Before I ask my question, I just want to say to the Minister of Energy: Leeds–Grenville–Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes.

My question is for the Minister of Indigenous Affairs and Northern Development. All that the federal Liberal carbon tax is doing is making it harder—and taking money out of people’s pocketbooks.

In northern Ontario, the economic challenges are getting harder in every community. At the gas pump alone, this is a punitive tax that’s hitting everyone. Communities across northern Ontario continue to face more and more challenges that way. The cost of transporting goods is already much higher in northern Ontario and these costs are being passed on to the consumer.

But the federal Liberals just are not listening. In fact, they increased the carbon tax last month by 23% and plan to hike it six more times before 2030. That’s completely unacceptable.

Speaker, could the Minister of Indigenous Affairs and Northern Development please tell the House how this carbon tax adversely affects the people of northern Ontario?

Way back in the fall of 2019, the Ontario Legislature hosted a special day for my Peterborough Lakers senior lacrosse team as a tribute for their third straight Canadian national lacrosse championship.

All of Peterborough was anxiously waiting for the 2020 season to begin. The Lakers were once again the odds-on favourite to repeat as the MSL champions and represent the east at the Mann Cup.

Of course, all of us know what happened in 2020 when the season was cancelled.

Then, in 2021, with COVID rearing its ugly head once again, the season was cancelled.

But this past summer, we were able to have a lacrosse season here in Ontario and out west. After a two-year hiatus because of COVID, Peterborough was in a position for an unprecedented four-peat. All that stood in the way of my Lakers was the Langley Thunder. It was a hard-fought seven-game series at the Peterborough Memorial Centre, with my Lakers once again capturing a fourth consecutive Mann Cup, an unprecedented second four-peat. No other city in Canada has ever won the Mann Cup four times in a row, and we have done it twice, ensuring that the Peterborough Century 21 Lakers are the centre of the lacrosse universe.

I’d like to give a special shout-out to Megan Dykeman, the MLA from Langley, BC, for being a good sport and wearing one of our Lakers jerseys in the BC Legislature after losing the bet with me.

I look forward to hosting another Lakers day here at Queen’s Park, where all of you will be welcome to come get your picture taken with the Mann Cup and meet some of the players on the world’s greatest lacrosse team.

I rise today to pay homage to a true gentleman from my riding. Gidigaa Migiziban has begun his journey to the spirit world. Doug Williams was a much-loved elder, knowledge keeper and former chief of Curve Lake First Nation. In 1972, he was one of the first graduates of Trent University’s newly created Indian and Eskimo studies program. That program would eventually evolve into Trent’s current Indigenous studies.

Doug retained a close relationship with Trent, and would eventually become an associate professor and director of studies in the Indigenous studies PhD program.

But Doug wasn’t just an educator of Indigenous studies; he was also a defender of treaty rights. He was the subject of a court case in the early 1980s that led to a landmark decision on First Nations treaty rights to traditional harvesting. On one particular day, Doug caught more than sixty frogs while waiting for the game warden to come and charge him. When asked why he caught so many, he said that he wanted to make sure it was obvious what he was there to do.

Doug was also an author. His book, Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg: This is Our Territory, published in 2018, tells the story of his people in Curve Lake. If you have the chance to read it, I highly recommend it. As you read the words, you can actually hear his voice speaking them.

Thank you, Gidigaa, for your teachings, and for sharing your knowledge and wisdom with me.