I’d like to thank my colleague from Ottawa Centre for an excellent presentation. It seems that with Bill 165 it’s yet the next installment of must-miss theatre. Its quite unselfconsciously yet ironically titled bills are part of a pattern of this government, but this bill represents unprecedented political interference with an independent regulator. Does this political interference help consumers or put them at risk?

Thank you to my colleague from Parkdale–High Park for your presentation, focusing on affordability and the Orwellian title of Bill 165.

When the standing committee met to discuss Bill 165, representatives from Unifor, including Samia Hashi and Doug Carter, testified at the committee and they stated that the Ontario Energy Board needs to do a much better job of monitoring gas companies’ investments in infrastructure. They actually stated to the committee, “When gas leaks are not fixed, Ontario families pay three times: They pay through delayed investment in upgrading and maintaining our gas infrastructure; they pay for it through climate change; they pay through the increased risks of major safety incidents.”

Would the member like to comment about how this government is not looking after affordability in this bill and actually could do so by listening to the representatives from Unifor?

I’d like to thank the minister for the introduction.

This bill, Bill 165, reminds me quite a bit of Bill 23. With Bill 23, this government said that removing development charges would automatically trickle down and pass over cost savings to new home buyers. We know they didn’t put any metrics in place. They didn’t put any guardrails in place. And we see a lot of the same thing here with Bill 165. Apparently, they think that this money is going to go—but really, the effect of this bill is quite something else. In fact, I believe that this bill would properly be entitled keeping Enbridge happy while customers pay more.

This bill allows the government to approve a gas pipeline that the OEB has deemed as not in the public interest. Why would the government force consumers to pay for a project that is not in the public interest?