Province commits to 2023 for GO expansion
MPP’s first motion approved, calling for five-year commitment for service to Niagara
It could be an ambitious goal.
But at least now, Niagara-Centre MPP Jeff Burch said the provincial government has made a firm commitment to extending year-round GO train service to Niagara — with five years to get it done.
His first-ever private member’s motion — asking Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government to commit to a 2023 timeline to extend regular GO train service to Niagara Falls — was approved by the provincial legislature, Thursday afternoon.
“Now we have all party support for it. It’s a pretty big deal. For my first private members motion we were pretty happy about it,” said Burch, the provincial New Democrat’s municipal affairs critic.
“They’ve committed to 2023, but we’ll see if it happens. I hope it will. We know it won’t be before that. It’s fairly ambitious, but I was really happy that the motion passed.”
Although the government has previously said it is committed to extending GO train service to Niagara, Burch said there was never a timeline associated with it.
Burch said the Minister of Transportation John Yakabuski told him in July that the government is “committed to expanding the GO to Niagara.”
Niagara, however, was “notably absent” in last week’s government announcement regarding expanded services, he added.
“My concern and the concern of my fellow MPPs in Niagara is that we have no firm commitment on the expansion to Niagara. We have no timeline,” he said.
“For Niagara, GO trains will be an economic game-changer — the catalyst to realize our plans for economic prosperity. Together with our post-secondary institutions and industry representatives, we have charted out and embarked on an ambitious joint economic development action plan for Niagara’s success. GO train expansion to Niagara is a critical component of these efforts.”
While offering his support to Burch’s motion, Niagara-West MPP Sam Oosterhoff — the region’s lone Progressive Conservative representative — also use the debate to criticize the former Liberal government for broken promises regarding extending the service.
Oosterhoff also criticized the NDP for trying to “smear our party” in the spring, when then party leader Doug Ford said he wanted to review the Liberal government’s numbers, “because we’ve seen the Liberals inflate numbers and we’ve seen their projects go way over cost and over time and over budget.”
Despite doubts about extending the service to Niagara Falls prior to 2023, Niagara Falls MPP Wayne Gates said he hasn’t given up hope that it can be accomplished.
“The motion says 2023, but as you know, if you’ve been watching me talk about this issue since 2014, I believe we can actually bring it by 2021, just in time for the Canada Summer Games,” Gates said.