Good afternoon to all my colleagues in the Legislature here today. It’s been a while since I have spoken for an hour in the Legislature. So sit back, relax and enjoy the show for the next 60 minutes.

Second reading of Bill 165, the Keeping Energy Costs Down Act, 2024: If you get one thing today, Madam Speaker, I think it will be how critical this bill is to keeping housing and energy costs down for families. At a time where global and countrywide pressures like inflation and increasing building costs are forcing housing prices up, I think this bill should be a no-brainer for all of the parties in the Legislature who are looking to provide some relief to their constituents.

This new legislation is going to build housing faster, it’s going to save money and it’s going to protect customer choice, something that we are focused on doing here in the PC government. The way that we’re going to protect customer choice is by providing the government with time-limited authority to reverse this OEB decision on natural gas connection costs that would have significantly increased the price of new homes and businesses across our province. We’re introducing new requirements as well for the Ontario Energy Board to engage broadly with stakeholders on major energy decisions that impact our constituents, and modernizing the Ontario Energy Board’s leave-to-construct process for the first time in more than 20 years.

Each of these changes would cut red tape and ensure new homebuyers and businesses continue to have access to reliable and affordable energy from the source of their choice, and removing red tape, as I mentioned earlier.

Back when I was the red tape minister, we were focused on ensuring that we were cutting red tape across the province by 25% and therefore making it a more efficient jurisdiction to do business in. As a result of the work that was done by me back in 2018-19, by my predecessor, Minister Fedeli, and by Minister Gill, we have reduced a significant amount of red tape—about $9 billion each and every year on the cost of doing business in Ontario.

The proposals in Bill 165 also represent this government’s ongoing commitment to creating an energy system that meets Ontario’s growing demand while driving innovation and moving our economy forward. While cutting that red tape, getting our electricity prices under control and creating a jurisdiction for investment, we are seeing energy demand grow. Since day one, we have worked to prioritize the ratepayer, keep those costs down, make the policy environment around energy predictable and the system stable, and give consumers more choice in how they track and control their energy use and their costs.

While that may like seem a common-sense approach to doing business, I can tell you that common sense hasn’t always prevailed in Ontario’s energy planning space. In fact, it’s really easy to remember when the previous Liberal government presided over the fastest-rising hydro prices in North America, when the hydro average bill tripled—tripled, Madam Speaker—between 2003 and 2018, and families saw their bills increase by more than a thousand dollars per year. I can tell you, at my home in Quinte West, my average bill went from $220 a month to $660 a month when the Liberals were in charge of our electricity system.

And there are some members who were over there on the NDP bench right now—none of the Liberals are there because they were all voted out; they have been voted out since. But there are some members of the NDP caucus who were here during that time, and they know how inundated our constituency offices were from people who were absolutely fearful about the costs of electricity in their homes. That’s not the case anymore. Those sky-high electricity costs that we were experiencing in Ontario chased 300,000 manufacturing jobs out of our province.

This legislation that has been introduced is just another way that we’re delivering on all the work that we’ve been doing since day one to make energy and housing in this province affordable again. Just think: We have cut the gas tax, again, through June of this year. We’re saving families $312 a year through the Ontario Electricity Rebate. We’re investing an additional $50 million in the Ontario Electricity Support Program, which is delivered by the Ontario Energy Board, to help those who need it most. We have launched the Clean Home Heating Initiative, with incentives of up to $4,500 per household to roll out electric air-source heat pumps paired with an existing natural gas furnace.

We’ve scrapped the previous Liberal government’s cap-and-trade carbon tax that punished people and businesses. And unlike the current crop of Liberals, the ones that are still here, and their new leader, Bonnie Crombie—who has refused for the past week to come out against the tax, even though we all know that she supports a carbon tax—we have introduced legislation to protect the people of Ontario from any future carbon tax.

We’ve heard the same old song and dance from the few Liberals who are here. The member from Kanata–Carleton, who is a new member to the Legislature, stood up in this House just before Christmas saying that the people of Ontario were better off because of the crippling federal Liberal carbon tax. Now, she’s a former federal Liberal MP, so I guess you can understand why she would say that. But is she bringing that same kind of thinking here to the Ontario Legislature again?

The Liberal energy critic from Kingston, who is here with us today, wants us to go back to the failed Liberal energy policies of the Green Energy Act. He posted in a tweet about three weeks ago that if we had not cancelled all of those Green Energy Act contracts—those 800 contracts that would have driven up the cost of electricity in our province by a billion dollars on top of what we’re already experiencing—we’d be better off.

So I think we know what this current crop of Liberals and their brand new leader are thinking when it comes to a carbon tax and the kind of chaos that they would bring to energy costs in the province of Ontario. Again, we can’t go back there, Madam Speaker. We have to move forward with prices that are reliable and affordable, and have a system that’s clean and safe.

All of the work that we have done since 2018 has paved the way for us to move boldly forward as a leader in economic growth and reliable, affordable and clean energy. For example, Ontario is quickly becoming a leader in electric vehicles and battery development, with historic investments at Stellantis down in Windsor, to Volkswagen in the St. Thomas-London area, and in eastern Ontario at the brand new Umicore plant, which is going to be opening in Loyalist township.

We’re also seeing major investments in green steelmaking in two communities: Sault Ste. Marie in the north and also Hamilton. And while the traditional steelmaking process of using coal and coke is one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the province, we’re working with the federal government and the steel industry to end the use of coal and electrify their operations to support the production of green steel that’s going to fuel our growing automotive sector that we are seeing here in the province.

Imagine, Madam Speaker, just what a difference those electric arc furnaces are going to make. I want you to picture driving from Burlington over that Skyway bridge into Hamilton and looking off to the right at the Hamilton waterfront and seeing those massive piles of coal that are sitting there on the waterfront. Once these electric arc furnaces are up and running, there won’t be any piles of coal there, and we can look forward to developing a brand new waterfront that has lots of restaurants and bars and economic development and good things happening there.

Interjections.

Thank you, Speaker. I would like to welcome Lorne Brooker, host of the Lorne Brooker Show on 800 CJBQ, and his very capable assistant, Jim Gibbs. I thank all of the members of the Legislature who joined us for his broadcast this morning in the government House leader’s office. And thank you to the government House leader for letting us use your boardroom this morning.