Speaker, through you to the Premier: Every year, workers in Ontario are hospitalized because of heat stress. Some of them die.

Last year, you carried out a consultation on new heat stress regulations and you didn’t increase protection for any workers. This year promises to be another summer of climate-driven record heat. You can increase protection for workers right now. Will you do it?

It’s my pleasure to welcome Laura Walton, president of the Ontario Federation of Labour, and Joe Tigani, president of Ontario School Board Council of Unions. Welcome to the Legislature.

My thanks to my colleague for his presentation today. I would ask him if he could talk a bit more about the impacts of this budget on his riding with regard to health care and education. You were just talking about education, but perhaps you could expand further.

I actually appreciate the question.

The decision to charge customers is based on the idea that the lines will be in the ground for 40 years, but they won’t be. We’re talking about a system that will not be functioning in 40 years. It cannot; not only because, technologically, gas furnaces are expensive compared to heat pumps—so, again, like rotary dial phones or Blockbuster Video, they are on their way out. That ain’t going to be here. The assumption that the vast bulk of customers will be repaid over 40 years is no longer true.

And in fact, Enbridge’s own consultants, in their presentation to the OEB, said that Enbridge was in the situation where they were headed towards going down, because people were going to abandon the system. There won’t be customers to pay in the future. Forty years ago, it was true; they were going to pay. It isn’t going to be true in the future.

Yes, we are seeing history repeat itself. The Liberals had a different technique. They would define where the OEB could make a ruling and then they would make their decision in another space, and it was always quite something amazing to watch, that major decisions were shifted out of the OEB, into ministerial area of discretion. But what’s happened here is they’re not even doing that, they’re just saying, “The minister can overrule. The minister can make these decisions. That’s the simple reality.” It’s even less of a regulator than it was in the past.

And you’re quite correct: If energy companies get the chance to write their own cheques on your bank account, man, they’re going to write a lot of cheques. That’s where we’re headed. That’s what this is all about.

But I’ll say the other thing: I don’t think that, in the future, this is going to be very different between rural and urban Ontario because both jurisdictions will be moving away from gas. There is no good financial reason to go to gas at this point. There is no good financial reason.

In fact, when you look at the studies done by the federal government, it is more expensive to go to gas than it is to go to a heat pump. That’s the simple reality. It was cheaper in Montreal to operate home heating and cooling on a heat pump than it was with gas. Montreal is not a hot place.

Yes. It just totally—that’s where we are again. Amazing.

I want to dig a little further. There’s a subsidy that gas customers do not even know they are funding. If you talk to most people, they look at their gas bill and they see “gas”—it’s there—and they see “distribution,” another piece. That distribution is the cost of getting the gas through the pipes to their houses. They don’t spend a lot of time analyzing their bills. Most normal people don’t. What is going to be happening to them is that part on distribution is going to be going up because they’re going to pay the cost of expanding the system—not the shareholders, but the customers. The customers working long hours, getting as much overtime as they can, where they can, sometimes working second jobs, people who are cutting corners all the time, are going to get higher bills because this government wants to make Enbridge richer.

This past Christmas, I was talking to my nephew over Christmas dinner, and I said—because that’s the kind of weird uncle I am, to discuss these things over Christmas dinner—“You know that your gas bill is going to go up so that Enbridge can expand its gas system?” He put down his turkey and he said, “You’ve got to be kidding me—pass the cranberry. You’ve got to be kidding me about that. Why am I paying for that?” And I said, “Well, it’s the way it’s working.”

The independent regulator, the Ontario Energy Board, decided to put a stop to the subsidy because it raises energy bills for existing gas customers—and for new home buyers. This is not a wonderful gift for them. It sets them up for higher costs in the years to come, and it also increases financial risks for the whole of the gas system. Ending the subsidy to new developments alone would save gas customers over $1 billion over the next four years in avoided pipeline subsidy costs—a billion bucks.

So when this government says, “No, no, we’re going forward; it isn’t going to affect people’s gas bills,” tell me where the billion is going to come from. Because Enbridge is going to get permission to actually charge it to their customers. It isn’t some magic group of elves and leprechauns somewhere that are going to be coughing up. It’s going to be people with real bank accounts who are trying to get through their daily lives who are going to be charged this extra money. It comes to about $300 per customer. Some calculations show it at $600 over the next four years, so let’s say $300 to $600. There are about four million customers on the system. Now, I note that that $1 billion doesn’t include any interest or profit payments that go to Enbridge. I’m talking bare minimum. I’m just talking the minimum number that was cited by the Ontario Energy Board.

What ending the subsidy would do, aside from protecting customers from being gouged, is it would encourage developers to install electric heat pumps in new homes instead of gas. I note the Minister of Energy has his home heated by a heat pump. He doesn’t have any gas connection. He talked about it when we were going through second reading. He talked about how comfortable it was, how he was happy. He didn’t talk about the water in a cat dish freezing over because he couldn’t keep the heat up in the winter. He didn’t talk about the end of civilization or his teeth chattering while he watched Netflix on a Saturday night. No. The heat pump kept him warm. He wasn’t in downtown Toronto. Belleville is still on the shores of Lake Ontario, but it’s a bit cooler than down here.

Ending the subsidy would be a win for customers who otherwise get charged that amount. It would be a win for new home owners, who’d get a far more cost-effective heating and cooling system. And it would be a win for the environment—I’ll detail that later. It would lower energy bills for existing customers, something I think is wildly popular, lower energy bills for new home owners because they’d be getting a less expensive system, and it would lower carbon emissions. And it would avoid costs further down the road when people move away from natural gas.

But there is a loser in the OEB decision, and the government picked it up within seconds; probably on their phones to the loser saying, “Enbridge, you’re going to lose money here.” Well, maybe it was the other way around. Enbridge may have phoned them and said, “Hey, we’re going to lose money here. Jump to it.”

Enbridge can afford, frankly, to finance any expansion they want. They don’t need to use the customers as an ATM. Many tenants and homeowners, by the way, are going to have a tough time dealing with those bills. So our task, I believe, is to protect those tenants, those homeowners, and not protect these multi-billion-dollar multinational corporations. Well, well.

Now, the minister is trying to pass this legislation, the bill before us, to overturn that decision, the decision to protect customers. The government has decided to stand with Enbridge and its lobbyists, using the argument that change will reduce housing supply and affordability.

But developers can just forgo gas and install heat pumps instead. If they have a customer who really wants gas, they can do that, but everyone gets an electrical connection in any event. You’re not building new subdivisions without electrical connections, frankly. And if you’ve got an electrical connection, you can put in a heat pump.

So why wouldn’t one take the opportunity to install an electric heat pump and forgo the extra cost of putting in gas? And even if you didn’t want to go there, why do people around this province have to subsidize this? Why do people in Sudbury or London or Kingston or Thunder Bay have to pay more to subsidize a multi-billion-dollar corporation?

You don’t have to take my word for any of this. Ian Mondrow is a partner with the law firm Gowling WLG, practising in the area of energy regulation policy. He wrote an op-ed that was published in the Globe and Mail. He can see that leaving the regulator’s decision in place would protect current gas customers and new homeowners. Now, Gowling is not an environmental group. They’re a pretty straightforward corporate Bay Street law firm, and they understand the economics of this whole system. I’m going to quote the op-ed from the lawyer who specializes in energy regulation policy:

“While including gas connection costs to developers up front would marginally increase the cost of a new house, an offsetting rate credit recognizing the upfront payment would lower ongoing gas rates, resulting in a wash for homebuyers. The other choice would be to forgo gas servicing in favour of electric heat pumps, thus lowering the operating costs of the house—a win for homebuyers.”

The member from Perth–Wellington, back when we were talking at second reading, was talking about new home buyers. Well, we’ve got someone who specializes in energy policy saying this would be better for new home buyers.

“Either choice would reduce Enbridge capital costs, and potential stranded assets, in the range of $1 billion over the proposed five-year gas rate plan period, significantly reducing delivery rates and customer risk.”

Two associate professors, Brandon Schaufele and Adam Fremeth of the Ivey Business School, wrote a post about this as well: “The government’s decision to override the OEB should have virtually no effect on affordable housing in the province.” So the government’s whole argument that their bill is one that will keep the cost of housing down does not bear scrutiny from academics who work in this field.

If this bill passes, it’s not going make housing any cheaper. It’s not going to be to the advantage of homebuyers. In other words, the government’s actions will make you, Enbridge customers, pay more and will not help those new home buyers. But it will mean higher rates for your gas bills. The Premier is going to raise your gas bill. Don’t be confused. Be very clear and plain about this. The Premier is going to raise your gas bill.

Now, gas is no longer the cheapest heating source. Investing in new gas pipelines for heating is financially foolish because they will become obsolete and a massive cost to all current and future customers as we stop burning gas to heat our homes and other buildings.

Even the minister was talking about the electrification of home heating. He knows it’s coming; in fact, his whole plan for providing electricity to Ontario is based on the idea of a massive increase in electricity demand for home heating. He knows that the demand for gas is going to fade dramatically, or at least he’s willing to bet several billion dollars on that analysis.

So you’ve got the minister saying, “I need to spend billions of dollars on new generation for home heating,” and at the same time saying, “No, no, I’ve got to protect the gas utility.” Well, the reality is, you’re moving from one technology to another. What his plan means is that over the next few decades, fewer and fewer people will be burning gas, and the people who leave the system will not have to carry the burden of the cost of those pipes that are in the ground, but the ones who stay will be stuck with it.

There are cheaper alternatives to what has been before us. The OEB recognized that. Like rotary-dial phones, like Blockbuster Video, natural gas furnaces are coming to the end of their time—not tomorrow, not in 2025. But over the next 20 years, cheaper alternatives such as home heat pumps are undermining Enbridge’s market for home heating.

Even the parliamentary assistant, in his comments on third reading the other day, said the time for natural gas, in the near term, the middle term—yes, in the next 10 years, the next 20 years, it will probably be around; the next 30 years, it won’t. I appreciate the comment from the parliamentary assistant on that.

So the minister said exactly that—we’re going to be electrifying our homes. He’s betting a lot of money on that.

The OEB ruled that Enbridge can’t spread the cost of hooking up new homes over decades or charge it to current gas customers like you, like the people who are watching this, because those who are Enbridge customers are going to be stuck with a bill that’s going to be pretty significant. But that’s what the Premier wants to do—he wants to raise your gas bills. He will increase your gas bill. The OEB said that Enbridge or new home developers could take the risk if they want, but not new home buyers or current Enbridge customers. They recognize this would likely mean many more people installing cheaper heat pumps to provide heating.

As I’ve said before, the minister has an electric heat pump; he has got an electric resistance coil to back it up. And as I said before, the bowl of water for the cat has not frozen in the kitchen. He’s still alive. There are many debates, but he’s still there. So, apparently, an electric heat pump does work outside of downtown Toronto.

I’m going to go back to Ian Mondrow, the lawyer working for Gowling, about the question of how we can actually deal with the issues before us, because passing legislation to reinstate a subsidy that’s completely out of step and that risks financial disaster down the road doesn’t make sense.

The minister, in his statement in December and his speech at second reading, said the decision of the OEB would increase the cost of energy, increase the cost of a new home. The facts do not support that claim. When you look for those facts, when you round them up, when you put them together and you compare them to the minister’s statement, they are not related; they are not even distant cousins. There is no blood relation between the facts and the minister’s statement; it’s just not there.

I’m going to go back to the energy regulator lawyer from Gowling, Ian Mondrow, who had this to say about the claim by the minister—he writes in a more formal style than me, but I think he’s quite good:

“Early the following day after the release of the OEB decision, Ontario’s Minister of Energy released a statement expressing that he was ‘extremely disappointed’ with the OEB’s decision.... The minister asserted that the OEB’s determination on this point ... ‘could lead to tens of thousands of dollars added to the cost of building new homes, and ... would slow or halt the construction of new homes, including affordable housing.’”

Good God. That’s a scary thought. You’ve got to sober up when you hear that kind of statement.

Interestingly, the energy lawyer went on:

“If those facts were true”—and I like the way he slips in the “if”—“then the minister could well have a legitimate and immediate housing policy concern. The facts as determined in the OEB’s decision do not, however, support a ‘tens of thousands of dollars’ increase in home costs, and it does not appear that the decision will in fact ‘slow or halt the construction of new homes.’ The conclusions expressed in the minister’s statement”—and, frankly, his speech on the bill, according to the lawyer—“are inconsistent with the facts relied on, and determinations made, by the OEB’s three-member expert panel of commissioners as a result of the comprehensive hearing process undertaken.”

I want to say a few other things about the area of charges. I’m speaking to you gas customers who will get stuck with a higher bill if this legislation passes. One is that claim that gas heating is the cheapest option. Numerous studies now show that when you compare the combined costs of equipment and energy, heat pumps provide cheaper heating than gas heating. Just putting in a heat pump or putting in a furnace or an air conditioner, those capital costs and the cost over a lifetime—it’s cheaper to go with a heat pump. In fact, the minister referenced that in his speech, that Enbridge, which keeps spreading the claim about gas being cheaper, is now facing an investigation and hearing at the Competition Bureau for false advertising, for making that claim that gas is cheaper.

The National Observer reported on this case: “Enbridge has a new fight on its hands as Competition Bureau Canada officially launches an investigation against the gas giant over allegations the company is misleading customers about the role of gas in the energy transition.” I don’t think the Competition Bureau picks up frivolous cases. It will be interesting to see what their decision is. But on the face of it, there is enough credibility for the hearing to go forward. “Specifically, Enbridge has promoted new gas hook-ups as the cheapest way for Ontarians to heat homes, while branding natural gas as ‘low carbon’ and ‘clean energy.’” That’s being challenged by the environmental organization Environmental Defence.

National Observer reports: “‘Enbridge’s dishonest marketing is duping people into installing new gas hook-ups and spending thousands of dollars on new gas furnaces and other appliances, falsely claiming its cheaper than heating with electricity, which is just not true,’ said Environmental Defence programs director Keith Brooks in a statement. ‘It is good that the Competition Bureau has agreed to investigate Enbridge.’

“The ... complaint filed by Environmental Defence, Ontario Clean Air Alliance, the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment and a group of Ontario residents in September accuses Enbridge of falsely claiming gas is the most cost-effective way to heat homes. Enbridge has made this claim online and in communities pegged for expansion in an attempt to increase its customer base.”

Environmental Defence summarizes the situation this way: “Enbridge is misleading consumers into connecting to its gas system using false and misleading representations.... Enbridge is telling potential customers that gas is the most cost-effective way to heat their homes and suggesting”—and this I find totally entertaining—“that it is ‘clean energy’ and ‘low carbon.’ None of these representations are true.” That lack of honesty about what’s real and not real when it comes to home heating is something people should keep in mind.

But the other issue, and this is a big one because as the minister has said, we’re moving away from gas heating our homes—again, this government is committed to spending billions of dollars on new electricity generation to heat homes. If they’re doing that—if they are successful in their plans, there will not be a market for Enbridge. Those who are hooked up to the system will be stuck with the cost of a system that is increasingly expensive. We’ve had these transitions before. It’s not unique. It’s not novel.

If you look at the energy history of this province, you can see that at about 1958-59 TransCanada pipeline came from Alberta to Ontario with natural gas. This opened a whole new way to heat homes. It was cleaner. It was more convenient. It was probably cheaper than coal. From 1960 to 1970, the portion of homes that used coal for home heating went from 30% to 1%. Within a decade, 30% of Ontario homes no longer used what had been a very popular fuel.

So I want to note you can have a very rapid transition from one technology to another, frankly, with probably very little in the way of governments programs in that case. People looked at it and said, “Hey, handling coal is pretty dirty. We spend a lot of money on it. I put in gas. I just got a thermostat on the wall. I move it around when I want more heat. I don’t have to go in the basement and shovel coal into the furnace.”

I have to say, a reduction from 30% of homes being heated by coal in 1960 to 1% by 1970: These transitions happen, they happen rapidly and those who stay with the old technology get stuck with bills.

We’re facing a situation in Ontario now where, as we move away from gas home heating, something that the minister has said we’re doing because he has his own electrification plan for Ontario—people who stay out in the gas system, who get sold onto the gas system are going to be stuck with higher bills. The pipes that are put in the ground are going to be paid for by those who can’t afford to buy a new heating system, ones whose furnace is, say, eight years old. Those furnaces have a 15- or 20-year lifespan. If your furnace is eight years old, you’re not going to get rid of it and buy a new furnace. Mostly people can’t. They only buy when they have to—normally in January, when their furnace dies and they phone desperately to get a new one. They will be stuck with higher bills as the system becomes more and more expensive. It’s a risk for homeowners; it’s a risk for tenants. It’s a problem people are going to have to face in the future.

Frankly, continuing the subsidy from existing consumers—and remember, the Premier wants to raise your gas bill. He will drive up your gas bill. He will make you pay more so he can create deeper problems for you in the years to come.

Now, another reality that we need to face is the volatility of gas prices in this world. Quite a few people who are gas customers, about four million in Ontario, know that around 2022, the price of gas went up dramatically. What was happening in world events at the time? Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the disruption of the supply of natural gas to Western Europe, and frankly, with that disruption and the rocketing increase in the world price for gas, you had a situation where the world market was setting the price.

We in Ontario generally have paid a much lower price than people do on the world market, but you need to know that 60% of the gas that we burn in Ontario is imported from the United States. It used to come from western Canada, now mostly from the United States, and in the United States there are large numbers of liquefied natural gas export terminals that are shipping that gas out. In fact, recently, within the last few months, there was a pause put on a few of those liquefied natural gas terminals because industrial manufacturers in the United States were saying, “These exports are killing us. They’re killing us. You need to stop exporting all the gas because it’s changing our cost picture.”

Well, that’s right. The world price is a lot higher than we pay. The more you integrate into the gas system, the more you’re tied into a very volatile pricing framework, one that can give price shocks. And we’ve had them. I don’t know when we’ll have another spike or a price shock, but wars happen, disruptions of energy supplies happen, and people suffer as a result.

I need to emphasize something that I mentioned at the beginning. The OEB, the Ontario Energy Board, the regulator, didn’t say you can’t have a gas connection to a new house. They didn’t ban it; they don’t have the power. If Enbridge wanted to install new gas connections to new homes, they could do it with the capital that’s provided by their investors, and they could try and recover it over the next few decades. But actually, I don’t think they take that as a good bet. I think they realize that there’s a huge risk to putting that money down into expansion of the system, and instead of them putting their money on the table and watching the wheel spin, they’re putting the money of customers across this province on the table. No one knows what the outcome will be other than this: Gas will fade out over the next 20 to 30 years and the people who are last in the system will be paying a lot of money.

Speaker, there’s no doubt that high prices are the number one thing that we’re dealing with here. I would say that you go out there and people who are trying to make sure their rent is paid on the 1st or who have mortgage payments, who have to get groceries, are very focused on immediate costs, and I don’t blame them. But we need to keep in mind that there’s another reality, something that is coming at us, and that’s that the world is steadily getting hotter. Every year, we are seeing more extreme weather events, which is driving up the cost of insurance, which actually puts a burden on public treasuries. Because insurance doesn’t cover all those costs, it means that we’re going to be paying more through our taxes, either higher taxes or reduced services, to cover the damage from climate change.

In Ontario, the second-largest number in terms of greenhouse gas emissions is from heating buildings. So in order to actually meet any targets to stabilize the climate to avoid the worst of extreme weather, we actually have to move away from gas. It isn’t just that heat pumps are cheaper, which they are; that they have a future, which they do, but also that we need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions to stabilize our climate so that we do have a future, so that our children have a future.

There are places now where the impact of climate is having a very direct impact. Sorry, impact—

Interjections.

It’s my pleasure to welcome Dave Smith, Lynn Blaxley and Ms. McCall from Toronto East Residents for Renewable Energy. Welcome to the House.

To the Solicitor General: Could you tell us the genesis of this bill? Was there a particular event or a particular organization that inspired you to bring this forward?

Speaker, to the Premier: Nell Toussaint died roughly a year ago. She was a constituent of mine whose life was cut short by a lack of timely medical care. Ms. Toussaint was a migrant working in Ontario who did not qualify for medical care, even though she was employed and paying taxes. She was struck down by an operable disease, lost a leg, and then had a heart attack and stroke. She died early.

Why are she and others, even when they pay taxes, still left without medical care?

Speaker, to the Premier: The Jackman daycare in my riding and other child care centres are facing profound financial problems. Frozen or falling provincial funding for child care is causing centres to dip into their reserves to keep their doors open. Families cannot afford to lose child care should centres go under or be plunged into crisis. Will the Premier take steps now to address the financial crisis in child care centres?

No, I thought the point was really good, that he was endorsing it, that it worked and it worked well. I think that’s what we need for people across Ontario, something that works well that they can afford.

Interjection.

He wants to keep heating costs down. Well, look at the evidence. The evidence is that to keep heating costs down, you go to electric heat pumps. The technology is changing rapidly.

One thing that people should be aware of is that in the United States, the Inflation Reduction Act that’s in place now is investing heavily in advancing the technology for heat pumps so that heat pumps that already are quite functional at minus 30 will be even more efficient, more effective in the years to come. Places like Norway—Norway, people know about it, near the Arctic Circle—60% of the households have heat pumps. That’s how they heat themselves—60%. Finland, pretty close, around 50%. Sweden I don’t have the number for, but my guess is it’s in that range. They seem to be able to function, and they’re up by the Arctic Circle. If you want to be practical about cost, if you want to be practical about a system that gives you a more predictable kind of heat or energy basis or security, go to heat pumps.

He was talking about how this decision would discourage developers from using cost-effective and efficient gas. Well, frankly, it would encourage them to use cost-effective and efficient heat pumps. They’re going to put in an electricity line anyway; let’s face it. So if you’re putting in an electricity line, don’t worry about the gas, unless you’ve got a customer who really wants gas. Then you can offer it to them. It isn’t barred by anyone. If Enbridge believes what it says in its filings, in its claims, it’s certainly happy to invest in it. They can do that. They don’t have to come to us, the other gas customers, to pay for it.

Also, the pragmatic approach of the government to energy: Interestingly, the Electricity Distributors Association and the Royal Bank of Canada, who are not noted, again, as particularly radical organizations, both said that when it came to dealing with the immediate crunch in Ontario for meeting demand, it was far more cost-effective and far faster to invest in conservation and efficiency—both of them—and not just faster and more effective, but substantially cheaper. This government has totally ignored that advice. The Independent Electricity System Operator has said numerous times that energy efficiency is cost-effective. It is a great deal. That minister is ignoring the electricity distributors who, frankly, know a fair amount about electricity in this province, and the Royal Bank of Canada, that has an interest in this matter. His own organization, the IESO, has talked about the value of conservation and efficiency in terms of low cost and the ability to deliver quickly the sorts of reduction in demand so that we don’t have any power shortage. So I can’t say that his approach is really that pragmatic.

And just briefly about difficulties in both Alberta and Texas for failure of electricity systems in deep cold: In the most recent problem in Alberta, two gas plants went off-line in the middle of that crunch—two gas plants. They couldn’t be depended on. And in storm Uri in Texas, when they had those blackouts, again, it was the gas system that couldn’t handle the cold. The pumps for the gas systems were frozen. So in both cases we’re talking about problems with the gas infrastructure; that was the biggest issue.

I’m going to wrap up, Speaker. Don’t forget; this is really plain: The government wants you to pay more on your gas bill. It wants to raise your gas bill. It wants to ensure that Enbridge has higher profits. It wants to take money out of your pocket to the tune of 300 bucks over the next four years. Everything else is just smoke. All the other arguments are strange-looking scenery and don’t bear on the guts of it. This government wants to raise your gas bill. That’s it.

The OEB didn’t say, “No. You can’t put your money in and supply people with that 40-year loan.” Go ahead—no sweat. But you can’t take it from the existing gas customers. They are tapped out. So I say to you right now, your government should go to Enbridge and say, “Look, you’ve got big pockets. You put the money out. You try and collect it over 40 years.” Because 25 or 30 years from now, that system will have shrunk dramatically, and whoever is left holding the bag is going to have very big expenses, and I think Enbridge knows that.

As my colleague expressed, it’s shocking, the thought that a multinational corporation that makes huge amounts of money by squeezing cash out of homeowners and tenants might mislead people. I know it’s incomprehensible to many here but, in fact, it could well be true.

The National Observer reports, “Enbridge has a new fight on its hands as Competition Bureau Canada officially launches an investigation against the gas giant over allegations the company is misleading customers about the role of gas in the energy transition.

“Specifically, Enbridge has promoted new gas hookups as the cheapest way for Ontarians to heat their homes, while branding natural gas as ‘low carbon’ and ‘clean energy.’”

That’s being challenged by the environmental organization Environmental Defence.

The National Observer reports, “‘Enbridge’s dishonest marketing is duping people into’” installing new gas hookups and spending thousands of dollars on new gas furnaces and other appliances, “‘falsely claiming it’s cheaper than heating with electricity, which is just not true,’ said Environmental Defence program director Keith Brooks in a statement.” It’s good that the Competition Bureau has agreed to investigate Enbridge.

“The complaint filed by Environmental Defence, Ontario Clean Air Alliance, the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment and a group of Ontario residents” in September, “accuses Enbridge of falsely claiming gas is the most cost-effective way to heat homes. Enbridge has made this claim online and in communities it has pegged for expansion in an attempt to increase its customer base.”

Environmental Defence summarized the situation this way: “Enbridge is misleading consumers into connecting to its gas system using false and misleading representations.... Enbridge is telling potential customers that gas is the most cost-effective way to heat their homes and suggesting”—and this I find totally entertaining—“that it is ‘clean energy’ and ‘low carbon.’ None of these representations are true.” That lack of honesty about what’s real and not real when it comes to home heating is something that people should keep in mind.

But the other issue—and this is a big one because, as the minister has said, we’re moving away from gas heating in our homes: People get caught paying as gas heating fades away. People are increasingly deciding to save money and protect the climate by switching from gas to electric heat pumps. As this process expands, the cost of the gas grid for those who stay with gas is going to increase, and new gas lines, installed to service new customers, will increasingly not have customers to serve. That was a finding by the Ontario Energy Board.

We’ve had these transitions before. This is not unique or novel in the world. Most of you have not followed energy history. I am a strange person; I actually look at the history of energy in this province. About 1958 or 1959, the TransCanada pipeline came through to Ontario from Alberta, bringing natural gas. This opened a whole new way to heat homes that was cleaner, more convenient and probably cheaper than coal. From 1960 to 1970, the portion of homes that used coal for home heating went from 30% to 1%. Within a decade, 30% of Ontario homes no longer used what had been a very popular fuel.

So I want to say to people here that you can have a very rapid transition from one technology to another, frankly, probably, with very little in the way of government programs in this case. People looked at, “Hey, we can spend all this money on coal, or we can go with an option that we don’t have to shovel, that is more convenient, that is just a flick of a switch on a thermostat in the wall. I’m going to go with gas”—a decade. And I have to tell you, just in that same report I looked at, that 1% at the end? Man, they were spending a fortune, because the whole of the coal delivery infrastructure shrank and became a much more expensive fuel to get. I don’t know why those 1% held on, but they did.

We’re facing a situation in Ontario where as we move away from gas home heating, something that the minister has said we’re doing, people who stay on the gas system, who get sold on to the gas system, are going to be stuck with much higher bills, and the pipes that are put in the ground are going to be paid for by those who can’t afford to buy a new heating system, ones whose furnace is eight years old. They’ve got about a 15-year lifespan. If your furnace is eight years old, you’re not going to get rid of it and buy a new furnace. Mostly, people can’t. They only buy when they have to, and they will get stuck with those higher bills. That’s a risk for homeowners and tenants. That is a problem that people are going to face in the future.

Frankly, continuing the subsidy from the existing consumers—and remember, Premier Ford wants to increase your heating bill. He wants to drive up your gas bill. He wants you to pay more so that he can create deeper problems for you in the years to come. I want—

Interjections.

Speaker, it came out just the other day that this government is paying substantial bonuses to private clinics for surgery that is done in public hospitals. It was revealed that the payments to the Don Mills Surgical Unit, part of the Clearpoint Health Network—it is getting paid almost double the amount that public hospitals get paid for cataract surgery, double the amount for knee surgery.

This government is engaged in a straightforward project of privatizing our health care system. That project is one which will result in less medical care for people; which will result, ultimately, in people being able to pay for their surgery and health care if they have the money and having to go without if they don’t. It is a disastrous course of action.

I call on the government to end the privatization of our health care system, to stop paying bonuses to private clinics, and to actually protect the health care of the people of this province.

Again, to the Premier: I just want to note, the commissioner was very clear that there were no records—highly unusual.

Assistant Deputy Minister Sean Fraser also told the Integrity Commissioner that it was usual and expected practice for political staff within the ministry to receive direction from the Premier’s office with respect to the details of a government priority. Mr. Fraser said, “In my experience, political staff work with political staff. They may be ultimately responsible to the minister, but granularity like this is something that typically is dealt with at a staff level.” Mr. Fraser said such direction would come from the Premier’s office.

Did the Premier or any of his staff make a decision to avoid leaving evidence of such direction with respect to the greenbelt project?

Interjections.

Speaker, I’d also like to welcome members of the Society of United Professionals and employees at the Electrical Safety Authority: Freda Lam, Aisling O’Doherty, Jamie Oakland, Kishan Vipul.

Welcome to the Legislature.

Speaker, the member for Essex made his presentation on this bill. In response to a question from my colleague from Niagara, he talked about potential alternate responses to calls coming into the police for people experiencing mental health distress. I would appreciate if he could tell us what responses provided for in this bill will be made available to those in mental health distress.

Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to welcome Ahnaf Al Habib, Si Ya Li, Fiona Mooney, Mahir Tasnif and Kaeyaan Rashid in the Speaker’s gallery. They’re from Greenbelt Youth Action at Riverdale Collegiate in my riding.

Welcome to the Legislature.

I want to thank the member from Kiiwetinoong for an excellent speech—one that I hope millions of people will see, because I think they need to understand the issues that are at hand here.

I also have to say I was very shocked at the attempt to shut you down, because I think people need to have the historic background in order to actually come to grips with this issue.

Having listened to you, my sense is that passage of this bill will further undermine any ability to actually negotiate in an even-handed way between, on the one hand, First Nations and, on the other hand, the government of Ontario, to actually develop minerals in places where environmentally it might be possible do so. Is it fair to say that passage of this bill will make it more difficult to actually come to an agreement in a future on mining?

Speaker, I don’t think I’m going to range as widely as the last speaker on this bill, but I still have a fair amount of material to work with.

As you’re well aware, environmental assessments are one of the few tools that people in this province have to protect themselves against arbitrary or dangerous decisions on the part of governments.

We in the NDP are very concerned that amendments to the Environmental Assessment Act could lead to further degradation of public consultation, to further destruction of the environment.

Part of the problem here with the “waiver of the 30-day period for consideration after public comment has been made” is that this is a government that has shown time and time again that it can’t be trusted when it comes to protecting our environment or doing land deals in the public interest. As you’re well aware, they’re currently involved in carving up the greenbelt through shady deals with their well-connected insiders. They’ve abused ministerial zoning orders to ram developer deals through, despite local community opposition. And they’re spending $650 million of public money to give away a massive chunk of Ontario Place to a for-profit company based out of Austria.

The particular issue I’m going to speak to, or part of the bill I’m going to focus on, is the change to the Environmental Assessment Act which allows the environment minister to “waive the 30-day waiting period currently required after public consultation has been engaged in.” The purpose of those 30 days is to give the minister time to consider what has been brought forward and respond to it, because there may be very substantial things that come up; there may be a request for a bump-up to a full environmental assessment. I would say that although this is not the biggest thing ever in the Environmental Assessment Act, it’s of consequence, and the deletion of public right for those 30 days is indicative of the general approach of this government to public input.

The way the new law is written is that “subject to any prescribed limitations, the minister may, by order, provide that subsection (5) ceases to apply”—the 30-day waiting period. What’s problematic here—there are a lot of problems, but one problem is that the prescribed limitations are not set out. Effectively, the government is giving itself a blank cheque to put in limitations or put in no limitations at all when it comes to any future ignoring or waiving of the 30-day period. Given their history, I would say that it’s fair to expect that the 30-day period will be eliminated. If it is, in fact, occasionally waived for some reason that the public in general would accept, I suspect that will be fairly limited. I think that this government will take every opportunity it has to make sure that the public’s voice is not heard and certainly has no impact on what the government wants to do. The failure to put conditions in the act itself—conditions that would limit the ability of the minister to waive that 30-day period—just leaves us, the people of Ontario, to the tender mercies of this particular government when it comes to looking after the environment.

Speaker, I’m sure you’re familiar with the film classic, Bambi Meets Godzilla. In that very short film—and a brilliant piece of cinematography—you have Bambi at the beginning with flute music and butterflies, just sniffing the air and being young and a deer in the spring. And then Godzilla’s foot comes down and squishes Bambi. Well, Bambi, in this case, plays the environment, and Godzilla is played by this government. This act, this change, is just another part of that huge foot coming down and crushing the environment.

This is a government that has shown repeated contempt of public consultation, particularly with respect to the environment. This change will make it even easier for the government to ignore public opinion, public consultation.

Ontario courts have twice found that the Ford government violated the Environmental Bill of Rights, which guarantees not only the public’s right to get notification but the public’s right to be consulted. From the CBC report on one of these: “In a split decision, an Ontario court says Doug Ford’s government broke the law”—law is not a big constraint on these folks; often, they refer to them as “guidelines”—“when it scrapped the cap-and-trade system, but the court won’t force Queen’s Park to reinstate the program,” which is unfortunate.

“Greenpeace had challenged the cancellation on grounds the government did not hold public consultations before making the decision, a process required by Ontario’s Environmental Bill of Rights....”

So here is a government asking for even more discretion, when it has a history of breaking the law, ignoring the law, when it comes to the environment.

In another case, the media reported: “An Ontario court has found the provincial government broke the law by failing to adhere to the Environmental Bill of Rights.

“Several environmental groups brought forth applications for judicial reviews over the province’s alleged failure to consult with the public before enacting the COVID-19 Economic Recovery Act.

“Late last year, the province opened up consultations to the public months after the passage of Bill 197....

“The Superior Court of Justice says the Minister of Municipal Affairs acted ‘unreasonably and unlawfully’ by consulting with” people after the act had been put through.

To some extent, if you had a government that was consistently acting to protect the environment, consistently cautious, consistently respectful of public input, you’d say, “Here’s a government that is going to ask for a waiver to actually expedite things and do the right thing.” But that isn’t the history of this government.

Again, I’ll repeat: This government breaks the law openly, and only when it has been found in court to have broken the law is there any admission, “Maybe we did something wrong. These laws, these revised statutes of Ontario—maybe they’re of consequence.”

In 2020, the Ford government severely weakened the Environmental Assessment Act with amendments slipped into Bill 197, an omnibus bill purporting to be about recovering from COVID-19. The bill was jammed through the Legislature, and they bypassed committee, denied the public any opportunity to provide comments.

There’s a consistent theme here. You weaken environmental protection laws, and you do your best to make sure the public has nothing to say about it. And even if they have something to say, you make sure that what happens is, they’re not heard.

What this change signifies is, “Sure, you can make any comment you want. You can point out fundamental flaws. You can find bedrock problems with what’s being put forward. But when the time is up, we’re not going to spend time thinking about it. It’s out the window. It’s gone. We’ve forgotten about it already.”

There are a number of things that people should be aware of when it comes to considering how this government has acted. Look at its policies, look at its track record since 2018. We’ve got a government that is quite willing to break the law when it comes to environmental consultation. This is a government that axed the Environmental Commissioner’s office in 2019—an office that had been in place, frankly, through the Mike Harris government, when we had a very strong Environmental Commissioner who was critical of the government. He was a Tory. He had been a Tory candidate in Timmins, but he was a guy who was fundamentally committed to protecting the environment. Even Mike Harris didn’t axe the Environmental Commissioner, but this government did.

This is a government that consistently fails to uphold expert opinion on environmental issues, and it’s one that the Auditor General has found is consistently bad news when it comes to environmental policy and when it comes to public consultations.

This is a government that cancelled the cap-and-trade legislation and, in doing that, eliminated billions of dollars of investment in energy efficiency and making sure that buildings and infrastructure were climate-resilient. It cancelled an act, which, by the way, had a lower carbon price than the federal carbon price. So, in fact, this is a government that increased the carbon price in Ontario and, in the course of it, did less for the environment. That’s the kind of commitment we’re talking about.

We’re talking about a government that will not only act contrary to its own language—no surprise there—but will also make sure that the ability to actually come to grips with the climate crisis is undermined. That’s who we’re talking about. Why would you trust them?

As I referred to earlier, this is a government that’s attacking the greenbelt. The member who spoke earlier talked about protecting farmers. Is that why the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve is being taken out of the greenbelt and that farmland is going to be converted into subdivisions for multi-million dollar homes? Is that protecting farmers? Is that protecting the land in Ontario that we need to grow food?

The member asked, “Are you guys in touch with normal people?” Well, I knock on doors in my riding every week, and I’ve been knocking on doors the last few weeks talking to people about what’s going on, talking about the greenbelt, and one of the things that comes up time and time again is people saying, “Where are we going to get our food when you pave over all the farmland?” Because that’s their intention. They’re starting with one of the most sensitive agricultural areas in Ontario, preserved at great cost decades ago—important in terms of food, important in terms of wetlands. They’re going to pave that over. So any complaints about higher groceries, it’s on—

I want to thank the member from Hamilton West–Ancaster–Dundas for her speech this morning.

You talked about the science centre and the potential for development on that site and the risks that one faces. Could you enlarge on that, given this government’s record of not paying attention to environmental constraints?

I want to thank the member for her speech this afternoon, and I’d like it if she would explore, expand on, for a moment, what she has found in her riding when it comes to the impact of the refusal on the part of this government to actually raise ODSP rates.

In my riding, we’ve seen tremendous misery, tremendous pain and suffering. My guess is that you’ve had a similar experience in your riding, but if you can take a moment, expand and talk about some of those stories, I think we would all benefit.