Ford’s latest bill fast tracking construction of 413 could be the gateway for ‘highways to hell’

Premier Doug Ford has said he is willing to do “anything and everything” to get Highway 413 built, even if it means misleading the public and skirting critical environmental studies.

On October 21st, the Ontario Premier alongside Minister of Transportation Prabmeet Sarkaria announced Bill 212, the “Reducing Gridlock, Saving you Time Act” which, if passed, will fast-track the construction of Highway 413 by exempting it from a full environmental assessment and speed up other “priority” highway projects like the Bradford Bypass by making it easier for the government to study and expropriate the land needed for these environmentally destructive highways. 

The PCs are using taxpayer dollars to promote the projects, misleading the public in ads that claim the highways will save commuters as much as an hour during their journey. An expert provincial government panel used traffic data to show the 413 would save a maximum of 60 seconds per trip. 

The route of the 413 Highway being fast-tracked by Doug Ford. Critics have pointed out it is not a well travelled  commuter corridor but stands to make developers who have bought land alongside it hundreds of millions in profits.

(Environmental Defence) 
 

Critics have pointed to the highway route detailed in the map above, questioning why it would be constructed along a corridor that does not serve commuters. It will run roughly from Milton to the north of Vaughan, unable to serve residents north of Toronto who travel south and too far out of the way to connect the western GTA to any popular destinations in the east. Aside from cottage country traffic between areas like Oakville and Burlington travelling toward Barrie and beyond, Ford has not been able to explain who will use the highway. 

Ford did promise developers in 2018 that if they helped him become Premier he would open up lands in the protected Greenbelt for them to build houses, which is exactly what the 413 corridor allows the provincial government to do: “Give us property and we’ll build,” he said developers had asked him, when he told a room full of builders that if they helped him get elected he would in turn open up a “big chunk” of the Greenbelt for single-family houses.

Developers have purchased lands right along the 413 route, which runs partly in the Greenbelt or immediately below it, and have pressured the Ford government to expedite the construction of houses, which is the subject of an ongoing RCMP investigation following reports by the provincial integrity commissioner and auditor general that revealed behind-the-scenes activities between PC government officials and developers to help them build in the Greenbelt.

The PCs are claiming the reason for fast-tracking is to save travel time and lost productivity due to congestion.

Residents along the 413 route in Caledon protest the highway plan which will destroy valuable farmland.

(Alexis Wright/The Pointer)
 

A 2013 C.D. Howe Institute study estimated that congestion costs the GTHA approximately $6 billion per year. “Such estimates are based mainly on an assumption of the value of time people spend commuting on congested thoroughfares,” the study mentions.

The PC government argues the highways are necessary to address congestion in the GTA, repeatedly citing that it costs the province $11 billion annually—an estimate taken from a study that is over a decade old.

The additional $5 billion the PCs repeatedly include inside their claim is the addition of ancillary costs of congestion, such as lost wages, which the report estimates could be anywhere between $1.5 billion and $5 billion. The PC government repeatedly refers to the worst case scenario. 

“The existing studies provide underestimates of the costs of congestion. The reason: they ignore the positive effects of relationships among firms and people that are among the main benefits of urban living,” the report states.

Shauna Brail, Associate Professor, Director of the Institute for Management & Innovation (IMI), University of Toronto Mississauga sees the way of counting the cost of congestion as flawed. 

“What if, instead of talking about how long we wait in our cars in traffic, we talked about how long we wait in line for a coffee…and what if we started to think about that as wasted time, as lost productivity?,” she said while referring to a 2018 study that estimated the total value of time lost to “cappuccino congestion” costing consumers in the USA more than $4 billion annually.

While it does not account for the full human cost of congestion, it is important to consider that the Greater Toronto Area’s (GTA) gross domestic product (GDP) is approximately $440 billion, meaning congestion's economic impact is about 2.5 percent of the region's output. And while significant, it may not be as burdensome as the PC government claims.

Through this new legislation, Ford and Sarkaria are positing that Highway 413 and the Bradford Bypass (connecting highways 400 and 404 through the provincially significant Holland Marsh) will serve as a relief valve for the congestion pressures in the GTA. There is limited evidence to support the claim.

Transportation design experts have shown that even if the goal is to address highway congestion, the two new 400-series corridors will only make gridlock worse. 

Victor Doyle, the veteran planner and key architect of the Greenbelt legislation when he oversaw much of the planning work for the provincial government, has long warned Ontarians about what the PCs are doing.

“To help ‘pave’ the way, dust off decades-old 400 series highway proposals (413/Bradford By-pass) which had been rejected due to environmental impacts and a clear recognition they would do nothing to solve congestion problems—indeed only add to them,” he wrote in a 2022 op-ed published by The Pointer. “Then, severely weaken the Environmental Assessment Act by removing the requirement for a full EA for the giant 413 corridor, allow the Bradford Bypass to rely on a 25-year-old assessment, enable early works like bridges, restrict citizen participation and top off by gutting the Endangered Species Act and seriously undermining the Conservation Authorities Act.”

The 413 would run directly along a lengthy corridor that is one of the most ecologically sensitive areas in the province, where Greenbelt lands, other wetlands and a series of watersheds create critical conditions for human and animal well-being, while protecting delicate environmental balances that keep air, flora, fauna and water safe.

Doyle refuted PC claims about the various benefits the new 400-series highways will deliver: “This is contrary to the irrefutable evidence compiled by all sectors of civil society which confirms urban sprawl is ruining our environment, destroying our farmland and making us sicker—costing $10’s of billion a year in health care, congestion, and lost ecological goods and services—while cementing a structural infrastructure deficit as sprawl simply does not cover the life cycle costs of all its linear infrastructure. Moreover, sprawl is Ontario’s biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions and does not provide the types of housing that the majority of people can afford.” 

Environmental Defence calls the fast-track legislation “the highways to hell” Bill.

A key component to consider under the new Bill 212 is the Highway 413 Act which accelerates the construction of the unpopular project, and it does so by exempting Highway 413 from the provincial Environmental Assessment Act, and creating an accelerated process for the construction the main 59-kilometre stretch of the highway and extensions of Highways 410 and 427.

The Act also gives the Province power to not only disclose less information about the project, but also greenlight 24-hour construction on the highways—a practice that could cause significant harm to migrating birds and nocturnal species—and make it more difficult for landowners along the route to oppose it.

What does this acceleration mean?

The project would result in the loss of 400 acres of Greenbelt and 2,000 acres of farmland, cutting through three major watersheds: the Credit River, Humber River, and Etobicoke Creek—with disastrous implications—and worsening downstream water quality, increasing contamination from salt, microplastics and oil residues. 

Additionally, the loss of wetlands, forests, and farmland in the headwaters of these watersheds will exacerbate flooding during heavy rainstorms, leading to greater flood risks, pollution, and threats to species that depend on clean water.

Furthermore, it would compromise the ecological integrity of the Nashville Conservation Reserve, an important protected area known for its biodiversity and one of the most intact forested regions in the Greater Toronto Area.

In a study by University of Guelph biologists, Karl Heide and Ryan Norris, it was found that if constructed, the highway would harm at least 29 species protected under the federal Species at Risk Act including Blanding’s Turtle, Butternut, Redside Dace, Western Chorus Frog, Wood Thrush, Red-headed Woodpecker, and Rusty-Patched Bumble Bee. An investigation by The Pointer using the Ontario government’s own Natural Heritage Mapping System identified the same number of species at risk. 

At least 1,000 hectares of species habitat will be destroyed if the 413 is built and 132 rivers and other water courses would be directly impacted.

Blanding’s Turtle. (Government of Ontario)

Red-headed Woodpecker (Government of Canada)

Rusty-patched bumble bee (Government of Ontario)

Of the more than hundred streams, creeks and rivers crossed by the 413 many support fish populations, including about a quarter that are cool-water streams essential for maintaining aquatic communities.

The “fact-free bill,” is just another example of the PC government’s recklessness when it comes to the environment, says Tim Gray, the Executive Director Environmental Defence. 

“What modern government would undertake a massive infrastructure initiative affecting over 100 streams and rivers, thousands of acres of land, and numerous endangered species without requiring an environmental assessment?,” Gray questioned.

He also noted that the provincial government intends to begin construction before starting or completing consultations with Indigenous communities.

“This basically tells you they’re completely unwilling to make any changes based on feedback from Indigenous voices,” as they ignore both environmental concerns and the values of these communities.

The PCs claim this new accelerated process will still allow the government to maintain its “stringent oversight of environmental protections”. There is droves of evidence to contradict the claim that this government prioritizes environmental protection—see its record on species at risk; the Greenbelt; how they dismantled conservation authorities; opened up hunting season on a native species with no science to support the move; and when faced with the facts on their environmental neglect, they greenwash and mislead.

In this case, the idea that the accelerated process will still allow for detailed study of the highway in order to assist in mitigating the negative impacts is blatantly misleading. The legislation allows for early works to begin on the highway, similar to the Bradford Bypass, before these studies are even completed, making any of their findings effectively moot as the ball is already rolling and as Ford has repeatedly said, he will do “anything and everything” to get the highway built.

The key premise of Ford and Sarkaria’s Bill is also blatantly misleading.

Brail argues that the bill is based on a “false premise” that widening roads can effectively combat congestion.

“We know this to be completely untrue.”

Brail, and other experts, have repeatedly told The Pointer that expanding roadways encourages more single-occupancy driving and increases reliance on cars, which ultimately leads to induced traffic and higher greenhouse gas emissions.

Reflecting on her experiences in Italy earlier in October, where she was impressed by the country’s regional railway system, she questioned why the Ontario government isn't prioritizing the completion of the high order transit projects.

“If we put anywhere near the amount of effort into investing in regional rail that we've put into discussions of highways going through farmlands in Ontario, we would have such a better, accessible, sustainable, affordable and 21st century system of mobility in Ontario, and we would be sort of celebrated for it, because that really is the way of the future,” she said.

As previously reported by The Pointer, a study commissioned by the former Liberal government concluded that the billions of dollars needed for the highway would be better spent on high-quality public transit and improving existing infrastructure. It found that the highway would not effectively address southern Ontario’s congestion, contradicting claims made by the PC government. This independent study paid for by taxpayers has since been removed from provincial government web pages by the PCs.

Minister of Transportation of Ontario Prabmeet Sarkaria announcing Bill 212 on October 21, 2024.

(Government of Ontario/YouTube)

The Pointer reached out to the MTO to ask why the study was removed from the website but did not get clarification. 

Studies for Highway 413 started in 2007, but were then paused by the Liberal government in 2015. The Ford government revived it in 2019. On May 3, 2021, the Federal Minister of Environment and Climate Change designated the Highway 413 Project under the Federal Impact Assessment (IA) Act.

During the press conference announcing Bill 212, Sarkaria emphasized that the project has been “studied…for over 20 years.” But it is well-known that a full environmental impact assessment for the highway has never been done. 

Under the new legislation, the studies that would still need to be completed would only be made public upon completion. However, a new stipulation would allow Sarkaria to keep the findings of the studies confidential if they “contain information about sensitive natural or cultural heritage matters.”

“That's just false for them to say,” Gray said, disagreeing with Sarkaria's claim of the highway being studied for years while pointing out that immediate solutions exist to alleviate gridlock on the 401, such as moving trucks to the underutilized 407. 

“The high tolls deter usage, but the provincial government could subsidize them, and would be much cheaper than building Highway 413 and wouldn’t destroy valuable land…plus, the minimum $10 billion cost for Highway 413 could instead fund all-day, two-way GO service along the 401 corridor in Kitchener and Guelph, that would take more cars off the road.”

A study completed by Transport Action Ontario concluded that the cost to subsidize tolls for semi-trucks to allow them to use the road toll-free for 30 years would be approximately $4 billion. 

With the latest introduction of the PC’s “accelerated” review process, the Province will have the ability to start preliminary construction, such as building bridges, before fully completing the usual environmental studies and assessing the potential consequences for the natural world.

Additionally, not only has the PC government failed to provide an estimate of the highway's construction costs, it continues to assert that the province ‘can’t afford to not build.’

This is particularly noteworthy given that the Ontario Ministry of Finance is projecting a deficit of $9.8 billion for 2024-25, according to the 2024 Building a Better Ontario budget report.

“This is driven by slower growth impacting revenues, increased compensation costs and increased investments in infrastructure, municipalities and key public services, as well as gas tax relief,” the report highlighted.

Finally, is the bill really going to accelerate the construction of these projects?

The first hindrance came with the Professional Engineers Government of Ontario union, representing senior government engineers responsible for overseeing critical projects, threatening to withdraw their members from work related to Highway 413 and the Bradford Bypass starting October 28, potentially disrupting Ford’s major transportation initiatives. 

"The intransigence of Treasury Board negotiators continues to be frustrating and inexplicable to our members. Its latest proposal runs directly counter to the needs of Ontario's infrastructure development and maintenance agenda." said PEGO President, Nihar Bhatt, said in a statement. "Without proper investment in Ontario's vital engineering and surveying functions, this government's key infrastructure priorities cannot be met on a cost-effective and timely basis."

The second challenge arises from the potential for federal government intervention in the project once again.

Environmental Defence told The Pointer that the group had submitted a formal request for Canada’s Environment Minister, Steven Guilbeault, to review the project shortly after the bill was introduced by the minister of transportation.

“This is a significant project, and the Ontario government’s actions indicate that it does not take environmental reviews seriously. As a result, there is a greater responsibility on the federal government to fulfill its role and compensate for the province's inadequate environmental screening,” Gray added.

“Bill 212 continues the 1950s highway, sprawl and car-oriented thinking that the PC government has followed since coming to power in 2018,” Martin Collier, Founder, Transport Futures, told The Pointer. “The bill ignores everything we’ve learned about transportation planning, economics, equity and governance. Building and expanding highways is about Ford’s retail politics where a few gain but leaves little for the majority who want a range of safe and multi-modal choices to get around.”

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