie Crombie, and Justin Trudeau and Jagmeet Singh—the NDP and the Liberals teaming up again to make energy more expensive.

We have a plan. It’s called Powering Ontario’s Growth. I talked about the nuclear investments we’re making.

Last week, I was in Niagara Falls at the Sir Adam Beck facility, announcing a big refurbishment there: 1.7 gigawatts of clean, reliable, affordable water power that’s going to power our province for the next 40 to 50 years; new transmission lines that are better connecting the north to the south, to those in Indigenous communities, so those in northern Ontario can participate in our energy sector.

We have a plan. It doesn’t include a punitive carbon tax.

Well, the OEB, in its own decision, said it was going to cost about $4,400, but they were looking at a cul-de-sac in the GTHA when they were using that analysis. We know and you know, certainly, being from Perth–Wellington, just how much more it’s going to cost to get that extra line out to your home or to the farms that are—boy, they’re starving for more natural gas in your community. I hear from them all the time at ROMA and AMO. It’s going to cost them tens of thousands of dollars more.

That’s why we won’t let this stand. That’s why we’re coming back with our natural gas policy, so that the Ontario Energy Board will be able to reconsider government policy and ensure that they’re hearing from the proper people, including the Independent Electricity System Operator, home builders, contractors, farmers and those who will be impacted by these additional costs that are heaped onto them as a result of this misguided decision.

In Niagara, where my colleague is from, a new business customer would see an upfront connection charge of approximately $53,000. That’s $53,000 more that they would have to pay up front instead of amortizing this over a 40-year period. Anybody who thinks that going from 40 years to zero years is rational is completely irrational—it just is. A recent restaurant project in Niagara would cost approximately $13,000 more up front. So it’s going to have an impact on the residents in Niagara, just as it would right across the province.

We have an opportunity, particularly in our greenhouse sector, to be a world leader. We already are, but we have an opportunity to grow that even more. And providing them with the ability to amortize the cost of pipelines up to 40 years makes a heck of a lot of sense and will increase our GDP dramatically.

The dissenting commissioner’s opinion, Allison Duff, was very, very clear as well: that the OEB commissioners didn’t hear from the stakeholders that they needed to hear from. They didn’t hear from the farmers, they didn’t hear from the home builders, they didn’t hear from the contractors, and most importantly, they didn’t hear from the system operator that manages our electricity grid. So we’re going to put this back in the OEB’s court once we set our natural gas policy.

Once again, we see the NDP trying to find any way possible they can to oppose a piece of legislation, even one that makes as much sense as this one does, Madam Speaker.

This is necessary in a housing crisis to assuring that we can keep shovels in the ground and build the homes that we’re talking about building.

A recent condominium development here in the GTA would see an upfront connection charge of approximately $290,000. I don’t know who the opposite member thinks is going to pay that, but it’s going to be the person who buys that condo or lives in that condo—$290,000. A three-building condo development in Toronto would see an upfront connection charge of approximately $1,065,000. Who does the NDP think is going to bear the cost of that? It’s going to be that homeowner, the new homeowner, and we have to step in to ensure that we’re protecting the homeowners of the province.