The Ontario NDP is promising to remove tolls from the privately owned Highway 407 for all drivers and initiate a potential purchase of the highway, Global News has learned, in a pre-election pitch to voters days before the writs are set to be issued.
Ontarians will head to the polls on Feb. 27 for an early general election after Premier Doug Ford revealed late last week that he intends to dissolve his majority government and call an early election on Wednesday.
For months, Ford has hinted his party is interested in discussing a Highway 407 purchase and, on Friday, he signalled his party, if re-elected, could address the 407 tolls on the eastern, provincially owned portion of the highway.
The NDP is looking to make the entire 407 a key election issue.
“Doug Ford has sat on his hands as tolls on the 407 have gone up, afraid to take on the private corporation that makes millions from people just trying to get to work,” NDP Leader Marit Stiles said.
“I will negotiate on the side of the people, get us out of this bad deal, and make the 407 toll-free.”
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If elected, Stiles said an NDP government would remove 407ETR tolls for commercial truck operators immediately after taking office. Tolls on the provincially owned section of the highway between Pickering and Clarington would also be removed.
The NDP is pledging to then “take back the 407” by forcing the group running it — 407 International Inc., owned by the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Cintra and Atkins Réalis (formerly known as SNC-Lavalin) — to renegotiate with the Ontario government.
Policy materials shared with Global News indicate the party would look at either a voluntary negotiation between the owners of the 407ETR and the provincial government or forcing the owners to sell the highway using provincial legislation.
The cost of the proposal, however, is still in question.
In 2022, when the NDP first proposed moving commercial truck traffic to the 407, it estimated the policy could cost $4 billion over 30 years, citing Transportation Action Ontario. The Ford government has suggested the privately owned portion of the 407 is now worth approximately $35 billion, up from the $3.1-billion price tag when the highway was sold by then-premier Mike Harris’s government in 1999.
An Ontario NDP source admitted the cost of the plan had not yet been settled. The party said it would look again at any outstanding fees owed by the 407 to the province for times it had failed to meet its traffic targets as part of potential negotiations.
While the Ministry of Transportation has said it has been “in conversation” with Highway 407, it didn’t disclose details of what those conversations involved.
Ford himself has said he hasn’t met with Highway 407 representatives but recently declared it was “time to sit down.”
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