Speaker, just to be totally clear, Premier Ford wants to raise your gas bill. That’s what this is about. Premier Ford wants you to pay more month after month, year after year. That’s what this is about. He has decided to protect higher profits for Enbridge by taking more money out of your pocket and the pockets of millions of others across this province. He’s protecting his buddies at Enbridge, and he’s sticking you and all the other customers of Enbridge with the bill, and that bill is going to be about $300 per customer over the next four years.

So if you think you should pay more on your gas bill, you should support the minister. And if you think you shouldn’t be stuck with that bill, if you think Enbridge should be the body that actually coughs up the few billion dollars that are going to be necessary, then you should oppose this bill that’s been brought forward.

I don’t know how to make it any plainer. I don’t know how to make it any plainer: He wants to raise your gas bill; he wants you to pay more so that Enbridge makes more money. That is what this is about. He wants to reverse the decision the Ontario Energy Board made in December to protect you from higher gas bills.

Now, it’s the job of the Ontario Energy Board, the regulator, to look out for consumer interests when energy companies apply to raise their rates. That’s their job. That’s their mandate. They are told, “Look out for consumers. Look out for the public. Make sure they aren’t gouged, they aren’t ripped off, they aren’t pillaged, they aren’t silently stolen from. Look after those customers. Whether they’re electrical utilities or gas utilities, protect the customers.” And that’s what they did. They did their job.

And now, the government is horrified that people are going to be protected from higher gas bills. They’re horrified that Enbridge will not continue to make the crushingly huge profits that they have been making, and they want to reverse that.

Enbridge is a multi-billion-dollar company. And frankly, there’s a bigger Enbridge that runs gas transmission lines across North America and there’s the smaller multi-billion-dollar corporation here in Ontario—not exactly on the edge of poverty; companies that have a few bucks available if they wanted to actually help customers. That isn’t what we’re dealing with here. What we’re dealing with here is a company that wants to squeeze every last penny out of you.

This bill will strip you of protection from Enbridge’s attempts to gouge customers across this province. The minister doesn’t have to do that. The Premier doesn’t have to do that. The Premier could protect you, could protect your family and protect families across this province. He knows that people are having a tough time. We have those debates, those discussions, here in the Legislature all the time. People are pushed hard. They’ve got rising rents. This government won’t protect them from rising rents. They’re having a tough time with mortgages. They’re having a tough time with grocery bills. You’ve got major retailers that have been engaged in squeezing people, squeezing their suppliers, squeezing the customers. He knows that people are having a tough time staying afloat, and yet—and yet—today what we’re doing is debating a bill that would protect the profits of Enbridge and raise the gas bills that people have to pay. It will take money out of people’s pockets. That’s the reality.

I have to say this: I’m saying that I’m impressed, and not in a good way, that the minister kept a straight face while he made that speech. That was extraordinary. I am impressed—not in a good way, but I am impressed.

Let’s go back a little bit. Just before Christmas, the Ontario Energy Board announced a decision that would make Enbridge Gas responsible for the cost of expanding its gas system and protect almost four million customers from hundreds of millions of dollars in higher heating bills. This is a very important point. Enbridge has investors; it has cash flow. If it wanted to put the money into those new connections and collect from those customers over 40 years, they could do that. They don’t have to take the money out of your pocket or your pocket or my pocket. They could do it out of their own cash—no sweat. But, instead, they wanted it to come from the existing gas customers. The Ontario Energy Board, whose job is to protect customers from gouging, whose job is to protect customers from being taken advantage of, said, “No, we’re not going to support this increase that’s going to cost $300 per customer over the next four years. We’re going to say, ‘Enbridge, it’s yours. It’s yours.’” And the very next day, the minister announced that they—this government—would be taking steps to reverse the decision of the Ontario Energy Board, the regulator that they put in place.

Now, I have to say, for those who are around for a while, I used to refer to the Ontario Energy Board under the Liberals as the glove puppets. You had the Minister of Energy’s hand there stuck up an energy board regulator and saying whatever the minister needed to have said. I was astounded that this regulator, this board, actually stood up for customers, stood up for consumers—astounding. They actually did their job. They read their mandate. They listened to the evidence and they said, “Damn, we gotta protect people.” Of course, this party that used to attack the OEB for not standing up for customers realizes that, “Boy, if they stand up for customers there are going to be some pretty heavy-duty private interests that are going to be really cranky.” So that’s why we have this bill before us today.

Now I want to go back a bit further. There’s a subsidy that gas customers do not even know they’re funding. If you talk to most people, they look at their gas bill and they see “gas” and then they see “distribution,” the cost of getting it through the pipes to their house. They don’t know that part of those rates is paying the cost of expanding the system. They think, “No, I just want to pay for the pipe that comes to my house. Why do I have to pay for these investments that you’re making that you’re going to make money off of?” That isn’t where their heads are at. I tried this out on my nephew at Christmastime. I said, “Do you know you’re subsidizing these new expansions?” He was outraged. He said, “Why? I just want to pay for my gas bill. I just want heat, that’s all. They want to expand, they can pay for it.”

I have to say, the independent energy regulator decided to put a stop to this subsidy because it raises energy bills for existing gas customers and for new homebuyers. 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 would save gas customers over a billion dollars over the next four years in avoided pipeline subsidy costs. That comes to about $300 per customer. There are about four million customers on the system. Of course, that billion dollars doesn’t include the interest and the profit payments that go to Enbridge. So I’m talking the bare minimum, right? I’m just talking the minimum number that was cited by the Ontario Energy Board.

What ending the subsidy would do, aside from protecting existing customers from being gouged, is that it would encourage developers to install electric heat pumps in new homes instead of gas, which would provide cheaper heating and cooling for new homebuyers. And that is based on a variety of studies showing the reality of comparing the cost of capital and operating for gas-centred systems with capital and operating for heat pump systems.

So ending that subsidy would be a win, a win, a win and a win. It would lower energy bills for existing customers—wildly popular—and lower energy bills for new homeowners because they would be getting a less expensive system. It would lower carbon emissions—and actually, I think that matters. And it would avoid even more costs down the road to convert away from fossil fuel heating in the houses that were built with heat pumps from the start.

But there is a loser in all this. I have to be clear. There is a loser: Enbridge Gas. They would lose a lot of money. Frankly, they can afford it. They’re not exactly on the ropes. They’re doing well. I would say that if they are not making super gazillions of profits, but just billions in profits, they can probably survive, but many, many tenants and homeowners are having a tough time surviving. So our task, I believe, is to protect those tenants, those homeowners and not protect these multi-billion-dollar, multinational corporations.

Now, Enbridge is lobbying hard to stop that decision, to overturn that decision, and it has launched two challenges. Its court challenge boldly complains that the decision will mean “Enbridge Gas has no right or ability to invest and earn a return on capital for new customer connections.” In other words, it’s going to reduce their profits. Actually, I don’t think the OEB said you couldn’t invest; you just couldn’t invest with money provided by your existing customers. If their investors wanted to put money in, hey, there’s no barrier to doing that. They could go ahead. Now, there are questions they would ask, and frankly, the consultants who they quote in their submissions to the Ontario Energy Board raised big red flags about the potential for a lack of return in the future on those investments.

Minister Smith is trying to pass this legislation, the bill before us, to overturn that decision. The government of Ontario 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. So why wouldn’t you take the opportunity to install an electric heat pump and forgo that 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 Kingston or Ottawa, Hamilton, London, Windsor have to pony up an extra 300 bucks over the next four years to subsidize this multi-billion-dollar corporation?

You don’t have to take my word about the fact that this is not going to affect the cost of housing. I’m glad I went to public school in Ontario. It gave me at least one skill: I can read; sometimes I can do math—although people challenge me.

Ian Mondrow is a partner at the law firm Gowling WLG, practising in the area of energy regulation policy, and 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 home owners. Now, this is not the NDP research department—and, frankly, you should know that that is an excellent department. I’m just saying that they’re not ideologically ours; Gowling is not known as an NDP firm. But I’m going to quote the op-ed from this 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 forego 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 was talking about new home buyers. Well, you’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 if this bill passes, this ain’t going to make housing any cheaper. It is not going to be to the advantage of homebuyers. In other words, the government’s action will make you pay more and will not help new homebuyers, but it will mean higher rates for your gas bills. The Premier wants you to pay more. The Premier wants to raise your gas bill. Don’t get confused. Be very clear and plain about this. The Premier wants you to pay more.

Now, gas is no longer the cheapest heating source. Investing in 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 electrification of home heating. He knows it’s coming. What that means, over the next few decades, is that 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’s 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. The minister said exactly that. We’re going to be electrifying our homes. So 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, like the people in this room who actually are still Enbridge customers. They’re going to be stuck with this cost. That’s what the Premier wants to do. He wants to increase your gas bill. The OEB said that Enbridge or new home developers have to take the risk, not new home buyers or current Enbridge customers. It recognizes that this would likely mean many more people installing the cheaper heat pumps to provide heating.

It was interesting to me that, again, the minister said he’s got a heat pump. He said when it gets really cold, the electric furnace backup in the installation comes on. Fair enough. I’ve got a heat pump at home. I’ve never been cold; I’m assuming the backup comes on when it gets really cold. But he didn’t say he was freezing in the dark. He said the system worked. If he had been freezing in the dark, believe me, all of you would have heard it. You would have heard the descriptions of the frozen bowl of water for the cat in the kitchen. You would have heard about the need to bundle up the kids and whisk them off to a hotel somewhere. No, he’s totally comfortable at home because he’s got the backup right there. Most of the time, the heat pump—probably all the time because the newer heat pumps are good down to minus 30—they’re totally fine in our climate.

I’m going to go back to Ian Mondrow 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 risks financial disaster down the road doesn’t make sense.

The minister, in his statement, in his speech, said that the decision of the OEB would increase the cost of energy, increase the cost of a new home, and 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’re not 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.’” Well, good God. That’s a scary thought.

The lawyer, Ian Mondrow, goes on: “If those facts were true”—and I like 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 today—“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 are going to 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 look at putting in a heat pump or putting in a furnace or an air conditioner—those capital costs and then the cost over the lifetime, it’s cheaper to go with a heat pump.

In fact—and the minister referenced this in his speech—Enbridge, which keeps spreading the claim about gas being cheaper, is now facing an investigation and hearing at the Competition Bureau for false advertising.