Tories urge premier to reject toll proposal

Queen’s Park has no plan to take ‘unilateral action’ against the city, Wynne says

Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown wants Premier Kathleen Wynne to put up a roadblock on Mayor John Tory’s plan to toll the Don Valley Parkway and the Gardiner Expressway.

But Wynne said Queen’s Park has no plan to “take unilateral action against the city of Toronto” by rejecting the mayor’s road pricing proposal before it has been formally submitted for provincial approval.

“We’re not going to do that,” the premier said Tuesday, accusing Brown of having “no plan for building transit or for building transportation infrastructure in this province and no plan for where the funding would come from.”

The Conservative leader said Ontarians are already paying enough without additional levies.

“This isn’t about John Tory. This is about Kathleen Wynne’s underfunding of municipalities,” Brown said. “The reality is these tolls in Toronto are not going to be popular with 416 commuters or 905 drivers. It’s the wrong thing for the GTA.”

Brown, who will introduce a motion in the legislature on Thursday to derail Tory’s scheme, said a Conservative government would make up for the lost toll revenue by better managing infrastructure dollars.

The mayor has said tolls on the two city-owned highways could bring in between $200 million and $300 million annually to fund transportation infrastructure such as his SmartTrack express rail transit plan.

Tory, who led the provincial Progressive Conservatives between 2004 and 2009, was not amused by Brown’s announcement.