Rivers: There were no red-coats around, though we know they are coming - the mounties always get their man. 

By Ray Rivers

August 23, 2024

BURLINGTON, ON

“You deserve a government that tells the truth. That cares about regular people and does right by them. A government that isn’t under criminal investigation,” (Opposition Leader Marit Stiles)

 At the entrance to the Milton Heritage Park, which hosted the annual Ford Fest on a recent Friday, there were a handful of protesters holding placards opposing Mr. Ford’s attempted Green Belt land grab and his highway #413 project.  The provincial and local police at the site outnumbered the well-behaved protesters.

Premier Doug Ford with the largest Cabinet in the history of the province – 38 members – at a Ford Fest event in Milton.

There were no red-coats around, though we know they are coming – the mounties always get their man.  They have begun questioning witnesses about Ford’s Greenbelt giveaway to his developer friends and who actually was pulling the strings in that drama.  Ford has apologized and promised once again to keep his hands off the Greenbelt.

But it was a stupid move.  Putting utility services into Greenbelt lands would have been limited by the capacity downstream to accept more waste and provide more water.  And while always possible, it would have been prohibitively expensive, such that only the well heeled would have been able to afford those homes.  So much for affordable housing.  So much for meeting the province’s housing targets.

And then there is Ford’s other gift to the developers – his planned highway #413.  The reasons previous governments had rejected building that road are just as valid today as they were a decade ago.   An internal study by Ford’s own people has confirmed that this road would have an almost negligible effect on current traffic gridlock in the GTA, and most likely just add to the problem.

Ford’s big argument that the #413 would save GTA commuters a half hour commuting time is rubbish.  His own people have shown that that would only be true for as few as 1200 commuters.   But to make matters worse, the #403 will add additional car-dependent development and cars – and that would only add even further to the gridlock.

In fact Ford’s own people note that GTA gridlock is here to stay.  The best shorter term solution would be to allow people to use the relatively empty #407.  And that would mean subsidizing the #407 for drivers or buying it back.  After all, we taxpayers have already built and paid for the road to reduce our traffic congestion.

Traffic on the 407 toll highway

It may be history, but it’s instructive to recall that Mr. Ford’s Tory predecessor gave the #407 away to a foreign consortium in a 99 year lease for a measly $3 billion, just so he could say he’d balanced an election-year budget.  The lease he signed is apparently unbreakable and entitles the owners to engage in highway robbery – literally.  As a result that highway is now worth over ten times what Harris got for it – more than $30 billion today.  That is one heck-of-a-return-on-investment for the buyers but was a really idiotic move for taxpayers by Mr. Harris, as it turns out.

As if Mr. Ford had not learned anything, the proposed #413 will still carve out sections of Ontario’s Greenbelt.  The #413 will cross three parcels of conservation land north of Toronto, and also take up prime farmland.  As of 2022, the Ontario government found 11 species at risk along its proposed path.

Proposed route of Hwy 414

The #413 project is reportedly moving rapidly from planning to shovels in the ground, yet we, the taxpayers, have no idea how much this road will end up costing us.   Some say $4 billion, some say $10 billion – but most say more.   Ford needs to come clean.  Previous governments have ruled against building this project and the next government is just as likely to make it an election issue – and if elected, kill it.

Other premiers have also made poor decisions without adequately consulting the public – McGuinty’s expensive election promise to move the gas plants; Wynne’s sell-off of Hydro One, Harris breaking up Ontario Hydro.   But Bill Davis showed courage and foresight when he responded to the public by killing the community-destroying Spadina Expressway, now Allen Road.

Harris cheated us of our birthright when he gave away lease rights to the #407 for 99 years in a backroom deal.  It’s a good thing Mr. Ford’s spa deal at Ontario Place is only for 95 years.

Background links:

Ford Fest –    Gridlock Forever –    RCMP –    Harris #407 

Ray Rivers, a Gazette Contributing Editor, writes regularly applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking.  Rivers was once a candidate for provincial office in Burlington.  He was the founder of the Burlington citizen committee on sustainability at a time when climate warming was a hotly debated subject.   Ray has a post graduate degree in economics that he earned at the University of Ottawa.  Tweet @rayzrivers