Thanks to the member opposite for the question. We’re ensuring that we have energy in our province that’s clean, reliable, affordable and safe, Mr. Speaker, with an emphasis on affordable and reliable.

Last Monday, the Prime Minister jacked up the carbon tax by a staggering 23%. Premier Ford and all of the Premiers—NDP, Liberals and Conservatives alike—wrote a letter to the Prime Minister last week, encouraging him once again to realize the failure of this carbon tax and he responded by saying, “Oh, now, this is a nice irony. Ontario actually started a cap-and-trade program. It was scrapped by Premier Doug Ford”—darned right it was scrapped by Premier Doug Ford, and given the opportunity to scrap that carbon tax, he would do it all over again.

A cap-and-trade system is an increased cost for the people of Ontario, something that our party won’t stand for. Bonnie Crombie, the queen of the carbon tax, sure does.

Interjections.

Since day one, we’ve been focused on ensuring that we have a reliable, affordable, clean energy system in this province. It’s remarkable for me, Mr. Speaker, to hear the energy critic from the NDP now standing up and championing gas in our province when at every opportunity he has slammed the use of natural gas—not just slammed the use of natural gas, but he’s also slammed our nuclear sector.

What we have done by introducing the bill last week—and we’ll debate it at second reading today, Mr. Speaker—is ensure that there’s at least one party in this Legislature that’s standing up for homeowners and new homeowners and energy customers, and that is Premier Ford and the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario. They can be beholden to the environmental groups; they can be beholden to those who are ideological. We are not going to do that. We’re going to stand up for the people of Ontario.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker, there’s one party in this Legislature that is standing up for those who want to enter the home market. They want to buy a home in this province. That’s this party. The Ontario Energy Board’s decision from just before Christmas would have driven up the price of a home by, at minimum, $4,400. Our party won’t stand for that. But in parts of rural Ontario, it was going to drive up the cost by tens of thousands of dollars a year.

We are in a housing crisis in this province. Every time our party brings forward plans, like the housing supply action plan, it’s the NDP that stands up against it, Mr. Speaker, and this is the latest example of the NDP and the Liberals and the Greens standing up against the ability for people to buy a home in our province. We are going to stand with those who want to get into housing, Mr. Speaker, and make sure we’re keeping shovels in the ground in Ontario.

Thanks very much to the member opposite for the question. My number one job is to ensure that we have an energy system here that’s reliable, one that’s affordable and one that’s clean. I’m glad to say it’s an A+ on all three of those categories in Ontario. We have a system that is 90% clean, one that is attracting investment from all around the world. They’re coming here because our system is clean, because it’s reliable and it’s affordable.

If the member opposite was in charge of our energy system—God forbid that that should ever happen—we certainly would become one of the most unreliable jurisdictions in the world because he is against baseload power.