I have to ask myself, what are we really doing here with this motion this morning? Two weeks ago, we were debating a Conservative motion on carbon taxes on groceries and my colleague the MPP for Timiskaming–Cochrane told a story about three envelopes, about governments on their way out leaving three envelopes for those who would replace them—I can’t do justice to the story; I thought he was brilliant. I’ve replayed the video, I think the man has a future in standup and shouldn’t be blocked—but, frankly, I’ll note that the first envelope was a recommendation that if the government was facing a sea of troubles that it blame the previous government. I was around for Dwight Duncan and company, and I got to hear all about how—this was seven years on—the previous Conservative government had made things impossible for the Liberals in 2010. We’re getting kind of long in the tooth with the Tories here now—five, six years—blaming the previous government. It’s wearing thin. They’re going, as my colleague said, to the second envelope of advice when you’re facing a sea of troubles, and that’s to go after another level of government—blame that level of government.

It seems to be that we’re at that second envelope today. Here’s a government besieged by police investigations, findings that it’s undermined municipal government action on housing, newspaper articles showing that their minister’s zoning orders—supposedly used to speed things up for housing and for jobs—do no such thing, facing further investigations by the Auditor General on the very smelly Ontario Place deal. This is a government very desperate to divert attention, to as they say, change the channel, and that appears to be why we have this motion before us today.

Now let’s be very clear: The cost of home heating, the cost of living is a profoundly serious matter. People are being squeezed, people are being hurt. And so, since it is so serious, one would think that this government would be using its powers to actually address the issue rather than asking another level of government to act.

People in Ontario wish that someone would take action to protect them from being gouged, from being squeezed—somebody with political power and authority who could actually use that power and authority to make a difference in their lives. But that’s not what we’re getting here. Here we have a government with the power to bring in laws to protect people, with a treasury that can spend money to help them, with officials that can use existing laws to protect people against gouging, for instance, in groceries, in services, in auto shops etc. Actually, this government could protect people from being charged for medical services. They have all these powers, and we’re not getting a discussion about that today. We’re getting a discussion about another level of government: “Please, sir, do something for us.” That is not a serious approach. Really, it is not a serious approach to the difficulties that people in Ontario are facing. It is not.

This government has a lot of power to do things that will actually help people, to actually make a difference in their lives, and yet we’re spending time on a resolution to ask another government to do something. Did Ontario suddenly go broke overnight? Finance critic, have you heard the news that they suddenly don’t have any money to help people with anymore? Did legal counsel go on strike so they can’t write new laws to protect people or new regulations? Did ministers declare they were no longer going to direct civil servants, so that there’s no government machinery to help people here in Ontario, someone else has to do it? How lame can you get? Apparently, very, very lame.

The late-night comedian Stephen Colbert refers to something like this as a “Pop-Tart full of sadness.” It’s insubstantial, it has some sugar crystals on the crust, so it’s shiny, but at the heart of it, it’s just this whine, this wistful call for help from another level of government. Ontario, within this federation, with the biggest population and the biggest economy, is saying, “We can’t help people. We need the federal government to help people.”

Well, frankly, we are big players. We can make things happen. We can shape this country. We can shape its future.

We could, here in Ontario right now, help people with the rising cost of housing by bringing in real rent control. We could help people with energy by investing heavily in cutting people’s energy use and their energy bills. We could help them with food by protecting farmland rather than paving it over, making sure we have a steady supply. And frankly, we could protect people from overcharging in medical care, but that’s another matter—a lot of things.

This is a government that, in the past, has taken action against affordability around energy. In 2018, Ford cancelled the Green Ontario program, a program to help people cut their energy use and their energy bills. That meant an end to the program helping Ontarians with home upgrades like energy-efficient windows, smart thermostats, heat pumps and installations. In 2018—what’s that, six years ago? Six years of efforts to reduce energy use and make life more affordable—they cancelled that. They cancelled that, and there’s no word today about any restoration. Then, in 2019, because they hadn’t finished bombing heavily enough—they had to bounce the rubble, as they say—they went after the program of energy efficiencies that were delivered by local distribution companies, energy utilities, further cutting back people’s ability to cut their energy bills. So this government has had the opportunity to give people assistance to cut their bills, but it has, in fact, cut the help that would allow them to reduce their energy bills and their energy costs.

We need to talk about how to cut people’s energy bills. What can we do here in Ontario in this Legislature? And what we’re getting is a motion to request another level of government to act.

How do members of this government defend cutting those money-saving programs that help people? I heard the arguments that were made by the member, and he’s right: people are hurting. So how do you defend the fact that you cut the programs that help them? How do you do that? Why did they do that, and why are they now saying that they’re going to do something about affordability?

In my opinion, if you can do something and you refuse to do it and you put forward a motion that really is rhetorical, is for show, it’s because your government is so besieged with problems it has created—a government where I’m sure senior civil servants and politicians are meeting with their lawyers now in preparation for their interview with the mounted police, in a situation where former civil servants and former ministers are meeting with their lawyers, going through their records, going through their calendars, their day-timers, their texts to see if there is anything that can get them in trouble or, if there is something that is there that can get them in trouble, trying to figure out a story, like, “Officer, I’m sorry, I don’t have the records; my dog ate my iPhone. Sorry about that.”

Instead of sending out a “please, sir” note to the federal government, Ontario could actually help people cut their electricity bills by investing in their homes and businesses to cut demand. You could do that. You’ve got the money. You’ve got the legal authority. You’ve got the machinery. You need to do it.

Ontario is looking at potential big increases in electrical demand. To meet that demand, there are a variety of options before us. What this government wants to do is go on a spending spree to build and expand gas plants in Ontario. That is very expensive. That is very expensive on the face of it, but also, we’re in a world where we have wildfires in ways that we’ve never seen before, flooding we haven’t seen before, heat waves that we’ve never seen before. Because of that, we may well have to shut down these new gas plants a decade ahead of their normal lifespan. That will cost many billions as well.

At the same time, there are cheaper options. I’ll go to the Royal Bank of Canada, which has recently come out with a report talking about this investment, this rush to invest in gas plants. What the Royal Bank says is, “What can the province do to bide its time and avoid making an early call on costly natural gas generation?” I’m not the only one who calls this costly.

“One way is to use policy levers to delay demand. Energy conservation can buy the province time to build large-scale, cleaner power sources....

“Deferring hefty financial commitments will keep electricity affordable and gives Ontario time to redefine itself as a low-carbon manufacturing hub that attracts companies involved in electric car supply chains, green metal production, and clean tech.

“The good news,” from Royal Bank: “Technology exists that Ontario can use to navigate the looming demand rush and delay committing” fully “to natural gas-powered generation. Changing consumer attitudes and behaviours to promote flexible demand and energy efficiency will also be key to unlocking significant savings and alleviating grid pressures.” I underline: “significant savings.”

“By 2040, Ontario could meet nearly 20% of its expected demand ... via economically viable conservation. Doing so could save Ontario ratepayers ... $500 billion” a year. Not just one time—half a billion a year. That’s real money. In today’s dollars, half a billion actually counts.

So this government could save money. It could help millions of homeowners cut their energy use and cut their bills rather than dramatically ramping up gas-powered generation. It wouldn’t have to ask the federal government for anything. It could use the power it has in its hands today to help Ontarians. And yet that’s not what’s before us. That is not what is before us.

This government, this feral government, is focused on the even sweatier problem of media coverage: day after day of articles, social media posts, question period broadcasts with MPP Stiles putting lead questions to a silent and muzzled Premier about what really happened in Vegas, at the wedding, at the stag and doe, at the meeting with the developer who wanted a rewrite of urban boundaries. What really happened in those places? So the government is seized with a question: How do we move the cameras away from us? How do we focus them on something else and not on our, let us say, bad ways? Let us say just “bad ways.”

So a cry goes out within the government caucus: “Can’t we talk about something else? Something we aren’t really doing anything about, but something people care about?” Within the government caucus: “Home heating, the impossible cost of living? Now, there’s a great thing: We don’t actually have to do anything. We’ll ask another level of government to act, but we’ll divert attention”—because this is an emotionally powerful issue. People are being hurt. People are being squeezed. This government is not actually helping them, but it can sound like it’s doing something. And that is what we’re dealing with today.

It’s quite extraordinary watching the Premier when he is asked questions about his bad ways. There was recently an interview he did with a number of reporters, and Mike Crawley from CBC actually recorded questions and responses. I don’t know if anyone here will notice, but the attempt at diversion is pretty substantial. I’ll give you a few samples.

Richard Southern, City News: “How on earth did so many MZOs go to people who were present at that wedding, sir?” The Premier: “The interest rates are killing us. The Bank of Canada froze the interest rates both times now and I appreciate that, but that’s not good enough. They have to start lowering interest rates that make it more attainable for people to buy homes.”

Well, interest rates are a problem, but I don’t think he’s exactly answering the question. He’s moving again—as they say, he’s “pivoting”—to divert people’s attention.

Jeff Gray, Globe and Mail: “Why was your staff running around so concerned about those lands which are owned by a man identified as your friend, or co-owned by, Shakir Rehmatullah?” The Premier: “I had a great meeting, by the way, with Mayor Chow. What a wonderful person she is.”

I can’t argue that. I think Mayor Chow is a wonderful person, but it’s not exactly a response to the question. Would you agree? More of a diversion, a pivot—ah, man, it’s just too much. Anyway, his responses time after time after time were exactly this. They were a diversion. They were a shopping basket full of distractions.

So let’s get back to this motion. I’m sure the premise of the motion—and it was set out in the speech by the member—was, how do we help people with affordability? Well, if you want to do that, if you want to do something right now, change the rent control laws. Because I have to tell you—the member referred to people at food banks. I have a number of food banks in my riding. The one at Cosburn and Pape is in an area with many apartment buildings. The lineups at that food bank have grown dramatically, and you don’t have to ask too many people to figure out what’s going on: They can’t afford their rents. The rents are being cranked up constantly.

I had a visit to an apartment building recently and talked to a tenant there who had been a postal worker. He had to retire early because of health problems and was thus on a reduced pension, and he and his wife were just sort of able to make things balance. They had been in the unit about 20 years, so compared to the neighbours on his floor, he was paying a substantially lower rent. Notwithstanding that, his wife died and so the two-pension-income household became a one-pension-income household. For the last few years, the landlord has continuously been applying for and getting above-guideline rent increases. He had this to say to me: “When I finish paying rent, I’ve got $200 a month for everything else: food, clothing, transportation, phone, whatever I can get.” This man is up to here, up to his neck in financial difficulty, and his landlord is pushing that financial difficulty ever higher.

This government could actually change the legislation, either abolish the above-guideline increases or change them so that they can’t be used as a tool to drive people out. This government could make sure that when one person leaves the unit, the next person coming in isn’t charged double or 50% more or triple. You could actually control the rents on units, and that would have a huge impact on people’s ability to pay for the necessities of life. But I’m not seeing any of that from this government—none of that from this government.

Speaker, my time is shorter than I want. I’ll just say very quickly—and I’ll steal from my colleague from Waterloo. She gave a brief history of how we came to be where we are today. We had a cap-and-trade system in Ontario in 2018 when this government came in calling it a carbon tax. They said they were going to fight the federal carbon tax and abandon the cap-and-trade system, which, by the way, had a lower cost than the carbon tax.

In any event, I had the opportunity to attend the press conference when the then Solicitor General was speaking about the matter going to the Supreme Court. What was fascinating to me was watching as she tried to respond to reporters’ questions, who were saying, “How are you going to win this? Where’s the legal legs? Do you think you can win this?” There was more bobbing and weaving than you see in a heavyweight title fight; it was really impressive. I could tell that the Solicitor General had actually had professional legal advice on this and been told, “This is a dog of a case. If you want to put on a show that you’re doing something, sure, but don’t expect to win this,” which, in the end, was the case.

Now, you have to understand that this government does run its own carbon tax—on the big emitters. It’s exactly what Doug Ford called a carbon tax. So I’ll use his words: Doug Ford is running a carbon tax system, and that is projected to collect billions of dollars from big industry between now and 2030. I know this sounds really wild. Maybe it’s just completely beyond the pale.

You will actually have billions of dollars that you could put into people’s homes and businesses to cut their energy use and cut their energy bills. You don’t have to go to big daddy in Ottawa. You could actually use your own power, authority and treasury to help people directly now. And the question that one has to ask is, why aren’t you doing that? As I suggested earlier, the answer is, we’re dealing with a project of distraction and diversion away from this government’s scandals, from its corruption and its difficulties with the police.

When my kid came to me when he was small and said, “Daddy, can I have something to eat?”—and I’d say, “Well, yes. There are bananas on the counter. There are some apples in the fridge. I’ve got bread, peanut butter. But you know what? Go to the neighbours and ask them if they can give you a sandwich. I’m not really going to give up my bananas or apples or bread or peanut butter to you. You’re just my kid. Go to the neighbour. See if they’ll feed you.” That’s what we’ve got here. We’ve got a government saying, “We aren’t going to use our own power, authority and funds. We’re going to tell you, ‘Go and ask someone else.’” Well, I don’t think that’s defensible. I don’t think it’s defensible at all.

This resolution should be addressing the serious problems of affordability and home heating. This government should be doing that, but it’s not. It’s diverting. It’s distracting. It’s trying to move focus.

Speaker, if this government used the power and finances that it has, it could actually help people.

Interjection.