About 17,500 people have already signed a petition asking the federal government to step in and stop Ontario’s plan to build Highway 413.
The David Suzuki Foundation first launched a petition to stop the proposed highway last year, asking Canada’s environment and climate change minister to halt the project.
“The highway has to go through a federal impact assessment and that’s why we’re saying to Minister (Stephen) Guilbeau, ‘You need to look at this, it’s a serious issue and you need to consider it,'” Gideon Forman, a transportation policy analyst at the David Suzuki Foundation. told CTV News Toronto.
“Ontarians love their Green Belt and don’t want to see a new mega highway destroy part of (it).”
Foreman said the foundation has been in contact with the provincial government, but officials have not been receptive to their concerns.
“They insist that we need this highway. Well, we differ. We think the highway is completely unnecessary and very harmful.
The proposed six-lane, 32-mile highway was a key campaign promise for Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives. Their proposal calls for the highway to travel from Halton to York Region and connect with highways 401, 407 and 410.
The Ontario government says it will save commuters about 30 minutes of driving time.
But advocates say the government is downplaying the impact the new highway will have on the environment, something Foreman agrees with.
He said the highway would destroy hundreds of acres of farmland in southern Ontario, as well as affect numerous wildlife species.
“It’s going to cross a lot of rivers and that’s endangering the fish and other animals that live in those river valleys,” he said. “Part of the highway will run north of Toronto. There just aren’t many forests and woodlands and wetlands left north of Toronto. So the idea of paving over them is just absurd.”
“The other thing from a directly selfish standpoint is that (it will) cross rivers, like the Humber River and the Credit River, it will go into Lake Ontario, which is the source of our drinking water in Toronto and many other communities.”
A report released in October 2022 by the Canadian environmental group Environment Defense identified at least 29 “federally identified species at risk” that would be affected by the highway.
The report also said the proposed highway would cross about 132 streams and rivers and result in the loss of about 400 acres of “significant natural areas and/or Greenbelt land.”
“Highway 413 will push endangered species in the area even closer to the brink as we are in the midst of a global biodiversity crisis. Some scientists call this period the sixth great extinction – and Highway 413 will accelerate it,” Keith Brooks, Environmental Protection Program Director, said in a statement. “That’s reckless.”
The government, for its part, said the preferred route for the motorway was chosen “in part to minimize impacts on the Greenbelt”.
In May 2021, the federal government designated Highway 413 as warranted designation under the Impact Assessment Act, a piece of legislation that gives them the power to assess how climate change may be affected by the project.
A spokesperson for Guilbeault’s office told CTV News Toronto that the Impact Assessment Agency is waiting for the province to submit its description of the highway before starting the review.
“During the impact assessment process, the agency will gather science and knowledge about local populations and receive feedback from the public and stakeholders,” the spokesperson said.
“At the end of the impact assessment process, the agency will make a recommendation as to whether or not the project should go forward as planned.”
Meanwhile, the Ontario government says it has submitted the project description to the federal government and is working on a final submission.
“This is a complex process and we are working diligently to meet the requirements so we can complete our plan to build Highway 413 as soon as possible,” said Department of Transportation spokeswoman Dakota Brassier. “During the environmental assessment, we will continue to develop improvements and mitigation measures to minimize any potential impacts that have been identified for the project.”
Brazier added that Ontarians voted “overwhelmingly in favor of the government’s plan to build critical infrastructure like Highway 413.”
It’s not yet clear how much Highway 413 will cost.
An analysis of data by Environics Analytics, conducted in May before the provincial election, showed that trips affected by the freeway are mostly made up of constituents who drive more than the provincial average of 22,073 kilometers per year.
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