Highway 413: For the people, or just some of the people?

Widely-opposed highway will line developers' pockets at ON taxpayers' expense

Driving.com
April 15, 2021
Lorraine Sommerfeld

What do you do if you’re a democratically elected government that wants to build a road despite increasing pushback from your voters? If you’re today’s Ontario Conservatives, you assume you can do it anyway.

A recent joint investigative report by some of Canada’s top journalists is a must-read for anyone living in Ontario. They keep telling us we don’t want to see how the sausage gets made. Yes, we do. It’s essential to understand the impetus behind the proposed addition to a 400 series highway -- the 413, also known as the GTA West Highway. Cutting north from the Georgetown area and arcing over to meet up with the 400 in Vaughn, we’re being told it’s an essential corridor for future growth.

“If built, the road will raze 2,000 acres of farmland, cut across 85 waterways and pave nearly 400 acres of protected Greenbelt land in Vaughan. It would also disrupt 220 wetlands and the habitats of 10 species-at-risk, according to the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority,” according to the report.

The project is a ghost road; it’s been bandied about since its introduction in 2005 in various incarnations, but was killed by the previous Liberal government in 2018 as being too dangerous to the environment, including flood plains. Ford brought it roaring back, despite in 2018 saying, “[t]he people have spoken -- we won’t touch the greenbelt. Very simple. That’s it, the people have spoken. I’m going to listen to them, they don’t want me to touch the greenbelt, we won’t touch the greenbelt. Simple as that.”

Then some other people spoke. Rich people. Developers who own much of the land that the proposed highway would be built on, and even more that could be used to build entire cities that mythical road could now access. A multi-billion dollar payoff for some very patient rich people. A payoff it certainly appears that Ford promised them would happen on his watch. How tightly braided are these eight prominent developers and their extended business interests with this government? The relationships are woven so closely you can barely see sunlight through them.

These developers own 3300 acres surrounding the proposed highway. “One developer… employed the head of the Ontario PC party’s fundraising arm for several years and three other developers employ the chair of Caroline Mulroney’s 2018 PC leadership campaign as a government lobbyist. Mulroney is now Ontario’s transportation minister and will play a key role in future decisions about the 413 highway.” Just after Ford resuscitated the 413 plan, another developer entertained Ford and King-Vaughn MPP Stephen Lecce in a private suite at a Panthers game in Miami. They say they paid for their own tickets. “Four of the developers are connected to Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative government through party officials and former Tory politicians now acting as registered lobbyists.” All are heavy donors to the PC party.

Municipal governments along the proposed site have nearly all pulled back their initial support for the highway. Vaughn, King City, Halton Hills, Mississauga and Orangeville have said no. Brampton and Caledon, recognizing the irreversible damage that could be done to their areas, want more federal input. Some, like York Region, are still on board. The cost to taxpayers will be between six and ten billion dollars. And those holding the land will scrape off billions in profits.

If you look at the proposed roadway, there is something that many Ontarians should pay attention to. The 407 highway, built in the early 1990s, was intended to ease congestion, much like the proposed 413 is. Yes, it was to be a toll road, but the idea was in thirty years it would be paid off, and we’d have a major artery through a densely populated region of the province.

Instead, Conservative Premier Mike Harris sold it in 1999. “When the Harris government announced in 1998 that it was considering selling the 407, critics immediately charged that a private owner would raise the tolls -- a charge that was dismissed by the government. Tony Clement, minister of transportation, and Rob Sampson, minister for privatization, insisted that, on the contrary, tolls would likely decrease because the private owner would be keen to attract more users.” This quote is so stupid, I don’t know where to start. They sold a road that cost taxpayers $1.5 billion for $3.107 billion, for a 99-year lease. Today it is worth $30 billion, and brings in more than a billion a year for its mostly foreign owners. If I use it to drive to my friend in Oshawa, it costs about forty bucks one way. I don’t use it.

Perhaps the most immediately troubling thing taking place both behind closed doors and right under our noses is the use of Minister’s Zoning Orders -- MZOs -- that allow developers to overrule municipalities’ right to decide how to develop their jurisdictions. It’s a farce. “The orders -- made by Ford’s Municipal Affairs Minister Steve Clark and in the face of mounting criticism -- are unappealable,” says the report. Ford has used more of these MZOs since 2018 than the previous government used in 15 years. They are ramrods. “We will never stop issuing MZOs for the people of Ontario,” Ford said on March 9.

This provincial government is essentially sitting at a card game with an entire deck of aces at its elbow, tossing them whenever they need to win the hand.

The irreversible damage to some of this province’s most sensitive environmental areas is in play. Once gone, it can never be retrieved. People in these areas need the support of all the rest of us. We have no right to destroy some of our most important protected areas, and the communities who will be forever impacted.