Letters to the Editor
Back patting
February 13, 2026 · 0 Comments
I agree with letters to the editor from Marion Herron and Sorin Schwimmer in the Jan. 29 edition of the Citizen.
Highway 413 will solve nothing for congestion; in fact, it will only increase it. Studies have proven time and time again that building more superhighways always creates more congestion.
We have 17,000 kilometres of roads in Ontario; we don’t need new roads. We need the existing roads upgraded all over Ontario first. For example, the main reason Highway 10 is becoming very congested is that thousands of homes were built in huge sprawl subdivisions in Dundalk, Shelburne, Mono, Orangeville, Alton and Erin.
At the same time, nothing has been done to upgrade Highway 10 or the once peaceful country roads that surround these subdivisions. Highway 10 is more dangerous by the day, and so are our back roads, with more and more commuters using them to avoid Highway 10.
Marion Herron is 100 per cent correct. We need safer, reliable public transit and commuter railways in Ontario. The now-closed Owen Sound to Streetsville rail corridor is an opportunity lost. If our short-sighted governments had vision and saved this rail corridor with the last of its tracks ripped out in 2021 from Orangeville to Brampton, it could have been redeveloped into a modern commuter railway. This could have kept thousands of cars off Highway 10 and saved the commuters thousands of dollars for generations.
Sorin Schwimmer is also 100 per cent correct about removing tolls on the 407 and the need for a 413 referendum for the electoral districts and adjacent ones affected by the 413 highway. The Canadian Pension Plan (CPP) owns more than 50 per cent of the 407, which was first planned in the late 1950s as a truck bypass. Sadly, it has become the most expensive toll road in the world, only for the ones who can afford it.
With a stroke of a pen, Doug Ford could remove the 407 toll for trucks right now and instantly remove a huge amount of pressure off the 401, 410, 400, 427, 403, QEW and of course, Highway 7.
So why is Doug Ford’s government so fixated on pushing the building of Highway 413 instead of much more cost-effective solutions? Also, why is Doug Ford willing to bulldoze over 2,000 acres of farmland and over 2,500 acres of significant natural areas, including forests, 220 acres of wetlands, the Nashville conservation reserve, and 400 acres of Greenbelt, which will threaten 29 at-risk species?
It’s not about moving people faster, that’s for sure. It’s about getting the well-connected developers (Greenbelt Scandal) excavator shovels in the farmland faster that surrounds the Highway 413 route. They want to build more outdated, expensive 1950s-style sprawl subdivisions, which will create even more congestion at a massive environmental cost.
Sylvia Jones grew up on a farm, so you would think she would have a better understanding of how important it is to preserve our farmland, especially at a time we are losing 319 acres of farmland every day in Ontario, according to census data. Farms in Ontario contribute $52 billion to Ontario’s economy and employ more than 875,000 people, by far the largest employer in Ontario.
I don’t think Sylvia remembers that 2 million people still do not have a primary healthcare doctor or that there are 86,000 homeless people and rising in Ontario with addiction and mental health at crisis levels. Food bank use has increased by 165 per cent in Ontario since 2019. Orangeville food banks saw a record 1,600 people access its services in November of 2025, marking a 333 per cent increase over the past 10 years.
Sylvia Jones and her government spent a record $112 million in tax dollars advertising in 2025! With the Auditor General revealing that 43 million of that was spent primarily on patting themselves on the back.
I could go on and on about why Sylvia Jones and the Doug Ford government should refrain from patting their own backs so much, but I think my pen would run out of ink before I could finish.
Terry Brooker
Orangeville
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