Thanks to the great member from Perth–Wellington, who no doubt feels the pinch as he drives in to Queen’s Park every day. People across the province are feeling it as they take their kids to hockey playoff games and—of course, soccer and baseball games are getting started. Construction workers are making their way in to work on our brand new subway systems we’re building here in Toronto—and the refurbishments that we’re doing at our nuclear facilities at Bruce Power.

It’s costing a lot of money, is the bottom line, and it’s having an impact on people as they plan for their summer getaways. Maybe they’re planning on taking a tour across Ontario and visiting one of the most beautiful provinces in the entire country and some of the great places that we have, like Prince Edward county, Tobermory and all those great tourist attractions.

I was down in Niagara Falls; you might have heard of it. It’s a pretty significant tourist attraction in our province and in the world.

The bottom line is, Bonnie Crombie, the queen of the carbon tax, the Liberal leader, is supportive of federal Liberal leader Justin Trudeau’s carbon tax, which went up a whopping 23% a week ago—it’s resulting in $1.80 at the pumps today. It’s completely unacceptable.

As a matter of fact, the federal environment minister says she’s happy to have the federal carbon tax in place.

We are opposed to that. We believe there should not be a carbon tax in the province.

The member, in his question, said it’s not having an impact; it’s not driving down emissions in our province.

The federal environment commissioner said the federal government is missing out on all of its climate goals. So all they’re doing is punishing people across our province and across our country.

We’re seeing the results at the grocery store. We’re seeing the results on our natural gas bills—massive increases to our natural gas bills. And we’re certainly seeing it at the gasoline pumps—$1.80 a litre today in parts of Ontario.

Prime Minister Trudeau and the queen of the carbon tax, Bonnie Crombie, need to do a 180 and do away with the federal carbon tax now.

Thanks very much to the great member from Haliburton–Kawartha Lakes–Brock, one of the sweetest members of this Legislature, no doubt, who has concerns and has shared them with us here at the Legislature that she’s been hearing from her constituents. But it is not just constituents from Kawartha Lakes-Brock that are feeling the impact of the punitive carbon tax, it’s residents of Toronto, it’s resident of London, it’s resident of Ottawa, it’s residents right across the country, because of Prime Minister Trudeau’s massive increase to the carbon tax on April 1, last Monday. It’s having an impact at the grocery stores. It’s having an impact at the gas pumps. It’s having an impact on your home heating.

So what we’ve done is ensure that we’ve reduced the cost of gasoline by 10.7 cents a litre. We’re making sure that there’s an Ontario Electricity Rebate for the people of Ontario. We’ve eliminated fees and tolls and licence plate sticker fees. And we’ve introduced One Fare for transit riders right across the GTHA. Every step of the way, we’re doing everything we can to make sure that life is more affordable for the people of Ontario while the queen of the carbon tax, Bonnie Crombie, and her pal Justin Trudeau are driving are up the carbon tax by a whopping 23% last week—

We’ve done everything we can to get this message through to the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau. As a matter of fact, the Premier sent him off another letter last weekend, encouraging him to step away from this harmful policy. But what did he do? He said, “Well, we wouldn’t have this carbon tax if we still had cap-and-trade.” That is just another energy tax, Mr. Speaker.

What we’re saying is get rid of the carbon tax. Get rid of cap-and-trade. Make life more affordable for the people of Ontario today. He could have done it last Monday. He still has time.

Speaker, we have a grid in Ontario that is the envy of all jurisdictions in North America: one that’s clean, one that’s affordable, one that’s reliable and one that’s safe. God help us if the NDP were ever in charge of our energy system. We’re seeing multi-billion-dollar investments in our province from companies around the world like Volkswagen, Stellantis, Umicore—so many others because we have a system that people can rely on.

We’re making sure that we’re hardening the infrastructure here to deal with some of the conditions that the member is talking about, but at the same time, because of our success on this file, we’re now building North America’s first small modular reactor that’s going to go online in 2028. Our nuclear fleet is being refurbished. When they come back a little bit later on this decade, that’s 3,500 megawatts of clean non-emitting electricity, enough to power the city of Toronto for the next 35 years—the largest procurement of energy storage in Canadian history—

Thanks to the member from Renfrew–Nipissing–Pembroke. I appreciate it.

Speaker, he is quite correct: We’ve been hard at work putting families back in charge of their energy bills since we formed the government back in 2018. We started by introducing customer choice on electricity plans, allowing Ontarians to choose a price plan that makes sense for them—either a time-of-use or tiered rate. We also introduced the Green Button program, which is being rolled out right across Ontario as we speak, and will be in full implementation in November.

Now we’ve taken the next step. Last week, down at Toronto Hydro, I had the opportunity to inform the public about our ultra-low overnight electricity rate, which, starting on May 1, customers in the member’s own riding in Renfrew and in Toronto and London and Centre Wellington and Wasaga—I’m sure it was a great weekend at the beach up there, Mr. Speaker. They can opt in on this new plan, the ultra-low overnight rate, that’s going to be available province-wide in the coming months.

Unlike the former Liberal government, which sold clean, night-time power to neighbouring jurisdictions, many times at a loss, our government is coming up with innovative ways to use that power and shift demand in the province in the overnight period, which will make our grid more efficient, saving our electricity grid up to $5.7 million which, at the end of the day, isn’t just going to save those folks who adopt the ultra-low overnight rate, it’s going to save every electricity customer in the province money on their bill.

Thanks to the member from Ontario’s clean energy capital, the Durham region, for the question this morning.

I was pleased to join another member from that Durham caucus at Toronto Metropolitan University this morning to announce that Ontario is leveraging our world-class electricity grid by launching a voluntary clean energy credit registry. This registry is going to help boost competitiveness and attract jobs to Ontario, helping businesses meet their environmental and sustainability goals.

We know that global businesses are looking to expand in jurisdictions like Ontario with clean and reliable electricity.

Along with our well-trained workforce, which we have thanks to Toronto Metropolitan University, and competitive tax credits, which we have thanks to the Minister of Finance, and an exemplary R&D ecosystem, and clean energy in the province, the credit registry announced this morning is just one more reason for those big companies that the member mentioned to continue investing in Ontario.

I know the member just mentioned the TTN is going to be here for their reception tonight, but he left out the best part, Mr. Speaker. While everybody is going to the ORBA reception—TTN has brought in some star power tonight for their reception: Doug Gilmour, Shayne Corson and Ric Nattress. A bunch of Toronto Maple Leafs all-stars are going to be there. So come on down and get your picture taken.