‘Lipstick on a pig’: Can Ontario’s new highway plan be green?

Highway 413, or the GTA West Corridor, is a massive new 400-series road proposed by the Ontario government aimed at relieving congestion on the existing highways north of downtown Toronto.

The project would stretch for 59 kilometres through York, Peel and Halton Regions, where populations are expected to surge in the coming years. Critics predict minimal benefits for commuters, and highlight risks to wildlife, farmland, and air quality. There are also bigger questions about how such projects enforce driving personal cars over public transit, and potentially conflict with the federal government’s goal of carbon neutrality by 2050.

Now, Ottawa is getting involved in what has traditionally been the jurisdiction of the province, launching its own assessment to determine the environmental impact of the project.

Tom Rand, author of Climate Capitalism, is in favour of the federal government’s intervention, and against the project for a variety of reasons. Those include cost, capacity on Highway 407, and environmental impact. He said the inclusion of EV charging stations and a separate public transit corridor are nice green perks, but essentially amount to “lipstick on a pig.”

Jeff Lagerquist is a senior reporter at Yahoo Finance Canada. Follow him on Twitter @jefflagerquist.

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