Tories defeat motion to halt 407 tolls for trucks
NDP say move would ease congestion and pollution, but minister points out highway is privately owned
Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives have put the brakes on a New Democrat push to scrap tolls for transport trucks on Hwy. 407.
The Tories used their majority in the legislature Monday to defeat a motion from NDP Leader Marit Stiles seeking to exempt commercial truckers from tolls.
Her move was designed to lure thousands of trucks daily to Hwy. 407 from heavily congested Hwy. 401 and easing traffic for all drivers — and to mock a government omnibus bill introduced two weeks ago that bans tolls on all roads except the 407.
“This government has a chance right now, right here in front of them to make life cheaper and easier for people in Ontario,” Stiles said.
“Anybody you know who has been near the 407 knows that it’s very deeply underutilized,” she told reporters, calling her idea “a common sense” solution.
Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria brushed off suggestions the government is not helping motorists, noting it has removed tolls for all drivers on Hwy. 412 and Hwy. 418 in Durham region before the 2022 election and cut the gas tax by 10 cents a litre.
“Every step of the way, we have been there for truck drivers,” he told MPPs before the vote.
The government’s Bill 162, the Get It Done Act, would “prohibit tolls from being charged for travel on a highway where the road authority is the Crown, unless the toll is authorized by an Act.”
That specifically excludes Hwy. 407, leased to a private consortium by Progressive Conservative premier Mike Harris before the 1999 election.
Given that most of the 407 is run by a private company under lease from the province, it would likely take a new agreement to exempt transport trucks from tolls and compensatory payments from the government.
Sarkaria, who last month defended the legislation that protects the tollway, acknowledged it would be difficult to scrap the tolls, saying, “Look, the 407 is a private entity.”
He was referring to how the toll costs have shot up on the 108-km private section of the highway from the Queen Elizabeth Way in Burlington to Brock Road in Pickering.
Queen’s Park owns and operates the remaining 43 km of Hwy. 407 from Brock Road east to Orono.
It can cost as much as $70.66 to drive 151 km from the QEW to Hwys. 35/115 near Orono.
Stiles said it is “malarkey” that the government would propose the omnibus bill and not take tolls off an existing highway like the 407.
Stiles said that original 407 lease agreement made by the Harris government was a “bad deal.”
The lobby group Environmental Defence said a study by global transport analysts at Eunomia concluded lifting truck tolls on Hwy. 407 would move between 12,000 and 21,000 trucks a day off Hwy. 401 and slash truck travel times across the GTA by 80 minutes.