Speaker, as everyone knows, insurance rates are going up. People are getting sick at work from heatstroke. People are being forced from their homes by out-of-control forest fires. These damages from climate change are already here. It is not a distant issue but one people are being hit with today.

We need to help people make their homes better able to withstand extreme weather. We need to ensure that the measures to protect people from climate-driven floods are not abandoned, as is being done with attacks on conservation authorities; in fact, we need to put in more flood protections. Making homes and communities safer from fire saves lives and avoids huge personal and financial costs. Failure to act and, in fact, action that makes things worse mean that people will lose their homes and that all of us will pay higher insurance premiums.

The government’s refusal to carry out a credible climate plan or to put in place measures to protect us from existing climate damage is hurting people in Ontario.

The government must act now on climate.

This bill uses reports done for this government to provide a series of structures and actions necessary to protect the people, the property of this province. And I want to thank Seniors for Climate Action Now and Dr. Jennifer Penney for the work they did to make it possible.

Ms. French moved first reading of the following bill:

Bill 199, An Act to amend the Building Code Act, 1992 with respect to electric vehicle charging / Projet de loi 199, Loi modifiant la Loi de 1992 sur le code du bâtiment en ce qui concerne la recharge des véhicules électriques.

I want to thank the member for an excellent speech. You touched on this, but I would appreciate it if you would expand on what you see as the climate impact if this bill is passed as proposed by the government.

I follow climate issues, and you should know that there are three jurisdictions in North America right now facing really severe problems around insurance costs: Florida, Louisiana and California.

Now, Florida and Louisiana, because of the impact of hurricanes, the increasing power of those hurricanes, the frequency of those hurricanes, insurance companies are saying, “It’s not worth it to us to insure because we’re going to have to replace these houses pretty regularly,” so they’re actually pulling out of those jurisdictions.

In California, it’s forest fires that are causing insurance companies to say, “We’re not taking any more business.” In those three jurisdictions, three state governments are setting up a low—

Interjections.

The reality is that people are having a harder and harder time getting insurance, that they’re seeing their insurance bills double, triple and quadruple because, simply, the cost of replacing buildings on a regular basis because of fire or hurricanes is an awfully expensive process.

Those are the most vulnerable spots, but we’re going to see that here in Ontario. I was talking to one of my colleagues from the north today, talking about the increase in insurance costs because of wildfires. This is a reality. We are going to see increasing impacts on our standard of living from rising temperatures. It’s not just going to be insurance. It’s also going to be food production because more drought and more floods reduce food production. You get more diseases in a hotter world, more exotic diseases.

And already in Canada, the Insurance Bureau of Canada has said that something like a million homes are facing potential for losing home insurance because of flood risk. Speaker, we actually have to deal with the climate issue seriously, and we have an opportunity because of technological advances to actually help people contain or reduce their heating and cooling bills, while at the same time reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This bill will undermine that because the simple reality is that when a developer is putting in a new subdivision, if they’re getting all these new pipes paid for by customers in the rest of Ontario, they’re going to do that and put in a gas furnace.

If they weren’t getting this subsidy, they would probably put in a heat pump because it’s the cheapest option—pretty straightforward. But in doing this, in passing this bill, the government is undermining its own climate plan as well as reducing people’s standard of living and putting all of us at much greater risk in the years to come.

So, Speaker, I think I’ve made most of the arguments that I want to make, but I need to touch on a few other things. I think that the undermining of the independence of the regulator is something that is not at the top of most people’s minds.

I was talking to a reporter the other day who was trying to cover this story and they said, “I don’t know how to report this story. No one has heard of the Ontario Energy Board.” Yes, I’m seeing an opposition member nod his head, because he’s right. Who has heard of the Ontario Energy Board? I mean, you’ve got to be a pretty exotic bunch of people—sorry, 124 of us in this room and maybe a thousand in the rest of the province who have heard of it.

And there’s all kinds of stuff talked about with this 40-year amortization of the cost of hookups. Very few people spend a lot of time thinking about amortization of utility infrastructure—very few sane people who talk to neighbours and are considered fun.

But this is going to be a big issue for people when they get their higher gas bill. Because they don’t deserve to get a higher gas bill; they deserve to have their interests protected by the regulator. I think it’s entirely reasonable that you give a regulator instructions to protect customers from unreasonable costs. And when they see that the costs are changing, that the parameters that they relied on over decades are no longer there and they act to protect those customers, that decision should be upheld. It is entirely reasonable to uphold it.

If we proceed with this bill as we have, then we will undermine the financial well-being of gas customers today. We will undermine the financial well-being of those who buy new homes that have gas furnaces installed in them, because they will get stuck with higher costs in the years to come. And we will undermine our chances of actually stabilizing the climate and having a future that is more benign than is likely to be the one we’re getting right now. So there are some very good reasons for not doing this.

I was astounded, going through the bill, at seeing the removal of independent regulation. I thought there would be some messing around—there’s no getting around it. I thought there would be an instruction saying, “This one time, you’re going to be able to charge them and soak them.” But that isn’t where we ended up. What we ended up with was a system of energy regulation by lobbyists.

That is not defensible. It’s not defensible in the rest of Canada. It’s not defensible in the rest of North America. If you actually want to regulate and protects customers and have a rules-based system where evidence is presented and adjudicated, then you don’t have the kind of bill we have before us, and you also don’t have the removal of procedures that require governments to operate in a fair and transparent way.

Very few people have heard of the Statutory Powers Procedure Act—in fact, probably less than the people in this room now. But it’s an act that requires governments to actually inform people of decisions that are going to come down, give them an opportunity to make a presentation, give them information about the basis upon which a decision is made. And with regard to this legislation, that act is of no effect whatsoever. It is taken out. That is an extraordinary movement towards arbitrary decisions. The Statutory Powers Procedure Act is not the most thrilling piece of legislation in the world, but it actually requires some small level of fairness in decision-making that one would expect in a democratic society.

So what we have here is a bill that will increase people’s Enbridge costs, that will gut actual regulation in Ontario, that will reduce the use of fairness requirements in government, and make our environment far more perilous in the years to come. This bill needs to be defeated.

Speaker, to the Premier: Today is Earth Day. The Premier’s Bill 165 will increase people’s Enbridge bills and force them to finance expansion of the gas system. That will mean people will be poorer and the world’s climate will get hotter.

This Earth Day, will the Premier abandon Bill 165 in order to protect people’s pocketbooks and avoid climate disasters?

Again, this Earth Day, will the Premier abandon Bill 165 and protect people’s pocketbooks and futures instead of Enbridge’s profits?

Interjections.

My question is to the Premier. Throughout this past summer’s heat waves, unprecedented wildfires, deadly smoke and catastrophic flooding, your government has done virtually nothing to prepare Ontarians for the impact of the climate crisis. In fact, you have suppressed vital reports that could help Ontarians and local governments address these horrendous impacts of climate breakdown.

Will the Premier commit today to release all reports of the climate change impact assessment and the report of the Advisory Panel on Climate Change?

I’m going back to the Premier. Last week, the province’s Financial Accountability Officer released yet another report showing how Ontario will be paying a fortune for the impacts of climate change on public infrastructure. The burden of dealing with washed-out roads, disrupted municipal water supply and downed hydro lines will be huge for Ontarians. And yet, your government won’t even release the reports detailing what we need to do to protect the public.

When will you release the reports so communities can take steps to protect themselves from the climate disasters you are creating?

Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity. As you’re well aware, we face a crisis around the climate. We have wildfires in Canada that are unprecedented; we’ve seen them around the world—flooding, drought, disruption of food supply—problems that are profound and are scheduled or expected to become far deeper.

At the same time, we have a government that is ramping up the production of gas-fired electricity. It’s undermining the work that was done over a decade ago to reduce emissions from our electricity sector, and frankly, they’re setting things up for electricity to be more expensive to be produced. That’s a simple reality. We know that just recently, $4.8 million was offered to Napanee to host a gas plant. We know that these gas plants will increase air pollution, cause health problems and deepen the climate crisis.

Royal Bank of Canada and the Electricity Distributors Association of Ontario have both said that there is a cheaper, non-burning option to address this issue. That’s been ignored by this government. I call on the government to abandon its investment in expansion of gas plants, take the solutions offered by the Royal Bank and by the electricity distributors, and put money in the hands of homeowners and businesses across Ontario to cut their energy use and to cut their energy bills. The direction the government is going is disastrous.

Speaker, my question is to the Minister of the Environment.

This week, Superior Court Judge Marie-Andrée Vermette issued a decision on a legal challenge filed against Ontario by seven young Ontarians for the weakness of its climate targets. She found that Ontario’s target “falls severely short” of what the scientific consensus requires and that this increases the risk to Ontarians’ life and health.

Why won’t the minister act to protect the life and health of Ontarians?

What will it take for this government to actually protect the health and lives of the people of this province?

My question is to the Premier. The climate crisis is already driving up the price of food. It’s causing power outages and it’s forcing people out of their homes. Yesterday, the United Nations panel on climate change pleaded for aggressive climate action from governments around the world to deal with the crisis we’re facing.

What we have is a government whose plan is a complete failure. It will not do what is needed. It will not meet the United Nations standard. When will the Premier cut emissions by the amount necessary to protect the people of Ontario?

The cuts have to happen now—now. When will he take the action we need?

My question is to the Minister of the Environment.

This House hasn’t heard much from the Minister of the Environment lately, and no wonder; his government’s record on the environment and climate change has sunk to new lows. This government is gutting conservation authorities. It’s going to allow development on flood plains during a climate crisis. It’s ramping up greenhouse gas emissions from our electricity system. It’s doubling down on unnecessary highways that will make congestion and emissions worse. And it’s destroying the greenbelt on behalf of a few powerful landowners and PC donors.

What wisdom can the environment minister share at the climate conference in Egypt when he’s enabling some of the worst attacks on the environment I’ve ever seen here in Ontario?

After the minister returns from Egypt and is back on the job, will anyone in Ontario even notice?

Speaker, to the Premier: During the provincial election, 11 people died in a climate pump storm system that charged through Ontario and Quebec. The climate crisis is deadly and yet the Premier has no credible climate plan. When will the Premier present a serious and funded plan to address the climate crisis?