I thank the member for Thornhill for her excellent advocacy for her community and that very thoughtful question.

Yes, the Liberal carbon tax is a major burden on families and households and our elderly and our young people, and on small businesses, the engine of the economy.

We must do all that we can, and we are doing, as a provincial government, all that we can to decrease the cost of living. My ministry has introduced the Better for Consumers, Better for Businesses Act, which ensures that price gouging will be recognized for what it is and declared unconscionable conduct. We have cut the gas tax. We have eliminated tolls on the 412 and 418 in Durham. We have banned licence renewal fees. So we’re doing all we can.

We ask the federal Liberal government—and if the NDP supported us on consumer protection, call your federal cousins, tell them to defeat the Liberal government in Ottawa—

When we talk about communities and how communities experience it, I can talk about my riding of Durham, which, as I have said many times, is a microcosm of the great province of Ontario. We have rural communities and farms in the northern part of Durham. We have suburban communities in Bowmanville, north Oshawa and Courtice and Newcastle. All of my fellow residents and citizens communicate with me regularly about, for example, the increased transportation, energy and operational expenses for our farmers, and the burden upon those who own homes or rent homes in terms of the energy cost impact.

As I said, we’re doing all that we can for our fellow citizens and residents to reduce the cost of living, but it’s time for the tone-deaf Liberals and NDP in Ottawa to pay attention to our citizens and scrap this ruinous, regressive carbon tax.

I thank the member opposite for the thoughtful question.

There was wide consultation. It began in March 2020, just before the COVID restrictions were put into place, and it concluded earlier this year. This included, of course, online submissions. It included round tables. It included written submissions. And we heard from everybody—individual consumers with their own anecdotes, families of those who were affected, law enforcement, legal groups and consumer advocacy groups, as well as specific groups representing the elderly, one of whom I quoted in my speech. With that kind of feedback and consultation, we believe we’ve found that correct balance the member speaks of.

We welcome proposed amendments, but I think this bill finds the right balance and is based and reflective of input from literally thousands and thousands of participants.

When it comes to the cost of groceries, of course, we’ve already had debate in this House about price escalations, particularly for groceries, that arise from the carbon tax, and I think the member opposite knows our government’s position on that. We say repeal the carbon tax, and we’ve called upon the federal government to do that.

With respect to price gouging generally, it is a specific, prohibited, unfair practice in the proposed new bill. It will better enable our government to respond to price gouging in the marketplace in the future, in a general sense. This prohibition would not address systematic high prices, including in sectors such as grocery retail, as the CPA is not a price-control statute. Issues related to market dominance and anti-competitive conduct would typically fall under the jurisdiction of the federal Competition Bureau.