That’s not what he said. That’s 100% false.

My question is for the Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. Just like every other Ontarian across the province, rural residents are feeling the financial pressures created by the federal carbon tax. They experience unique challenges as they have to travel farther and for longer to go anywhere. They face higher costs across the board compared to urban regions.

Speaker, in my riding alone, in Apsley, when Sayers Foods burned, people had to travel 40, 50 kilometres to get groceries in Lakefield, Buckhorn or Bancroft because there was no other option in Apsley. Unfortunately, these are the challenges that Bonnie Crombie’s Liberals and their federal buddies can’t and won’t understand.

Our government understands that scrapping the carbon tax is the right thing to do for Ontarians who are struggling, and we’ll continue to call on the federal government to end this tax. Speaker, can the minister please explain how the carbon tax disproportionately affects rural Ontarians and their quality of life?

On Friday, May 3, I had the honour of attending a ceremony at the Peterborough armouries to name a bridge on Highway 115 after an OPP officer. May 3 was chosen for the ceremony because on that date in 1928, Provincial Constable Norman F. Maker was called to attend a disturbance with a possible weapon at the Montgomery House Hotel in Peterborough. When the officers arrived, the suspect fled up a flight of stairs to his room. PC Maker and his partner pursued the suspect up the stairs, and the suspect emerged from his room with a handgun. The suspect proceeded to discharge his weapon, killing Norman and wounding his partner.

PC Norman Maker was the third OPP officer officially killed in the line of duty in Ontario’s history.

Norman Maker was only 32 years old. He was survived by his wife, Muriel, and their two daughters, Norma, who was three, and Connie, who was only three months old.

All of this came to light when Norman’s oldest daughter, Norma, passed away on December 4, 2021, and her obituary told the story of her father. From that obituary, the Peterborough detachment started the work to honour PC Maker. They found the newspaper reports and his official death certificate to validate the story, and on May 3 of this year, the 96th anniversary of the day that PC Maker was killed, he was finally honoured.

Norman F. Maker: a hero in life, not in death.

As members will see, on their desk is a notice that today is Peterborough Day at Queen’s Park. We’ll have a reception in rooms 228 and 230.

I am seeking unanimous consent to wear my Peterborough Petes jersey for Peterborough Day as well as my Trent University Converse running shoes for Peterborough Day.

—from my constituency office, my assistants Sally Carson and Jini Ganesalingam;

—from the city of Peterborough, Councillor Lesley Parnell and government relations adviser Sarah McDougall Perrin;

—from the Peterborough Petes, general manager Mike Oke and Roger the mascot;

—from the Peterborough County-City Paramedics, Chief Randy Mellow, Chief Patricia Bromfield, Michelle Walsh and Alison Gratton;

—from Peterborough county, Deputy Warden Sherry Senis, Councillor Ron Black, Tracie Bertrand, Karen Jopling and Emmanuel Pinto;

—from Miranda Water Treatment Systems, Michael Skinner and Ryan Moore;

—from Peterborough and the Kawarthas Chamber of Commerce, Sarah Budd;

—from Trent University, Ryan Sisson, Alison Scholl, Jessica Gordon and Sabrina Kuipers; and

—from the Eastern Ontario Wardens’ Caucus, Meredith Staveley-Watson and Lauren Wilkinson.

I appreciate that. I appreciate the question. It opens up an opportunity to really talk about some of the things that we have done and why we have done what we’ve done with it. What we know is that there were 79 reports, a total of just over 4,644 pages from the office of the child advocate, and that was just from one source. But as we were making adjustments to what we were doing here in government, we were trying to focus on what’s in the best interest of those kids as we move forward. How do we strengthen legislation in a way that gives all of those kids the opportunity to realize their full potential? That’s what we have been focusing on all throughout this.

The changes that we’ve made have been made in a way so that it gives those kids a better opportunity to succeed in life. It gives those kids something that perhaps they wouldn’t have had before. That’s why we have done what we have been doing with this entire file.

I appreciate the question from the member from Oshawa. When we look at the committee process, it’s not something that is new for any of us. We’ve all been through it multiple times. A lot of times, things get put forward on it that can tweak us in different ways to have a secondary look at what we’re doing as we move forward, because we know that we’re going to have more legislation that’s going to come forward on certain topics, and a lot of the times, you have to do things in a stepwise or incremental way.

And it’s not that those ideas aren’t great ideas; they are great ideas if they come forward. It allows us to take a look at things from a different perspective as we start to introduce more legislation. It’s not that those things get lost; it’s that we’re focused on what we’re doing at that moment and what we’re trying to accomplish with it, and sometimes when suggestions or amendments are being put forward by the opposition, they are truly good ideas, but they don’t fit in with what we’re trying to accomplish at that point, but it does tweak us to move forward so that we can introduce something else that will start to address some of those other things.

I’ll be sharing my time with the member from Mississauga Centre.

This is one of those bills that, when I first looked at getting involved in politics, was something that I thought had a great deal of value and something that we should be doing. I really do commend the minister for this.

We’ve taken a look at some of the challenges that we have in child protective services, in the CAS, in foster care, and we’ve looked at how we can ensure that every child, no matter the situation they come from early on in their life, has an opportunity to succeed. I have to commend the minister on this because he’s done some excellent things.

One thing that I really think hasn’t gotten an awful lot of conversation about that we have to really point out is increasing the age from 21 to 23. The reason I say that: There are so many things that we do in government, there are so many things that we do in society, and we look at it and we’ve taken that arbitrary age—typically, it’s 18—and we’ve said, “Once you hit 18, something changes. A switch is flipped.”

But the reality is, every one of us matures at a different rate at different stages of our lives. By increasing it from 21 to 23, what we’re recognizing is that sometimes your chronological age of 21 doesn’t actually match your emotional age, and by increasing it to 23—yes, it is still a chronological age. But what it’s doing is, it’s giving the ability, then, to recognize that some of those individuals who have had traumatic experiences, who have been through different situations that maybe none of us actually truly understand—their emotional state may not put them in that same position as if they were coming from a more well-off family that has provided all kinds of supports for their kids. We’re recognizing that every child in this province deserves to have that opportunity to succeed, and the difference between age 21 and age 23 isn’t that great when we’re talking about the number of days, but it could make a massive difference in someone’s life.

I have three kids, and my kids all matured at different rates, as well. One daughter was ready to be on her own at 18. Another daughter of mine probably wasn’t ready to be on her own until she was 20. My son is 26 and still lives in my basement, but he is a kindergarten teacher and he is trying to move on. And he’s not in the basement because of his emotional state; it’s because his mother doesn’t want him to move out.

There are so many things that we take for granted as parents, and one of them, in particular, that I want to touch on is, I don’t have a scorecard or a spreadsheet or a filing cabinet in my house where I have kept track and documented everything that my kids did. I can’t go to the filing cabinet and pull something out and say, “On January 21, 2017, here’s what you did, and here’s what our reaction was to it”—but our child protective services, our CASs, actually do have that. And the ability, then, as an adult, once you’ve left the system, to know that everything you did that was documented, that was put down on paper is not going to be held against you, I think, is one of the most valuable things.

We take a look at social media now—and I’ve seen this talked about a number of times. I was born in the 1970s, but I really was an 1980s kid, in terms of what I did. All the things I did as a child, all the things I did as a teenager are not documented and put on the Internet. We’ve got kids today who, through no fault of their own, were placed in protective services; the CAS was involved. They were taken to a foster home—trying to give them something of a better life. And yet, we documented all of that stuff, and that was made available. What this bill does—one of the key things for me is, it takes that away. The things that you did once—you have the right for it to be forgotten. That’s something that’s enshrined in this bill, and I think it’s very, very important that it is.

We’ve made some changes to child protective services workers and police, so that someone who has been human-trafficked at the age of 16 or 17 can be taken from that situation and can then be given an opportunity to improve their lives.

There has been a lot of conversation about sex crimes over the last six years, and even before. The member from Haliburton–Kawartha Lakes–Brock introduced a private member’s bill—Saving the Girl Next Door—bringing some of that to light, and one of the scariest statistics on it is that the average age of a girl who has been human-trafficked is 12 years old. In Ontario, that is going on. Making it so that the police and social workers have more tools to help rescue some of those young women, to give them that opportunity to actually have a meaningful and fulfilling life, and to escape some of those challenges—that’s something that is enshrined in this bill, and I think it is something that is very, very powerful.

One of the things that I was surprised on, but the chief of staff for MCCSS talked to me about it a few times: She was not allowed to talk about her experiences, her own lived experiences, because she was someone who was in a foster home, and this changes that, so that those individuals who have gone through the system, who have had other issues while they were in the system, have the ability—without breaking the law—of standing up and saying, “This is what my lived experience was.”

When you think about that, every other aspect of our lives, you’re allowed to stand up and say, “This is what happened to me.” But for the longest time, that was not something that was afforded to an individual who was in foster care. These kinds of changes are transformational for a lot of these individuals. There’s nothing wrong with someone standing up and saying, “I was in foster care. Here’s what I went through. Here’s how I have succeeded in life, and I can be a role model for someone else”—but the law prevented them from doing that, previously.

We’ve talked so much—our society has talked so much about lived experiences and being able to be that role model, being able to stand up and say, “It is possible for you to break that cycle. It is possible for you to aspire to something better. It is possible for you to live a fulfilling life.” When it came to kids in foster care, we didn’t let them say that.

Think about that powerful message. Think about that child who perhaps was sex-trafficked, who got pulled out of that system, who got put into a supportive foster care position, who grew up, who got to take advantage of Ready, Set, Go, who got a great education, who then continued to give back to the community, who was that positive example and they weren’t allowed to talk about it—they will be able to now.

How many more kids, then, in protective services, through foster care, are going to be able to look to those individuals and say, “I want to be like you. I want to be like Jane. I want to be in the position to succeed just like she is”? That’s what this legislation does, and that is why it is so powerful, because it is transformational for so many of these kids.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I am going to turn my time over to the member from Mississauga Centre.

I’d like to introduce, from the great riding of God’s country, Craig McFarlane, the vice president of Linwood Homes.

My question is for the Minister of Mines. The Liberal carbon tax is punishing families and businesses in northern Ontario by driving up costs and making life more unaffordable. To add insult to injury, the opposition members that represent northern communities continue to support this harmful tax.

The agriculture, forestry and mining sectors are all big job creators and economy builders in the north. They also happen to be the main targets for this NDP-backed Liberal cash grab. Unlike the opposition NDP and independent Liberals, our government continues to demonstrate support for the people and businesses in northern Ontario. We won’t stop fighting until the federal government finally scraps that tax.

Speaker, can the minister please explain the burden this harmful tax is putting Ontario’s mining industry in?

We have the opportunity of a lifetime to build the supply chain for electric vehicles right here in Ontario that will fuel prosperity, create a better future for generations to come and reduce our carbon footprint. The made-in-Ontario supply chain starts with mining, and the carbon tax is taking a toll on this process with more increased expenses.

Everyone in this chamber knows that there is not a green economy without electric vehicles. Can the minister please explain how the Liberal carbon tax is threatening Ontario’s mining sector, as well as our entire electric vehicle supply chain?

I listened intently to the five minutes that the member from Guelph had to speak on that. I’m just curious whether or not he had considered doing a petition on this, because there was a petition that was 18 and a half minutes long on this piece of legislation. Perhaps the member from Guelph could have had a longer period of time to discuss all the great things that this bill is coming out with.

I’d like to introduce Trevor MacKenzie, vice-president of Tribute Communities, from the great riding of God’s country.

Thank you to the minister for his response. The reality is the carbon tax does not lower a single emission. It’s a useless tax that just makes it harder on families and businesses. It’s shameful that the federal government continues to force people in the north to pay more for their daily necessities. It’s fine for the Liberal elites in southern Ontario to say, “Just use public transit,” but Speaker, how does somebody in Whitefish Bay, Elizabeth or Emo hop on a subway? The federal Liberals must learn to respect northern communities and finally scrap this punitive tax.

Speaker, can the minister further elaborate on the detrimental effects the carbon tax is having on communities all across northern Ontario?

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?

What about a 60-year-old car?

I’m sure if you tried really hard and blasted a whole lot, you might be able to do it. But the reality is, heat pumps are not a viable option outside of the urban centres, who already have inexpensive ways of heating their home.

There has been a false narrative put forward that this is going to actually add costs to it. But since the late 1980s, we’ve had this system where the gas companies could amortize the price with a cost of that installation over 40 years, and what the OEB did was step outside of their bounds and enter into policy to make that decision. They said, “We don’t think that what’s been working for 40 years is what we should continue doing, and instead we’re going to change it so that you had to pay everything up front.”

The argument that they gave—and this is one of the interesting arguments that they gave—is they said that it would add about $4,400 to the cost of a new-build construction. But what they took was the example in the urban centres like Parkdale–High Park, Toronto–Danforth and Beaches–East York, where you have thousands of people per square kilometre.

We did the calculation on my house. I live in the rural part of the riding, just outside of the city of Peterborough. We do not have natural gas running down my street. If we had natural gas running down my street and I wanted to hook up to it, my driveway is almost a kilometre long. It would be $65,000 to run the pipe to my house. That does not become a viable option.

But I’m not alone in my riding in having that much of a distance to the road. There are a lot of places where you have a significant distance to the road—pretty much every single farm.

But it’s not just us who are saying that this was a bad decision by the OEB. Now, everybody who lives in Toronto has something in common with everybody who lives in rural Ontario: We all eat food. And where is that food produced?

So, let’s take the position, then, from the Ontario farmers’ association, the OFA. What was their position on this? “Rural Ontario needs access to natural gas infrastructure to provide reliable and affordable energy options for farms and rural businesses. The expansion of natural gas throughout rural Ontario is the single most important investment the Ontario government can make to support thriving” farms.

I would like to think that everyone who lives in Toronto would like to continue eating. And if they would like to continue eating, they need to recognize that farms in Ontario need to have access to inexpensive energy, so that we can actually dry the grains that they need to eat and all of the other products that come from it, because if you don’t—we are already seeing the cost of living increasing significantly. We’re already seeing the cost of groceries skyrocketing because of carbon tax. Now you want to add an additional expense to it.

What makes any of these individuals believe that by doing that, they’re actually supporting their constituents? Because they’re not. They’re making it more difficult for them to live. They’re making it more difficult and more expensive for them to go out and buy food. And I think every one of them would agree, all of their constituents need the food that’s produced in ridings like mine.

We do not have natural gas running throughout the entire riding. There is no possible way for us to have it, but we are doing that expansion. We’re expanding into Selwyn. We’re expanding into Douro-Dummer. We’re expanding into Havelock. These are all small communities. And we need to, because despite what the opposition is saying, that is reducing greenhouse gas emissions, because they’re getting off oil.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’ve had the great pleasure of listening to some of the conversation. I’m actually going to follow up a little bit on what my colleague from Ottawa-Carleton—

Interjection.

I represent a riding that is larger than Prince Edward Island. We are slightly more than 3,400 square kilometres. We have approximately 170,000 people when you count some of the seasonal residents as well. Prince Edward Island is about 171,000 in about 3,200 square kilometres. So what I found really interesting about it was that during committee, the NDP kept bringing up Prince Edward Island as a prime example of it, not recognizing that sitting in committee there were three members on the Progressive Conservative side whose ridings were larger than Prince Edward Island.

I want to show some statistics because I do find it very rich that urban centres stand up and say, “This is what should happen in rural Ontario.” The member from Toronto–Danforth, who spent an hour talking about this—his riding is 29 square kilometres, 3,685 people per square kilometre. That is more people in one kilometre of Danforth than in the entire township of Trent Lakes, which I represent.

The member from Parkdale–High Park has a whopping 16 square kilometres, with 6,671 people per kilometre. The only municipality in my riding that is larger than that is the city of Peterborough. I have six municipalities and a First Nation, so the largest portion of my riding isn’t even as big as a square kilometre for people.

Beaches–East York: a whopping 19 square kilometres, with 5,061 people per square kilometre.

Kingston and the Islands: a little bit smaller, 665 square kilometres. Trent Lakes is 890 square kilometres. They have 3,000 people.

Peterborough itself: As I said, my riding is about 3,470 square kilometres. The centre of our riding is the city of Peterborough, with 85,000 people in it, and yet my riding only has 33 people per square kilometre. When I look at Trent Lakes, they have a whopping 3.2 people per square kilometre.

Now, why do I bring this up? I bring this up because everybody from the opposition who has been talking about this has natural gas available to them. They have inexpensive heating. What do we have in Trent Lakes? Oil furnaces, propane furnaces, wood pellet and a little bit of electric. Now, why is it only a little bit of electric? Because in 2003, Ontario had the lowest electric rates in North America; in 2018, after 15 years of Liberals, we had the highest electrical rates in North America, and people could not afford to heat their homes with electricity.

We’ve heard from the opposition many times saying we should go to heat pumps. Well, if the temperature consistently drops below minus 15 degrees Celsius, which would be my entire riding in most of the winter, an air-source heat pump doesn’t work for you. You just cannot get your home warm enough. A ground-source heat pump could, but here’s the problem that we experience in my part of the province, as well as 72% of the entire province, and that is that the Canadian Shield begins in my riding. It is extremely difficult to put a ground-source heat pump in granite. That is a challenge.

Point of order.

No, it wasn’t. It was with me.

Yesterday was Yom ha-Shoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. I seek unanimous consent to observe a moment of silence in memory of the six million Jews killed during the Holocaust.

It’s an honour to rise today to encourage members of this House and the people of Ontario to take part in May Is Museum Month.

Organized by the Ontario Museum Association, this month-long celebration honours more than 700 museums, galleries and heritage sites in Ontario, along with their 11,000 employees and 37,000 volunteers.

For 24 years now, May Is Museum Month has celebrated Ontario’s rich cultural heritage. This year’s theme, museums for education and opportunity, underscores the crucial role of Ontario’s museums as hubs of lifelong learning, innovation and cultural understanding.

As we mark this month, it’s fitting to announce that the Canadian Canoe Museum in Peterborough opens its doors to visitors on May 13. Our government proudly supported the construction of this new institution, which represents a vital part of Canadian heritage and history.

Mr. Speaker, Ontario’s museums make substantial social and economic contributions to our communities, enhancing the quality of life for residents and attracting visitors from both near and far. These institutions bring people together to serve as platforms for conversations about our past, present and future, and foster connections that enrich our local economics and highlight our diverse stories.

I extend my gratitude to the OMA and all of its members for preserving our history and curating dynamic educational content. I also recognize Ontario’s many museum volunteers and thank them for their dedication to the communities that they serve.