One rural Lambton County mayor wants Ontario to play fair and cough up more cash to help maintain public roads, or take back former provincial highways “downloaded” to the county decades ago.
One rural Lambton County mayor wants Ontario to play fair and cough up more cash to help maintain public roads, or take back former provincial highways “downloaded” to the county decades ago.
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County council recently backed the call from Brooke-Alvinston Mayor Dave Ferguson, who believes the province “set a precedent” by agreeing to help Toronto with its financial challenges by taking over the Gardiner Expressway and Don Valley Parkway.
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“We should be asking for the same thing here,” he said.
In 1997 and 1998, former Mike Harris’s Progressive Conservative government handed Lambton County responsibility for more than 209 kilometers of highway, including sections of highways 7, 21, 22, 79 and 80, plus 61 bridges and culverts.
“We watched where, maybe, over the years Toronto had not done the appropriate tax increases under some of the former mayors, and now it’s sort of catching up to them,” Ferguson said. And “(Then) the province says, ‘Hey, we’ll take two highways off your hands.’ ”
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“You go, ‘Just a minute here,’” Ferguson said. “’What about us?’ ”
And what about other Ontario municipalities?
“We’ve always been prudent and fiscally responsible in Lambton County and the small municipalities,” he said. “Was Toronto responsible? And now they’re being rewarded for getting behind.”
Ferguson said he has no illusions about how his call may be received. “Queen’s Park will probably look at it and put it at the bottom of the pile,” he said.
That’s why he asked that his resolution be circulated to other Ontario municipalities and the Association of Municipalities of Ontario to seek their support, Ferguson said.
The province can start by providing municipalities more money to rehabilitate these roads, rather than taking back downloaded highways, he said. “To me, that’s the smartest route.”
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Premier Doug Ford announced the takeover of the two Toronto highways in November as part of a larger deal aimed at helping the city, which was facing a $1.5-billion deficit.
“The new deal announced will provide supports that reflect Toronto’s unique financial challenges,” Dakota Braiser, Transport Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria’s press secretary, said by e-mail.
“. . . Ontario continues to make historic investments to repair and build new roads and highways across Ontario, including Highway 402 in Lambton County,” Braiser added. “We will continue to work with our municipal partners to help ensure the sustainability of municipal infrastructure.”
Other municipalities seeking new deals of their own may be out of luck, Ford signaled when the Toronto deal was announced, saying the two highways Ontario is uploading moving more than 300,000 vehicles a day and are vital to the province’s economy.
“If you look at Toronto alone, and in the surrounding area of Toronto, they represent 50 per cent of our GDP,” he said. “It’s massive. There’s nothing like it in the country.”
Lambton County budgeted $24.3 million in 2023 to maintain and repair its 650 km of roads and more than 190 bridges and major culverts.
Ontario gave Lambton $2.3 million in 2023 to help pay for road and bridge improvements. That dropped to $2 million this year, the county said.
With files from The Canadian Press
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