How Construction on Highway 413 Will Begin Much Sooner Than We Thought

The GTA West Transportation Corridor – aka Highway 413 – could begin construction as early as next year. On November 25, the provincial parliament passed Bill 212, titled the Reducing Gridlock, Saving You Time Act, 2024, aimed at expediting the construction of highway projects, including Highway 413. Minister of Transportation Prabmeet Singh Sarkaria tabled the bill. 

The proposed route runs 52 kilometres from Highway 401 in Halton to Highway 400 in Vaughan – with Caledon hosting the longest section of the highway. At a Town of Caledon council meeting on November 12, council passed a motion objecting to the construction of the highway under the terms of Bill 212  due to its impact on Caledon’s environment and the critical habitats it supports, as well as what councillor Doug Maskell referred to at the council meeting as “gross government overreach and intrusion.” 

What Does Bill 212 Allow?

Among the bill’s most controversial provisions is its rigid take on expropriation of lands in the highway’s path. Landowners whose land will be expropriated to make way for the highway will not be able to appeal for any adjustment to the date of provincial possession. The bill also allows entry into private dwellings, authorizes the use of force for expropriations and empowers police to aid in expropriation. 

“I believe that Highway 413 being built under the provisions of Bill 212 is a terrible thing for the people of Caledon and a terrible thing for the people of Ontario,” councillor Maskell said in a subsequent interview. “Bill 212 is a fundamentally anti-democratic piece of legislation. One of the fundamental principles of English common law is that your home is your castle. You are free in your own home and the government does not have the right to intrude on that. And it is unconstitutional that you can pass legislation that limits people’s rights under the law.”  

A number of Caledon residents and stakeholders spoke at the council meeting, including landowner Angela Piscitelli, who has lived with her husband in their home for 50 years. Piscitelli  talked about how Bill 212 will affect seniors who are “literally running out of time” as they lack a clear timeline or guideline from the province about potential expropriation.

“Please consider the seniors whose life savings are tied up in their homes, but for the past five years have not been able to sell them,” Piscitelli explained. “No buyer wants to buy a house that is on land designated for a highway and a property for which no building permits can be obtained from the Town.” Piscitelli also raised concerns about people’s ability to pack up their entire life and find new housing within the short window of time of 90 days, especially if the seniors have complicated health needs. 

The environmental impact 

The bill also allows for 413 construction to begin before a consultation with local Indigenous  groups is complete, and exempts the highway from Ontario’s Environmental Assessment Act – despite the efforts of many environmental and community activist groups, including Ontario Nature, Environmental Defence, Ontario Streams, Greenbelt Alliance and the Ontario Federation of Agriculture. 

Local activists have loudly opposed the project, saying the highway will destroy approximately 2,000 acres of productive farmland, displace at-risk wildlife, cross four watersheds and open the area to unrestricted urban sprawl. Environmentalists and community groups have long suggested that the province instead negotiate new uses for the private toll highway, Highway 407.  

Pipe dreams

In addition to taking steps toward beginning the construction of Highway 413, Premier Ford also recently floated the idea of buying back Highway 407 and, more ambitiously, building a tunnel under Highway 401 to run from Mississauga to Scarborough. If built the tunnel would be the largest infrastructure project in Canadian history. 

Many environmental groups have proposed that instead of building a new highway, existing infrastructure like Highway 407 could be better deployed. Phil Pothen, Land Use and Land Development program manager for Environmental Defence, considers recent announcements about buying back Highway 407 or constructing a tunnel under Highway 401 to be “a bit of a red herring,” and that such plans are unlikely to come to fruition. 

“The premier was asked about removing tolls from the 407 and he answered by talking about buying back the 407,” Pothen said in a recent interview. “What we’ve been pushing for is not a complete buyback of the 407, but simply to pay the tolls for truckers who use the 407 for the entire projected lifespan of the proposed Highway 413. Just paying the tolls for truckers on the 407 would be at least the same benefit to commuters as building the 413 at a small fraction of the cost.”  

That the premier is talking about finding a better use for Highway 407 at all is “encouraging” and “proof that he’s getting pressure about this issue,” Pothen said. According to Environmental Defence, subsidizing truck tolls on Highway 407 would cost $6 billion less than going ahead with the construction of Highway 413 over the entire projected lifespan of the scheme; remove 12,000 to 21,000 trucks a day off Highway 401. It would also cut journey times for truck traffic passing through the GTA by approximately 80 minutes. 

“It’s worth noting that however wild and fantastic the 401 tunnel scheme sounds, the 413 scheme is in many ways more unhinged,” Pothen added. “The 413 scheme would run a highway through areas that are not developed at all, run through greenbelt, a conservation area, and the last remaining habitat of one of Canada’s most important species at risk, the redside dace. So from an environmental point of view, from a practical point of view, however unhinged the 401 tunnel sounds, the 413 is even more ridiculous.”