This story is part of Generating Futures, a series from The Narwhal exploring clean energy sovereignty among B.C. First Nations.

Summary

• Haida Gwaii is one of 44 remote communities in B.C. that are not connected to the provincial electrical grid. For power, most rely on diesel, which has heavy environmental and human health costs. 
• Solar North, a two-megawatt solar project by Haida-owned Tll Yahda, came online in December — the first project of its kind to be built on a remote grid in B.C., and a big step forward in the First Nation’s plans to transition off diesel.
• Whether operating independently or with BC Hydro, remote projects require funding to get off the ground. However, a key federal grant program by Natural Resources Canada to fund diesel reduction will end next year.

On a hot, sunny day in 2023, a flatbed truck sidled up to the flat patch of grass at the Masset airport on Haida Gwaii. Kevin Brown, Patrika McEvoy and Sean Brennan had rushed to the site when they heard the solar panels had arrived. After decades of advocating, planning and waiting, the Haida Nation’s first utility-scale solar energy project — the first of its kind on a remote grid in B.C. — was ready to be built. 

All three remember the moment when Brown, energy coordinator for Old Massett Village Band Council, reached out his finger to touch one. 

“Shit just got real,” he says.

Across much of the province, B.C.’s mostly hydropowered centralized electricity system blurs into the background, delivering easily accessible, relatively affordable power at the flick of a switch.

But Haida Gwaii’s archipelago off the Pacific Coast is truncated from B.C.’s grid, making it one of around 44 remote communities in B.C. most of which rely on diesel for their power. There, diesel is delivered perilously by trucks and tankers, and leaves toxins lingering in the air. It remains a problem that the province has promised, but so far failed, to fix. In 2017, B.C. announced a target to reduce diesel on remote grids by 80 per cent by 2030, a goal that currently appears far out of reach.

But this past December, Tll Yahda Energy, an independent power producer and a partnership between the Council of the Haida Nation, Skidegate Band Council and Old Massett Village Council, made a sizable leap when their two-megawatt solar project, Solar North, officially came online. It marks the first time in B.C. that an intermittent energy source like solar has made a sizable dent in a diesel-driven remote grid. 

“We expected to have to do some trailblazing,” Brennan, manager at Tll Yahda and a lead on the project, says. “But it was basically reinventing that entire trail.”

If all goes as planned, Haida Gwaii’s project will soon be joined by a stream of others, including the Ulkatcho First Nation’s completed four-megawatt solar farm in the Chilcotin Plateau, the Nuxalk Nation’s run-of-river hydroelectric project on the Central Coast and the Uchucklesaht Tribe’s efforts on western Vancouver Island to build a 750-kilowatt solar and battery-storage project, among many others. Many are in development and partially funded, but require more support to move forward.

But as federal and provincial governments’ priorities shift, there are signs the window could begin to close again. That could spell trouble for communities with in-between projects, and for Haida Gwaii, whose journey to displace diesel still has a long way to go.

‘This is not something we want to risk anymore.’

Since the first electric light in the Pacific Northwest beamed out over a harbour near Victoria almost 150 years ago, power and access to it have developed asymmetrically. Wires and transmission lines quickly fanned out across the province, etching their way across Indigenous territories, targeting congregations of settler populations and the bursts of resource extraction they tended to follow.

Elsewhere, and in many First Nations communities, electric power was scarce until it came by way of diesel generators, which use diesel-fueled pistons to produce a magnetic field, generating electricity. But diesel power comes at a high cost for ecosystems and communities.

In the early hours of October 13, 2016, the Nathan E. Stewart tugboat ran into one of the many rocks tracing the shoreline in Heiltsuk territory. By around 10 a.m. the next morning, the tug had sunk, spilling more than 100,000 litres of diesel fuel and other pollutants into nearby Gale Pass, leaving a rainbow-coloured sheen across the water.  

The tug was among many that haul diesel to generators along the coast, including to Haida Gwaii. 

It was yet another alarm bell that propelled the nation’s resolve to get off diesel, Brennan says. “That was really what led to us saying ‘This is not something we want to risk anymore.’”

On a regular basis, Haida Gwaii is visited by barges carrying diesel up through the Inside Passage and then through the Hecate Strait, which has been called the most dangerous water body on Canada’s coast, threatening ocean ecosystems and the nation’s coastal economy that depends on them. Even on land, diesel fuel tends to splatter and spill despite its handlers’ best efforts, leaving contaminated soil at loading docks and generating stations.

In the air, combusted diesel fumes produce pollutants like nitrogen dioxide and fine particulates, known to exacerbate asthma, cancer and risk of premature death. It also releases copious amounts of carbon dioxide. Haida Gwaii represents around three per cent of the province’s electrical emissions.

The Haida Nation’s work to shift from diesel galvanized in the mid-2000s, Brown explains. Community members tallied data across communities and realized the true scale of their diesel demand.

Inertia, political will posed challenges for transition away from diesel in B.C.

In theory, the province was also concerned about the amount of diesel being burned in remote communities.

Gordon Campbell’s Liberal government made the first move, directing BC Hydro to take over energy provision in additional remote communities, including some remote First Nations that had been operating their own energy systems with federal funding. Ideally, BC Hydro would help communities bring more clean energy to their grids. 

But that’s not what happened. 

The utility housed some deep-rooted inertia, according to Nick Hawley, a former manager on remote community electrification for BC Hydro at the time.

“They had diesel mechanics and diesel electricians,” Hawley, now an energy consultant, says. He describes an institution that was risk-averse and reticent to change. “They knew diesel.” 

As a monopoly utility, BC Hydro decides where and when it buys power, and from whom in the regions it services. It held prospective renewable projects to a strict test: It would only consider those that could beat the price of diesel fuel, not including the substantial costs of maintenance and replacing things like generators. They also required that projects cover the often sizable cost of connecting to the remote grid. Under those circumstances, says Hawley, it was difficult to get new renewable projects through.

In 2012, BC Hydro put a call out for energy projects on Haida Gwaii. Old Massett Band Council was one of many renewable projects that applied with a proposal for a 5.6 megawatt wind project. None were accepted.

The Haida Nation had begun moving forward anyway. 

“We’ve been on a long journey,” Nangkilslas Trent Moraes, deputy chief councillor of the Skidegate First Nation, says. Communities started out working on smaller changes, beginning with things like solar water heaters and heat pumps. Soon, solar panels popped up on roofs across the islands, including the Haida Heritage Centre built in 2017 — B.C.’s largest community-owned renewable energy installation at the time. 

“That was the beginning of how we got into the power field,” he says. 

Still, the communities’ long-held goal of owning and operating a larger-scale renewable project remained out of reach. 

That changed when, beginning in 2019, Haida Gwaii’s southern band council, Skidegate, and northern council, Old Massett, began meeting to discuss energy issues with the Council of the Haida Nation. 

Together, the bands and nation pooled their efforts and resources, enabling them to pursue a project that wouldn’t have been possible in isolation. This allowed the nation to remain the project’s sole owner and decision-maker, absent the influence of investors or other companies. 

“I was thankful that we were able to acquire ownership for this project and not have third parties involved,” McEvoy, former chair of energy on the Tll Yahda board of directors and energy consultant for the Council of the Haida Nation, says.

BC Hydro had long argued that its ability to spend more on remote grids was constrained by the utility regulator’s legal requirement that new projects not unduly impact other ratepayers, a challenge for some renewable energy projects. As the plans for Solar North came together, McEvoy worked with a group of remote First Nations communities advocating for legal change, designing an amendment to remove that potential obstruction: for a temporary period, cabinet could now direct the utility regulator to accept these projects, even if they came at a higher cost than diesel.  

“That was a lot of blood, sweat and tears,” McEvoy says. The regulatory amendment was finally passed in 2024, and will remain until the end of 2029.

BC Hydro now had a clear legal runway to support renewable projects in the 14 remote grids — called “non-integrated areas” — it services. But the clock was ticking: the amendment was passed six years after B.C. set a target to reduce 80 per cent of its diesel emissions by 2030, and no projects in BC Hydro’s service regions had been achieved. Last December, Haida’s project became the first, soon to be followed by a solar farm in Anahim Lake led by the Ulkatcho First Nation, which is set to come online this year. Meanwhile, remote communities who had operated their energy systems independently had collectively reduced their diesel use by 84 percent since 2019, mostly through small hydroelectric projects.

In an emailed statement, BC Hydro said that it “took time” for the utility to incorporate new communities into its operating practices, to “ensure that the levels of reliability are brought to utility standards” adding that the remote grids they service tend to be larger and more complex to decarbonize than independently operated remote energy systems. It also added that since 2018 BC Hydro has been working with new sources of federal and provincial funding “to support a more cost-effective transition from diesel to renewable energy.” It also added that the province’s 2030 diesel reduction target is “not BC Hydro’s target.”

But by the time the legal amendment came in 2024, Tll Yahda’s work on Solar North was already well underway, having decided on a utility-scale solar farm on the north grid in an already-disturbed area near the airport. They ensured training opportunities were available for members, and hired 16 solar installers on the island, says Brennan.

Then they began to build.

The invisible wall

Even as the panels were placed and the wires hooked up, there was another problem to solve before Solar North’s diesel-replacing potential could be fully realized: it needed a place to store its energy. 

Electricity is notoriously finicky, requiring a steady stream of electrons delivered through conductive wires at all times to work well. When these electrons falter or pile up, lights flicker, clocks fall out of date, or, in more severe cases, the power can drop or surge, frying appliances.

Remote grids like Haida Gwaii’s are particularly hard-pressed to avoid such swings.

Imagine a concert-goer attempting to crowd-surf in a room of just three people: if one person trips or someone else decides to pile on, the effort could easily collapse. Similarly, a remote grid with just a few power sources can fail if one of its inputs suddenly drops out or an entire community turns on their dishwashers at once. On the other hand, B.C.’s large, interconnected grid has the resilience of a packed concert hall — disruptions like these are almost imperceptible. 

On-again, off-again renewables like solar and wind are particularly unpredictable, whereas the on-demand qualities of diesel fuel are more likely to hold weight when needed. 

Luckily, solutions have arrived. “The technologies have evolved very rapidly,” Mark Mitchell, global lead of distribution and smart grid at the consulting firm Hatch, says. Mitchell adds that, in remote communities, storage systems like lithium-ion batteries and microgrid controllers are newly equipped to smooth out such dips and surges. 

“It’s really been one of the main enablers for bringing more renewables online.”

For BC Hydro and for the Haida Nation, grappling with these cutting-edge storage systems was new: they had to decide who would own the battery and control systems — BC Hydro would in the end — and who to buy it from, a challenge thanks to limited supply chains for systems scaled to the needs of small, remote communities. 

“BC Hydro had never done a project where it’s connecting a renewable energy project to a diesel grid before,” Brennan says. 

“We didn’t realize all the implications that went with that.”

Today, Solar North is still waiting for its battery system to be installed. In the meantime, it’s displacing around 70 per cent of the diesel it is capable of. 

And when it’s expanded to match the size of its battery and grid upgrades, Solar North has the potential to displace around six per cent of the island’s electrical diesel consumption. The Nation is currently working with BC Hydro to determine the sizing for an expansion of Solar North that could push that displacement higher still.  

In many remote regions, displacing 100 per cent of the diesel brings challenges that batteries alone still can’t fix, Mitchell says. Today’s batteries are ideal for short-term storage, which can help even out daily dips and lows in solar power, but not longer seasonal shifts like Haida Gwaii’s stormy winters, when the sun is in short supply. 

“Essentially, what we’re going to do here is run into an invisible wall with solar,” Brennan says. At that point, solar energy will produce diminishing returns. 

Tll Yahda is studying ways to make solar work better for their communities, including a pilot project to test how solar panels matched with small-scale batteries could make the system run more efficiently. It’s also conducting analyses to test out how hybrid combinations of renewables behave on the grid.

In renewable electricity, the right kind of complexity is key, Garrett Russ, climate action coordinator with the Skidegate Band Council, says. “I’m looking at this whole system as a whole complete project.” 

He’s seen the consequences of siloed efforts, including the nearly 50 heat pumps in his workshop that need fixing — thanks in part to a lack of trained workers on the island to keep them in good repair. Russ has since launched a training program, teaching Haida and other remote community members in B.C. how to maintain the systems while providing needed employment. 

A birds-eye view is a challenge because of project-by-project funding cycles and governments that tend to move in slow, incremental steps, Russ says. But he’s making the most of the opportunities he can create, and studying how wind and solar could work together. 

Whether operating independently or with BC Hydro, remote projects require funding, and Russ worries that the door may be about to close. Already, a key federal program has not had its funding renewed. In an emailed statement, Natural Resources Canada confirmed that funding through a key diesel-reduction grant program will end next year, but added that there are other “ongoing programs” that will continue to support the effort. 

“I believe there’s going to be a very significant cut possibly coming up,” Russ says. In preparation, he is working on as many projects as he can “in a very short time.”

“If that does happen, then at least I changed as much as I could.”

‘We have to keep going.’

A ten-minute walk from the arrow-shaped panels of Solar North sits B.C. Hydro’s diesel generating station, ringed in the spring by salal and salmonberries that McEvoy makes sure to avoid. 

Diesel still helps power Haida Gwaii’s grid, but the work to reduce it continues.

McEvoy and others across the islands have been asking their community members what kind of energy transition they’d like to see. Meanwhile, BC Hydro has begun to do energy planning with remote communities — for the first time in its history. The process design for those plans fell short of what many nations had hoped for: it doesn’t have legal standing, and remains, in many ways, on the utility’s terms. McEvoy says it remains an important step.

McEvoy likens the process to paddling a canoe in a stormy ocean. “All we can see is dark, black clouds ahead,” she says. “We have to keep going.” 

At some point, she says, the clouds will break. 

“That’s us, and the work we’re putting in.”

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Deep in northwestern Ontario is a collection of 58 small, pristine lakes where, for the past half century, scientists worried about water have gathered to take their laboratory outside. This is the world’s largest outdoor experimental freshwater research facility, allowing scientists to develop invaluable long-term data about the effects of pollutants, clean-up processes and climate change on a finite resource.

Known as the International Institute for Sustainable Development Experimental Lakes Area, the 27,000-hectare area is covered in thousands of little lakes set in bedrock and bordered by thick spruce and pine forests. It’s in Treaty 3 territory, and visitors who aren’t from an Indigenous community require a permit to use the lone gravel road that leads up to the water bodies. Together, the experimental lakes tell a story of the challenges facing Canada’s fresh water and provide a glimpse into what solutions might be possible. 

They’re also of global importance: every year, data requests pour in from academics from around the world, making the experimental lakes a crucial research connection between bacterial pathogens in Spain to algae blooms in western Ontario and beyond. 

“When an oil spill happens, when a pipeline ruptures, it happens in an area that likely hasn’t been well studied — the system isn’t well understood,” institute biologist Lauren Timlick said. “They go in and they clean it up as best they can, but how can they be positive that they’re bringing it back to normal if they don’t know what normal was to begin with?”

“There could be an entire species that is extirpated” — or locally extinct — “that they didn’t know was there,” Timlick, who focuses on ecotoxicology, said. “So our studies rely on this long-term dataset — this 50-plus years of data that we have for our climate change and ecological monitoring.”

The research facility first opened in 1968 because algae blooms were choking out oxygen and killing fish in Lake Erie. The cause was poorly understood, especially since multiple pollutants running to the lake from farms, cities and industrial zones made it difficult to pinpoint which one was responsible for triggering the blooms. 

Believing that whole-lake experiments might uncover the root issue, scientists came across this spot about two hours’ drive from Kenora, Ont.

And so, the naturally occurring lakes became experimental, as the scientists added different nutrients to different lakes to figure out what conditions led to strong algal growth. The result was the identification of high phosphorus inputs as a key factor driving algae blooms — and an iconic photograph that showed Lake 226, as it was dubbed, covered in a blanket of bright green algae from phosphorus.

The image convinced policymakers that phosphorus should be controlled, with the Canadian and U.S. governments passing legislation to ban phosphates in detergents in the 1970s.

“It’s one of the most famous limnological experiments in the world,” said researcher Scott Higgins of the Lake 226 project, referring to the study of inland water bodies. He added that the image is still used in textbooks around the world.

The Lake 226 project cascaded into research covering issues from phytoplankton to whitefish populations, underlining the value of real-world experiments and sparking an appetite for science-based policy. But after many successful, productive decades, the value of such rigorous study came into question. In 2014, the experimental lakes area was at risk of closing when the Stephen Harper government threatened to cut its funding. Although outrage from the scientific community and the public saved the project, it took a year for the government to agree to transfer the facilities to the International Institute of Sustainable Development. 

A think-tank based in Winnipeg with offices in Ontario and Geneva, the institute has more than 250 full-time staff worldwide, focused on five different program areas. About 40 are based at the experimental lakes area, supported by a mixture of government funding, research grants, non-profit funds and individual donors. 

Since its adoption by the International Institute for Sustainable Development, the experimental lakes project has put greater emphasis on public education and collaboration. With the support of Indigenous co-ordinator Dilber Yunis, it has begun partnerships with Grand Council Treaty #3  and nearby Sagkeeng First Nation and Eagle Lake First Nation, including monitoring projects and research into wild rice cultivation. Another initiative translates environmental information into the Ojibwe language, also known as Anishinaabemowin: Yunis helped translate “carbon dioxide” as “mitigoo-inanaamowin,” which means “(the air that) the trees breathe.” It’s a translation that shifts thinking away from a singular chemical compound towards an ecosystem level, based on relationships between beings.

Laura Horton, whose Anishinaabe name is Gini’w’ikwe, is a Dene Anishinaabe Elder from Rainy River First Nations, born and raised in Treaty 3 territory. A retired teacher, she first got to know the experimental lakes area by leading water offering ceremonies on site with the women’s council of Grand Council Treaty #3.

At the time, the women’s council was working on a collective sacred Nibi Declaration — nibi being the word for water in Anishinaabemowin — meant to formally record Anishinaabe water law and guide the Grand Council as it made decisions that could affect water.

“My work is primarily in the spiritual nature, lifting water and talking about how we make offerings to the water — what we do, why we do it, who she is, what her name is, some of the teachings about where she comes from and how it is we’re supposed to take care of her — and what a poor job we’re doing,” Horton said.

“If we didn’t have the water, we would not have life. Just the same as if there was no sun, and those two come together in balance. She’s sacred,” she said. “It isn’t the land that connects us. It’s the water that connects us and surrounds us and holds us in beauty.” 

The challenges and solutions in water

Horton recalls a drummer at a water ceremony circle sharing stories of fishing with his grandparents — back then, they could dip their cups and drink right from local lakes and rivers. That’s no longer possible because of pollutants from paper and pulp mills. “All of a sudden, you get a newsletter saying that we’re on a water advisory alert. And two years go by, and we’re still drinking water delivered to our door,” Horton said.

She believes the amounts of pollutants introduced at the experimental lakes area are “microscopic” compared to the level of industrial pollution in the lakes near her home, and that the research is part of a greater search for solutions to clean and protect fresh water.

“The changes are happening fast, within our lifetime … The waters are so sick because of human behaviours. We need to act to make amends and do better. Working together, spiritually, mentally, physically, socially and emotionally is a step in the right direction,” she said.

The sicknesses threatening fresh water are many. Recent experiments at the lakes include testing the impacts of acid rain, coal-fired power plant mercury and pharmaceuticals including birth control and anti-depressant pills. Other projects have focused on better understanding oil spills, microplastics and — particularly after the germophobia sparked by COVID-19 — disinfectant compounds from cleaning products. 

“A lot of times in science, we try to simplify things and ask questions in a beaker in a lab — which is very valuable and it provides a lot of information, but there’s always that question of what happens in the real world when everything is working together … All the pieces, all the elements, all the living organisms working together,” institute researcher Jose Luis Rodriguez Gil said.

“What happens with those interactions? And the only way to actually know about that is to actually look at the real world and have those interactions happen,” Rodriguez Gil said. “The little set-ups that we deploy in the lakes allows us to ask exactly that.”

In the first year of a project, a pilot study uses land-based microcosms — which resemble large bathtubs on land — to better understand how contaminants behave when introduced to fresh water. In the second stage, large enclosures are placed in a lake to observe how the contaminants may react in a real-world setting. Last comes a lake-level dosing of the contaminant, in order to get the big picture.

To protect the long-term health of the water, research proposals must include a contingency plan and a long-term monitoring plan to return the lake to its natural state. Experiments are simulations, not replications, of the real world: since contaminants are typically introduced to the lakes in small amounts, remediation for most projects can be achieved naturally by stopping the addition of new chemicals or manipulations. 

Oil spill experiments are different: rather than dosing an entire lake, researchers carefully contain how oil is released into studied areas, both by limiting the amount of oil and isolating it from the rest of the lake. Absorbent booms are installed around the isolated areas and at the lake outflow to protect against leakages. Leftover oil is removed once the study is completed.

Long-term data shows how climate change is affecting fresh water

Another strength of Ontario’s experimental lakes area is researchers’ ability to capture accurate data across long stretches of time — which could be particularly helpful in illuminating the effects of climate change as it unfolds across decades, even as its impacts become more immediate.

One team is tasked with collecting information such as number of fish, water quality and ice thickness on a weekly basis from lakes that remain unmanipulated. The most dramatic change they’ve noted is ice loss: ice is forming later and thinner than in the past, and lasts for shorter periods during the winter than it used to. 

As the effects of changes such as algal growth and ice loss compound, some species of fish may be impacted, such as lake trout, which require cold temperatures and highly oxygenated water to survive. For northern communities that often use ice roads for essential transportation and supplies, their way of living through the winter may be transformed permanently.

“One of the main things that we do out here, that impacts all of Canada, is research into climate change as a northern country. We’re going to be on the receiving end of some of the most extreme swings of climate change, so having a dataset that’s over 50 years long, that can really help us understand how those trends are moving and hopefully present that information to policymakers,” Timlick said.

This year’s federal budget saw Prime Minister Justin Trudeau repeat his pledge to establish the Canada Water Agency in Winnipeg, meant to be a collaborative “federal focal point for freshwater,” from the Great Lakes to the Mackenzie River in the Northwest Territories. It’s one sign of Canadians’ growing awareness that safeguarding our freshwater ecosystems is critical to the future of wildlife and habitat, as well as communities that depend on freshwater ecosystems. In a country that has access to upwards of 20 per cent of the world’s surface fresh water, that means all of us. 

Though few details about the agency have been released yet, its creation gives Elder Horton hope. In October, she attended a fall feast with experimental lakes area researchers, and said conversations there lead her to think that Treaty 3’s Nibi Declaration and water ceremonies have reframed how others think about water, leading them to a lens of respect and care.

She’s excited for shared knowledge and connections to bloom into more partnerships, with young people from the Treaty 3 communities becoming scientists themselves, harmonizing their teachings with Western research and finding more holistic answers to protect water — an issue that connects us all.

“[It’s about] always ending with: what else can we do to build relationships? What are the truths that we have about the water in our area and how can we reconcile the pollution, the injustices of the water and make sure that we’re paying attention to it?” she said. 

Updated on Nov. 10, 2023, at 9:14 a.m. ET: This story has been updated to correct which lake was in an iconic photo of experiments into the causes of algae. It is Lake 226, not Lake 227. Updated on Nov. 20, 2023, at 1:40 p.m. ET: This story has been updated to correct the name of the International Institute for Sustainable Development Experimental Lakes Area and to add the word “extirpated,” which had been misheard as “excavated” in a quote.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

This photo essay is part of The Narwhal’s BIPOC Photojournalism Fellowship, operated in partnership with Room Up Front and made possible by The Reader’s Digest Foundation and the generosity of The Narwhal’s readers.

For some people living alongside the farmland and forests outside of Toronto that the Ontario government wants to turn into a road, Highway 413 is a route to opportunity.

For others, the proposed project — and the damage it could cause to the environment — represents the opposite of the future they want. 

Whether it’s built or not, what happens with Highway 413 will shape the communities along its route for decades to come. 

Highway 413, if it becomes a reality, would draw a 60-kilometre path connecting the Greater Toronto Area suburbs of Vaughan and Milton. It would also cut through Ontario’s Greenbelt, conservation land, at least 220 wetlands, dozens of waterways, 2,000 acres of farmland and the habitats of at least 11 species at risk. 

The previous Liberal government shelved the idea over environmental concerns, and after an independent panel found it would save most drivers less than a minute. But Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives revived it in late 2018, arguing that it’s necessary to clear up the Greater Toronto Area’s relentless problem with traffic — and that it could actually save drivers half an hour. 

“Congestion is a real problem, and members of the opposition just want to keep their heads in the sand and not recognize this reality that plagues people — drivers, commuters, families, workers, farmers,” Ontario Transportation Minister Caroline Mulroney said last year.

Others, however, point to research showing new roads attract more drivers, making the new lanes just as congested as the old ones. The worry, environmentalists say, is that we could lose important places and encourage emissions-heavy car traffic without actually solving the problem. 

“The truth is that when you build more highways, you get more congestion, because beautiful new highways incentivize people to drive,” Gideon Foreman, a climate change and transportation policy analyst at the David Suzuki Foundation, says. “And we’ve seen this all over the world, you put a new highway in, and people want to use it. And when people use it, there’s a word for that. It’s called congestion. So we’ll be right back where we started.”

The Progressive Conservatives made the highway an election issue in 2022, and won a second term in government. But the 413 is stalled in bureaucratic gridlock for now: last year, amid a surge of opposition from citizens and local governments along the route, the federal government stepped in and said it would do its own impact assessment. Since then, Highway 413 hasn’t substantially moved forward, and it’s not clear when or if it will.Still, the 413 is a flashpoint for many of the huge questions now facing communities as they decide how they want to live. Should people drive, take transit, or both? How much greenspace should there be? Where will the region’s food come from? Ultimately, the question is somewhat existential — what will southern Ontario’s future look like, and who gets to decide?

Over six months in 2022, The Narwhal travelled the proposed route of the 413. Here are the stories of four people whose lives will be shaped by the highway, for worse or for better.

Ryan NorrisEcologist, University of GuelphNashville Conservation Reserve, Vaughan

Ryan Norris grew up in Etobicoke, on the western edge of Toronto. He has witnessed the shrinking of conservation areas in the Greater Toronto Area, as well as the targeting of the Greenbelt in his lifetime. Now, he’s an associate professor at the University of Guelph’s department of integrative biology, and for him, Highway 413 is an issue that lies close to home.

“It wasn’t that long ago that you could travel along Highway 7 … and basically go through farmland that was past the northern extent of the [Greater Toronto Area], 40 to 50 years ago. And of course, now that’s swallowed up by the city,” Norris said.

“And the 413 will continue in the tradition of swallowing up the city, swallowing up farmland and natural areas that we … frankly, we need to survive.”

Hoping to inspire others to experience the remaining nature firsthand, he has been leading walks through the Nashville Conservation Reserve in Vaughan — which the highway would cut through — for the past year. Norris, who was partially inspired to become a scientist through his exposure to nature as a kid, believes that these experiences are vital for future generations. Gideon Foreman, a transportation policy analyst from the David Suzuki Foundation, also helps lead the walks.

With an estimated 11 to 29 species at risk living along the route of the highway, even an hour’s walk through the Nashville Conservation Reserve is likely to reveal glimpses of the area’s rich biodiversity, from monarch butterflies to goldfinches.

Sukhraj SandhuTruck driver and vice president, AZ Canadian Truckers AssociationBrampton

Sukhraj Sandhu spends the majority of his time on the road: he’s regularly behind the wheel from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. His livelihood relies on highways, and gridlock often slows his schedule to a standstill. As Sandhu weaves across Canada and the U.S., he hopes for a future with more road infrastructure, enough to serve national and international supply chains, and the multiplying warehouses where he lives: Brampton, a growing city that’s part of Peel Region west of Toronto.

Peel Region houses some 80 per cent of all companies in the Greater Toronto Area. Around 40 per cent of all Amazon packages delivered to Canada go through the region for processing. It’s home to an estimated 2,000 trucking companies and approximately 68,000 vehicles transport cargo along Peel Region roads every day, carrying goods worth $1.8 billion annually. To Sandhu, those numbers are a clear sign of the need to clear up congestion.

Highway 413 opponents have argued that the road isn’t needed, since in many spots it would run parallel to Highway 407, which isn’t at capacity. A tolled 400-series highway that was itself meant to deal with congestion around Toronto, the 407 opened in 1997. Built with public money, it was leased to a group of private companies for $3.1 billion for 99 years only two years after it was built. 

The tolls have risen by over 200 per cent since 2015, from about 10 cents to over 60 cents per kilometre during rush hour. That makes a 70-kilometre roundtrip from the suburban city of Markham, Ont., to Pearson International Airport in Mississauga about $40, before gas. About 262,748 daily trips are taken on the 407 daily, compared to the 420,000 daily vehicles on the region’s other east-west highway, the ever-gridlocked 401, which some say is North America’s busiest highway. 

Sandhu has heard suggestions that subsidies or reduced rates for the private 407 would be better than building a new highway. But he believes that with the return of traffic at the heels of COVID-19, any support would still be insufficient. He also believes that the companies that run the 407 would simply keep raising toll rates if more people started using it.  

During a drive through Brampton last October, Sandhu commented on the beauty of autumn leaves as he passed by old orchards and the edge of the Claireville Conservation Area. He noted how fast the city is growing, saying that its residents’ needs must be served better. 

Sandhu believes the majority of Brampton residents — especially truckers — are in favour of the 413. “So give the good luck to Mr. Doug Ford and their whole team and the Conservative Party of Ontario,” he said. “They made promises with our people, with our truckers. So let’s see if they fulfill it — we wish they start as soon as possible.”

Rav SinghFarmer, Shade of MitiCaledon

“Miti” means “soil” in Rav Singh’s mother tongue, Punjabi: she comes from a multi-generational family of farmers in India. The name of her farm is her way of connecting it to her ancestral roots as she carries on that tradition in Canada.

Singh designed her farm to focus on justice: food justice, a holistic and structural view of the food system that considers healthy food a human right, and climate justice, which recognizes the disproportionate impacts of climate change on marginalized communities around the world. But the land she rents is just one kilometre from the proposed route of Highway 413, and Singh said she won’t be able to continue farming if it’s built.

“I would have to move further away to access farmland, which is not feasible for me and many other young and new farmers. Likely, I would have to switch to another profession,” Singh mused, imagining a future where the highway is built.

Singh notes that Ontario farming is currently in crisis due to urbanization of agricultural land: increased competition with wealthy developers for property is just one reason she believes the 413 would contribute to pushing out young farmers, like her. Released earlier this year, Canada’s 2021 census of agriculture found that Ontario is losing an average of 319 acres of productive farmland every day. Since 1996, Ontario has lost 1.5 million acres of productive farmland — an area roughly the size of Toronto, Peel Region, Halton Region, Waterloo Region, Hamilton and Niagara Region combined.

In addition to the disruption of the road itself, Singh is worried that its rippling effects  — such as winter road salt run-off — would impact the quality of the soil her vegetables grow in. She says the Mississauga region has some of the richest top soil in the world and would take thousands of years to rebalance, if it were to ever recover from the highway’s construction.

Ontario’s auditor general estimates Highway 413 will cost more than $4 billion to build: Singh said she wishes governments would put that level of funding towards strong, affordable and reliable public transit, as well as infrastructure for safe cycling and walking. She believes that would get cars off of existing highways and free up space for people who actually need the road, as would policies that support remote work and liveable wages.“Right now, the only way someone can get around easily is by car … I understand the need for more infrastructure to connect our communities. But using the same method which we have been [using] for decades — and a method which is proven to actually increase congestion and not decrease travel time — is not the answer,” Singh said.

Rahul MehtaActivist, Sustainable MississaugaMississauga

Ever since the Ford government revived Highway 413, activists have been campaigning against it. One of them is Rahul Mehta, a sustainability advocate and recent candidate for city councillor in Mississauga, where he lives.

For the past few years, he has been regularly involved with initiatives such as Stop the 413 and Mississauga Green Drinks, groups that stand for sustainable urban planning and oppose the highway proposal. The Harvest Walk last year showcased sections of the route to those unfamiliar with the proposal.

“It is a thrice redundant highway,” Mehta said, meaning there’s no need for the 413 when Highways 401 and 407 already exist. “Ultimately, this is so much more than just about the highway. It’s about pollution, long-term legacy impacts, downstream impacts to the communities to the south like Brampton and Mississauga, and perpetuating a car culture and sprawl culture that actually has led to even less affordable housing, even less ability to live, work and play in our communities.”

“All while we’re losing some of the last nearby farmland and greenspace that so many of our residents are craving.”

Mississauga is infamously car-centric, but Mehta doesn’t want to move from the place he calls home. He dreams of living in a suburb that breaks from the traditional model of large single family homes whose residents need multiple cars, and would love to see his city become a place where options such as biking are considered at the same level as driving. “It’s not about vilifying the car … How do we break this hierarchical structure where the single family home is king? And the car is king as well?”

With files from Emma McIntosh. 

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