Regional Council votes to spend as much as $400,000 on fighting the CN Rail Truck Hub in Milton

By Pepper Parr

November 20^th, 2024

BURLINGTON,ON

The Region of Halton just committed itself to spending as much as $400,000 to fight the CN Rail decision to proceed with the planned CN Raik Truck Hub for the Milton Community.

The Hub would be a 24/7/365 operation with a stated 16,000 trucks a day coming in and out to take containers off freight trains.

The decision came out of a delegation from a Milton Town Councillor and Mayor Gord Krantz

Regional Council spent close to an hour in a closed session and reported that it would cost $150,000 to seek leave to appeal a decision made by the federal government and an additional $250,000 to fight the court case.

Seventeen of the 24 member Regional Council voted for the expenditure – one Councillor voted against the spending.

The Ontario case follows the January 21, 2021 decision by the Federal Government on this CN proposal. This federal decision allows CN to proceed further in the approvals process without addressing the conclusion reached by its own review panel that this proposal is likely to cause significant adverse effects on human health that cannot be mitigated. This Federal decision was also contrary to the panel conclusions that the proposed intermodal was likely to cause five other significant effects on air quality, the environment, and farmland that cannot be mitigated.

“The Federal Government has let us down and ignored the expertise of the panel it appointed,” said Milton Mayor Gordon Krantz. “Let me assure all Miltonians, we will continue fighting and advocating for you at all levels of government and in the courts.”