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In August 2020 a then-Ontario government staffer emailed his colleagues to say Premier Doug Ford was asking about rerouting a proposed highway. 

Ryan Amato would later be central to the Greenbelt scandal and leave his job in the midst of it. 

Back in 2020, though, he was the director of stakeholder relations for then-transportation minister Caroline Mulroney — and talking with the premier about the planned Bradford Bypass.

“He wants to know the cost of moving it further north,” Amato wrote. “He is of the view the land is cheaper the further north we go.”

Amato’s message to his colleagues about the meeting, which he wrote had happened earlier that day, is captured in a set of documents obtained through freedom of information legislation. The records contain no other documentation of this meeting, or the alleged suggestion from the premier. There are no emails to set it up, calendar appointments, memos or notes. And although Amato asked his colleagues to brief him days later on the cost of changing the route of the Bradford Bypass, the documents show nothing in the way of follow-up.

In general, two separate freedom of information requests turned up scant documentation of Amato’s role during critical moments of planning for the Bradford Bypass and Highway 413 — despite the fact he appeared to be integral enough for the premier to give him suggestions about one of them. 

That was two years before Amato has said he was in the room with Ford, talking about opening the Greenbelt for housing development, according to a report from the province’s integrity commissioner. Ford and others who were in the room deny discussing changes to the protected area in that meeting.

But following this, Amato spearheaded the province’s work to change the boundaries of the Greenbelt, according to twin reports from the province’s auditor general and integrity commissioner. They allege he served as a conduit between the government and powerful developers — a process the watchdogs have said was marked by missing documentation. 

In the integrity commissioner’s report on the scandal, Amato is quoted as saying protocols implemented by a senior bureaucrat ensured “not a lot of document creation.” The newly released records about highway planning raise questions about whether allegations of missing documentation might extend to other priority projects of the Ford government. 

Highway 413 and the Bradford Bypass are both slated to be built to connect Toronto’s outer suburbs. Their proposed routes run through Ontario’s Greenbelt, protected wetlands, prime farmland and endangered species habitat. 

The Ford government has argued both are needed to ease traffic on the Greater Toronto Area’s congested roads, despite decades of evidence indicating new highways attract more drivers and make the problem worse in the long run. The projects have repeatedly come under fire over their environmental impact — and because of the well-connected developers poised to benefit from them. 

Amato was in Mulroney’s office from 2019 to spring 2022, where he worked on both highway projects before he took the job that eventually placed him at the centre of the Greenbelt scandal. He moved from there to become chief of staff to former housing minister Steve Clark, which is when reports by the integrity commissioner and auditor general allege he was at the helm of a team that gave preferential treatment to a small group of well-connected land developers who could have profited from the Greenbelt cuts by at least $8 billion. At least two of those developers also owned land close to the proposed highways, and had met Amato during his time at the Transportation Ministry.

The watchdogs also uncovered concerns about missing and deleted government records.

Both Amato and Clark resigned amid the fallout, which ended with Ford undoing the Greenbelt changes. In a resignation letter obtained by multiple news outlets, Amato wrote his role in the Greenbelt changes has been “unfairly depicted.” He didn’t respond to questions for this story.

The two sets of freedom-of-information records of Amato’s involvement in the highway projects cover five and 14 months, respectively, but are centred on big moments for each highway project. The Ministry of Transportation and the premier’s office didn’t answer questions about the documents, and whether they fairly represent Amato’s work during those periods.

The documents come as the Ford government is again seeking to fast-track its work on both highways. The Progressive Conservatives have already started early construction work on the Bradford Bypass. Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria has said he intends to do the same with Highway 413 as soon as next year, though federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault is currently considering a request to review the project that could delay or block construction. 

Few records of high-ranking bureaucrat’s work during critical periods for Ontario’s Highway 413, Bradford Bypass

The records of Amato’s work on the highway projects were given to The Narwhal by people who requested them from the Ministry of Transportation via freedom of information legislation after Amato’s role in the Greenbelt scandal became public. 

The scopes of those freedom of information requests wouldn’t have captured every single piece of documentation of Amato’s work on the highway projects — for example, they wouldn’t have included his contact with landowners along the routes of Highway 413 and the Bradford Bypass, a key portion of his job. 

Even within the limited scopes of each request, however, the number of records found by the Ministry of Transportation does appear unusually low. A director of stakeholder relations is meant to be communicating with senior political staff and ministers and weighing in on strategy, among other things, according to three online postings for similar Ontario government jobs. Those tasks typically leave a paper trail. 

One information request was filed by Vaughan City Coun. Marilyn Iafrate, a longtime critic of Highway 413: it asked the ministry to search Amato’s communications with his colleagues about the 413 from July 1, 2019, to Aug. 31, 2020, a span of 14 months. During that time the Ministry of Transportation was putting a heavy focus on Highway 413 — it tweaked the route, formally resumed a stalled environmental assessment and started seeking feedback from the public on the project.

Iafrate’s request turned up just six records. Two were stakeholder contact lists, while the remaining four were short email chains spanning a few days or less. Some were about stakeholder meetings, while others contained a map of Highway 413 or details of public information sessions.

The councillor told The Narwhal she was “shocked” at how little documentation there was.

“As an elected official at the municipal level, I get hundreds of emails a day,” Iafrate said in an email to The Narwhal. “Seeing the lack of emails for a government employee definitely makes me say that this doesn’t pass the smell test.”

A second request was filed by Margaret Prophet, the executive director of the Simcoe County Greenbelt Coalition, a grassroots environmental group that opposes the Bradford Bypass. It asked for records of Amato’s work on the bypass, among them meeting notes, reports, memos, calendar appointments and emails with staff in Mulroney and Ford’s offices. It covers a span of five months, from April 1, 2020, to Aug. 31, 2020. During that time, the Ministry of Transportation began seeking public feedback on a plan to exempt the Bradford Bypass from undergoing a full environmental assessment. 

Prophet’s request turned up nine records. None contained calendar appointments. For the most part, they were also brief email chains with colleagues. Two revolved around stakeholder meetings — one Prophet attended, one involving a municipal government. Others were emails between Amato and the premier’s office, or his colleagues at the ministry.

Ford’s request to reroute the Bradford Bypass, as Amato outlined in an email to his colleagues, doesn’t appear to have come to fruition, but the documents don’t contain any further discussion of why not — despite Amato asking the others to include him and another staffer on a briefing later that week. Ford’s office, Mulroney’s office and the Ministry of Transportation didn’t answer questions about whether the conversation between Ford and Amato happened as depicted.

Prophet said the results of her freedom of information request made her question whether issues raised about deleted or missing records during the Greenbelt scandal might have actually been happening for years.  

“I’m looking at evidence that should be there and it’s not there,” she said in a phone interview. “That leads me to draw questions of how transparent this is.” 

“I would question the integrity of the decisions being made because they’re intentionally not being made in a way that could involve public scrutiny or public input.”

Amato and the Ministry of Transportation didn’t answer questions from The Narwhal about why the freedom of information requests would have turned up so few records, and how involved the former staffer was with work on Highway 413 and the Bradford Bypass. 

The Office of Information and Privacy Commissioner Patricia Kosseim — which handles appeals related to freedom of information requests and oversees the provincial government’s record-keeping — said it isn’t hearing any appeals related to record retention problems at the Ministry of Transportation.

Kosseim’s office is, however, hearing several appeals for freedom of information requests about the Greenbelt scandal. The commissioner has said she’ll publish a report with her findings once all of those cases are concluded, but it’s not clear when that might be. 

Deleted emails, personal accounts and code words: questions remain about the Ford government’s handling of sensitive records

The absence of detailed records of Amato’s work on the highway projects means the public is unable to see what one key staffer was doing and how his work might have informed decisions — a theme that was among the reasons the Greenbelt changes became a major scandal.

In their reports on the Greenbelt changes, both the province’s auditor general and the integrity commissioner noted some key records appeared to be deleted or missing.

The auditor general alleged political staff within the Ford government had been deleting emails and using personal accounts to discuss changes to the Greenbelt with lobbyists, a practice that goes against government guidelines. The Narwhal has reported on one case where Amato used a personal email to communicate with a development lobbyist, though he forwarded the exchange to his government account.

The province has asked Amato twice to hand over records about the Greenbelt changes from his personal email account, but the former staffer has refused, according to the Toronto Star. The Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing told the Star it has no legal mechanism to force Amato to comply.

Iafrate’s freedom of information request also asked for records from Amato’s personal email. In response, the Ministry of Transportation said it was “unable” to do so. (Emails related to government work are still subject to freedom of information law even if they were sent from personal accounts.)

As the government worked on the Greenbelt changes, many discussions happened over the phone or through documents delivered via USB drive, the province’s integrity commissioner found. The commissioner wrote he “was also advised that phones had been replaced and text messages had been lost at that time.” 

Government staff working on the Greenbelt changes also used code words like “G*” and “special project.” The government has not answered questions about the use of code words, which could effectively conceal documents from anyone trying to find them by searching keywords such as “Greenbelt.”

It’s illegal in Ontario to alter, conceal or destroy a record with the intention of shielding it from freedom of information. Code words or other measures that “thwart the identification of records for transparency and accountability” are also not allowed under the law.  But proving intent is difficult, and officials who destroy records in Canada rarely if ever face consequences for it, the Globe and Mail reported in 2023. In Ontario, the maximum penalty for those who are convicted of such an offence is $5,000. 

The opposition Ontario NDP have questioned the Ford government’s motives.  

“What this looks like is intent to conceal,” party leader Marit Stiles said in March. “People covering their tracks because they know what they’re doing is wrong.”

Amato and the Ford government have not answered questions from The Narwhal about internal records retention practices. 

In the fallout of the Greenbelt scandal, the auditor general recommended the Progressive Conservatives clean up practices around records retention. The government agreed and sent a memo instructing staff to “ensure adherence to records retention requirements, including the documentation of materials received by third parties and only use government emails for work related matters.” The scandal also prompted rounds of ethics training for government staff. 

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As Doug Ford looks to break ground on new highways, Ontario’s financial watchdog is warning that extreme climate events will drive basic maintenance costs on transportation infrastructure drastically higher. 

In a new report out today, the Financial Accountability Office projects that extreme rainfall, heat and freeze-thaw cycles caused by the warming of the planet will increase the costs of maintaining roads, highways, bridges, sidewalks, transit and rail by an average of $1.5 billion per year in this decade. 

By 2030, Ontario’s provincial and municipal governments could be spending an average of $13.3 billion every year on infrastructure upkeep, let alone new projects. This is a 13 per cent increase in provincial and municipal transportation costs even if climate was stable — and that rise could be much more in a future of higher emissions, as much as 32 per cent.

The Financial Accountability Office’s role is to inform elected officials about present and future trends that could affect government spending. It doesn’t offer advice or instruction. Since 2019, the office has focused its calculations on one thing: the cost of climate change impacts on public infrastructure. 

The office’s analysis is unprecedented, the first in the world to study climate change impacts on infrastructure in granular financial detail. It has already put out six reports on the issue — on the potential impacts to essential services and buildings such as hospitals, schools, fire stations and more — with a final one coming towards the end of the year.

“The infrastructure that we’re building today will be around till 2080 or longer, so the infrastructure we design today needs to be able to withstand everything,” Peter Weltman, the financial accountability officer, told The Narwhal.

The takeaway of this report is that if you’re going to build 413, build it smart

Peter Weltman, Ontario Financial Accountability Officer

The provincial office is releasing its stunning numbers at a time when Canadians are already struggling to keep up with inflation on day-to-day expenses — driven by a variety of worldwide events, including global heating, economic slowdowns linked to the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

But the projected increases in costs are still modest when compared to a 2017 study published in Global Environmental Change, which found that the cost of repairing damage from heatwaves, floods and droughts on critical infrastructure in Europe could triple in the 2020s and multiply by 10 times by the end of the century.

The new Ontario report assesses the costs related to maintaining existing infrastructure as of 2020. Doug Ford’s proposed highway projects, like the Bradford Bypass or Highway 413, aren’t included. 

“The takeaway of this report is that if you’re going to build 413, build it smart,” Weltman said. “Build it while being mindful that it will become subjected to climate damage and build it to withstand that damage.” 

Ontario’s 444 cities, towns and other municipalities own 82 per cent of roads, bridges, transit lines and other transportation infrastructure, with the remainder owned by the province, says the report. Right now, Ontario’s entire transportation infrastructure is valued at $330 billion. If the climate remains stable, the province would spend an average of $12.9 billion every year to maintain it by 2030, the target year for climate commitments set by the Paris Agreement.

But the climate won’t remain stable — even if we were to drastically reduce emissions now, about 1.5 degrees of warming is almost certainly baked over the next two decades before any potential plateau or drop, according to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 

The financial watchdog is projecting an increase in Ontario’s annual number of hot days as well as its annual rainfall intensity. In recent months and years, Ontario has borne the impacts of several severe climate events, such as this summer’s derecho storm and subsequent flooding and heat waves. These events have put trains out of service and closed down major arterials. 

The financial watchdog’s report focuses largely on extreme heat and extreme rainfall, as those weather events are tracked closely and directly impact public infrastructure.

The report finds extreme rainfall can overwhelm drainage functions on roadways, erode and break arterials and bridges, and destroy pavement. 

Extreme heat can soften asphalt and create cracks that turn into potholes. Heat can also cause stress on steel rail tracks that prevent trains from running. Freeze-thaw cycles, or quick fluctuations between freezing and non-freezing temperatures that alternately melt and solidify water, can also damage road surfaces.

The costs of repairing all this infrastructure could be lowered if the government spends now on preventative tactics. The report outlines what this adaptation would require. For roads, it means using temperature-resistant asphalt. Increased water levels will require roads to have larger drainpipes and for waterways to be reinforced with large rocks. Buildings will need deeper foundations, while railways need more supports to keep them stable. 

The report finds that emissions will drastically increase how much provincial and municipal governments spend on infrastructure repair — but the sooner we act, the more affordable it will be. Weltman was struck by “the sheer size of the dollars” in the latest cost analysis, but also by the return on investment the government could get with a strong infrastructure adaptation strategy. 

“We have examples of what happens when transportation fails,” Weltman told The Narwhal. “B.C. flooding last year, we saw what happened…that’s the big risk that makes a strong business case for adapting now.”

“Governments and everyone else should use [this report] as a starting point to figure out how to build smarter going forward in a climate crisis,” Weltman said. 

Notably, according to the report, the amount of emissions Ontario produces will have a significant impact on the money spent on public infrastructure upkeep. In a medium-emissions scenario — which sees Ontario reduce some greenhouse gas emissions — the financial watchdog finds an adaptation strategy will increase costs by 13 per cent, or $1.7 billion, every year. In a high-emissions scenario — which sees Ontario take little to no emissions-reduction measures — the same costs increase by 23 per cent, or $2.9 billion, every year. Those costs decrease by a few billion dollars if the government acts proactively sooner to adapt all infrastructure. 

 “It’s important that as we renovate and build new things that we keep the climate in mind and spend the money we need to spend to make sure everything is resilient going forward,” Weltman said. “If you’re going to build, build it out so it’s going to do the job you intend it to do between now and 2100.”

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The federal government has declined a second time to intervene on Ontario’s plans to build the Bradford Bypass highway project through the protected Greenbelt north of Toronto. Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault confirmed the decision Thursday in a letter to a local advocacy group, which was shared with The Narwhal.

Late last year, environmentalists asked the Trudeau government to reconsider its May 2021 decision against designating the highway project for federal environmental assessment, as the bypass faced increasing scrutiny over its impact on the Greenbelt and questions about the provincial government’s transparency. But Guilbeault has sided with his predecessor Jonathan Wilkinson, allowing the signature Ford government project to go full-steam ahead.

In his letter, Guilbeault wrote, “there is no basis to revisit the former minister’s determination.”

The Bradford Bypass and its sister highway, the 413, are cornerstones of the Ford government’s re-election strategy. The province is fast-tracking the highway, with plans to put shovels in the ground on early works like bridges this spring.

Environmentalists said Guilbeault’s choice flies in the face of the federal government’s stated commitments to advance climate action, pointing to the emissions a new highway full of cars could generate. They also said the consequences for the Greenbelt and nearby Lake Simcoe could be disastrous.

“It shows that even though Guilbeault is saying he wants to do things differently, the fact of the matter is … it’s going to be status quo,” said Margaret Prophet, the executive director of the Simcoe County Greenbelt Coalition, one of the groups that requested a review from the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada.

The Bradford Bypass is an old idea resurrected by the Ford government

If built, the Bradford Bypass would connect Highway 400 and the 404, the two main highways drivers use to go north from Toronto. Though environmentalists have long opposed the plan, many locals frustrated with clogged roads have supported it. The Ontario Greens and NDP have called for the project to be cancelled, while the provincial Liberals have said it should be subjected to a more in-depth review.

Much of the highway’s 16.2-kilometre path would pass through farmland. It would also cross the Holland River, which drains into already-threatened Lake Simcoe, and slice through a delicate section of the Greenbelt called the Holland Marsh, which includes protected wetlands and endangered species habitat. The Holland Marsh is nicknamed “Ontario’s vegetable patch” because of its fertile soil for agriculture.

Ontario Transportation Minister Caroline Mulroney has argued that the Bradford Bypass would help relieve traffic as the region grows, betting that people who live in the commuter cities around Toronto will agree: “As Ontario welcomes millions of new people every five years, the problem is only going to get worse,” she said in November. 

Decades of research show that building more roads tends to attract more drivers instead of solving traffic woes, a concept called “induced demand.” Though they sometimes bring some amount of temporary relief, before long the new lanes are just as slow as the old ones. It’s an “outdated playbook,” Prophet said.

“(It) has been shown time and again to not work,” she added.

The idea of an east-west highway between the 400 and the 404 is decades old. It last received an environmental assessment in 1997, before provincial policies protecting the Greenbelt, the climate and Lake Simcoe existed. At the time, the review found road salt could contaminate groundwater and the Lake Simcoe watershed, the highway could cause issues with air pollution and that the Chippewas of Georgina Island First Nation, based on Lake Simcoe, had concerns about archaeological sites along the route. 

The province shelved the bypass in the 2000s under Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty. But his successor, Kathleen Wynne, put it back in Ontario’s long-range plans in 2017. It sat dormant for another two years before the Progressive Conservatives started pushing it forward in 2019. 

For a long time, the bypass flew under the radar as the 413 captured more public attention. The federal government has intervened on the 413. Last May, citing public concern over the highway, impact on endangered species and issues that might not be mitigated by the Ford government’s “streamlined” review process, it announced its own assessment, which could take months or possibly years. But it declined to do the same with the bypass, finding that Ontario’s environmental assessment rules would be enough oversight. 

“And at that time, there wasn’t a lot of ground organizing on the bypass,” said Laura Bowman of Ecojustice, one of the groups advocating against the project.

But the project returned to the public radar in October 2021, when the Ford government exempted the bypass from having to undergo a new environmental assessment. The province said it would still conduct a series of studies on the project, but didn’t commit to finishing or publishing them before starting construction. 

“With the exemption in place, obviously, the game had changed considerably,” Bowman said. There were other shifts too: since the original decision, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled against Ontario, Saskatchewan and Alberta that the federal carbon tax was valid, which environmentalists thought would shore up their arguments about Ottawa’s jurisdiction on climate issues.

A Toronto Star/National Observer investigation in late October showed that the province is seeking to re-route the Bradford Bypass around a golf course co-owned by the father of Progressive Conservative MPP Stan Cho, touching off a firestorm at Queen’s Park. The findings sparked an investigation by Ontario’s integrity commissioner, who found neither Cho nor Mulroney violated ethics rules. (Cho, who was appointed associate minister of transportation after ministry staff pitched the route change, said he has declared a conflict of interest on the file. Mulroney’s office said the route change was aimed at minimizing impact to the Holland River). 

“At no point has there been direction, pressure or suggestion from Minister Mulroney, Associate Minister Cho, or political staff during this technical process,” a spokesperson for the Ministry of Transportation said during the fallout.

Environmentalists cited the provincial exemption and the public concern sparked by the investigation when it sent a letter to Guilbeault days later, asking him to take another look at the bypass. They also say they had hoped the new environment minister, who has a history of climate activism, would be more open to their cause — his mandate letter included a direction to “provide funding to protect and restore” Lake Simcoe.

In the meantime, seven municipalities in the area have called for more in-depth studies of the bypass, though the communities directly along the route remain in favour.

In his letter, Guilbeault wrote that there have been “no material changes” to the project since Wilkinson’s decision last year.

The federal government has “a lot of questions to answer around consistency of decision making, as between this and Highway 413, there are a lot of similarities,” Bowman said. 

“The reality is, it goes through the same species at risk habitat that was the basis for the designation of the 413. It has similar greenhouse gas emission implications.”

What’s next for the controversial highway project?

Without the prospect of a federal impact assessment, the Ford government is free to keep pushing forward its plans to start work on the bypass. It started soliciting bids to design and build a bridge for the highway in November. 

Although the Progressive Conservatives want to start early works in the coming months, the project’s preliminary design isn’t expected to be done until December 2022, with the highway complete by 2024. Its final price tag also isn’t clear yet: the province has said the project would cost $800 million, but the Toronto Region Board of Trade estimated it could be $1.5 billion.

Even so, the project’s future isn’t guaranteed. Ontario is a few months away from an election. Polls indicate a Progressive Conservative victory isn’t a certainty, and all of the opposition parties at Queen’s Park are either calling for the bypass to be cancelled or re-examined. 

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Ontario Premier Doug Ford believes his road to re-election in 2022 is a highway. 

“While the Liberals and NDP constantly fight our infrastructure projects that reduce gridlock and get Ontarians to where they need to be, we are the party that gets things built,” read an email blast sent out Oct. 13 by Ford’s Progressive Conservatives.

But over the past year, Ford’s two major highway projects — Highway 413 and the Bradford Bypass — have come under increasing scrutiny amid concerns about their environmental impact and who could benefit if they’re built. Both are old proposals that the Progressive Conservatives revived and fast-tracked: previous governments had shelved them in the 2000s as a growing body of evidence began to show that new roads don’t actually reduce traffic congestion. 

The tension came to a head last week. On the heels of a Torstar/National Observer investigation showing that the Ford government is seeking to re-route the Bradford Bypass around a golf course co-owned by the father of a Progressive Conservative MPP, the province announced that for the first time, it had earmarked funding to advance Highway 413 and the bypass. 

“We are ready to build bigger,” Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy said. 

Critics were swift to condemn the move: “The premier thinks the road to recovery from COVID-19 is paving over paradise,” Ontario Green Party leader Mike Schreiner said.

Here’s what you need to know about Ford’s highway plans and the controversy swirling around them.

‘Congestion is a real problem’

The controversy over Ford’s highway plans is rooted in a deep divide over how best to fix the Greater Toronto’s Area’s congested road system. On average, drivers lose 142 hours — or about six days — to traffic jams annually, a report found in early 2020. 

For a long time, governments, particularly in North America, sought to unclog roads by building more routes. Over the last few decades, however, studies have shown that more roads simply attract more drivers, instead of solving the problem. This is called “induced demand:” soon enough, the new lanes tend to become just as congested as the old ones.

In population-dense southern Ontario, gridlock is forecast to worsen over the coming decades as more people move to the region. The Ford government says it believes highways are the best way to fix that — and by focusing on the issue ahead of the election, it’s betting that voters who rely on cars to get around will agree.

“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,” Ford’s Transportation Minister, Caroline Mulroney, said at Queen’s Park on Nov. 2.

“It’s been a problem for decades. It’s a problem today. As Ontario welcomes millions of new people every five years, the problem is only going to get worse.”

But the Greater Toronto Area’s transportation woes are going to be a lot more complex to solve, said Victor Doyle, a former provincial planner. Studies he saw during his time working for the government show that it would be impossible to build enough lanes to actually accommodate demand for car-based travel in the next 30 years, and that’s not accounting for highway-induced demand.

 “Thinking that these two little fragments of highway are going to solve our congestion problems in a rapidly growing city region of 10 million people is just a joke,” he said.

The federal government is intervening on Highway 413 

The Ford government’s first major highway project is the 413. It was first sketched out decades ago as part of an expressway that would ring from the Niagara region to the Toronto suburb of Vaughan. More recently, the 60-km route — also called the GTA West Corridor — would connect Vaughan with Milton, to the west. The PCs put it back on the table in late 2018. 

Months earlier, the previous Liberal government had shelved the project, which has a price tag between $6 billion and $10 billion, after an independent panel concluded it would save drivers less than a minute daily. (The Ford government argues it would actually save them half an hour.) 

Another concern was the 413’s environmental impact: the highway would cross the Greenbelt, a zone of protected land ringing around the Greater Toronto Area. Its route would harm 2,000 acres of farmland, cut through 85 waterways, damage 220 wetlands and disrupt the habitats of 10 species-at-risk.

At the time, there was a lot of talk about how the government should better protect the Greenbelt, increase access to public transit and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Doyle said. “Highways just weren’t the answer to our congestion problems,” he said.

The year after the PCs revived the idea, they promised to “streamline” the environmental assessment for Highway 413, which would allow the province to allow work on bridges and other early construction to begin before the review is completed. In 2020, they also passed a bill to water down Ontario’s environmental assessment regime overall. 

Grassroots opposition to the 413 started to simmer over the winter. By the spring, it had hit a boiling point. Under pressure from residents, a flurry of municipalities along the route — and even some local conservatives —  pulled their support for the 413. In April, an investigation by Torstar and National Observer found eight powerful developers, many of them prolific PC donors, owned over 3,300 acres of land near the highway’s proposed path, which could skyrocket in value if the highway was built. Some of the developers had hired lobbyists with ties to the PCs, including Mulroney’s former campaign chair.

In the meantime, environmentalists had asked the federal government to step in and assess the 413 and the Bradford Bypass, a 16-km connection between Highways 400 and 404. The federal environment minister at the time, Jonathan Wilkinson, announced in May that Ottawa would intervene on the 413, citing concerns whether the provincial process would address environmental concerns. The process is more rigorous than what the Ontario government had planned, and could delay the highway for months or possibly years. 

The provincial NDP, Liberals and Greens have all called for Highway 413 to be axed — again. All the while, Ford has maintained that the project will go ahead. “It’s going to save a tremendous amount of time,” he said at Queen’s Park in October 2021.

Highway 413 continued to generate backlash in the weeks leading up to the 2022 Ontario election. On April 18, The Star reported that the government’s chosen route for Highway 413 would cut through the protected Nashville Conservation Reserve, avoiding a future development project. The province made the decision in 2020 against the advice of consultants who warned that path would maximize damage to Ontario’s Greenbelt and and “undermine the credibility” of the highway.

The Bradford Bypass goes ‘behind closed doors’

Like Highway 413, the Bradford Bypass is an idea that dates back several decades. It’s also located in Toronto’s outer suburbs, and it would also run through the Greenbelt. But the bypass is markedly different, too: the municipalities along the route remain staunchly in favour, the federal government decided not to intervene and it comes with a unique set of environmental concerns. 

“They’re kind of a bit like apples and oranges,” Doyle said. “I wouldn’t say one is worse than the other. They’re both bad from an environmental perspective.”

The bypass would connect the two often-congested main routes drivers use to go north from Toronto. Many locals — accustomed to bumper-to-bumper traffic, especially on summer Fridays as city residents pass through en route to cottage country — have supported the project since its inception. Mulroney has said the new highway would cost $800 million to build, while the Toronto Region Board of Trade has estimated it would be roughly $1.5 billion.

In the 2000s, the Dalton McGuinty Liberal government shelved the bypass amid promises to increase access to public transit. McGuinty’s successor,  Kathleen Wynne, put the highway back into long-range plans in 2017, but the project didn’t move forward until the PCs formed government.

Ford and Mulroney announced the bypass was back on the books at Bradford’s Carrot Fest in 2019. “I give all the credit to Caroline [Mulroney],” the premier said, calling the transportation minister an “absolute champion.” The government has said the highway would save drivers up to 35 minutes on average for the length of the route.

The route would cut through the Holland Marsh section of the Greenbelt, which is nicknamed “Ontario’s vegetable patch” for its fertile soil. Settlers drained much of the marsh for agriculture in the 1920s; the highway would cut through the narrowest point of its remaining wetlands, which are supposed to be protected from development. It would also cross 27 waterways, including the Holland River, which drains into the already-threatened Lake Simcoe.

The bypass last received an environmental assessment in 1997, before the Greenbelt existed and before policies protecting the climate and Lake Simcoe were written. That review found that road salt from the highway could contaminate groundwater and the Lake Simcoe watershed, and that air pollution from the road could be higher than what’s recommended by current standards. It also noted that the Chippewas of Georgina Island First Nation, which is based on Lake Simcoe, had raised concerns about archaeological sites along the route. 

The Ford government has exempted the project from undergoing another full review, though it has said it is updating the old assessment with a fresh round of studies. As with Highway 413, the province may put shovels in the ground before the studies are complete.  

“The exemption from the Environmental Assessment Act doesn’t give me any confidence that we’re dealing with a high level of scrutiny,” Simcoe County Greenbelt Coalition executive director Margaret Prophet said.

“They’re choosing to go more behind closed doors.”

The Torstar/National Observer investigation into the government’s ties to the golf course being spared by the bypass was published on Oct. 31. The golf course is co-owned by MPP Stan Cho’s father. The route change was proposed in April — a few months later, Cho, who represents Willowdale in Toronto, became associate minister of transportation. 

The government said Cho had declared a conflict of interest and neither he nor Mulroney applied pressure or directed ministry staff to alter the highway’s path. It also said the proposed route change was meant to avoid an archaeological site and minimize impact to the Holland River, and was done by ministry staff working with external consultants.

The story touched off a firestorm at Queen’s Park.

“Why should anyone trust the integrity of this government’s transportation planning decisions, when they seem to be driven by the private interests of landowners with ties to the PC Party?” NDP MPP Catherine Fife asked in question period the next morning.

Ford fired back, calling the bypass “exactly the type of project this province needs.”

“The Liberals and NDP are against building roads. They’re against building highways,” the premier said. “If it was up to them, they’d vote against a cow pasture… We’re a party of building infrastructure, and we’ll get this province moving again.”

On Nov. 2, the provincial NDP also surfaced a photo of Cho and Mulroney visiting the golf course in March, a month before the government proposed rerouting the bypass. The party filed a complaint with Ontario’s integrity cOn Nov. 2, the provincial NDP also surfaced a photo of Cho and Mulroney visiting the golf course in March, a month before the government proposed rerouting the bypass. The party filed a complaint with Ontario’s integrity commissioner the same day, alleging that Cho, Mulroney and Ford had breached ethics guidelines. The government denied the allegations, and the commissioner later cleared them of any wrongdoing.

In response, Mulroney defended the government, reiterating that she hadn’t consulted with Cho about the route. “Minister Cho and his family, immigrants to Canada, have worked hard to contribute greatly to our community,” she added.

“They are success stories that should be celebrated. The depictions of the Chos as anything but success stories is unacceptable.”

What happens next on Highway 413 and the Bradford Bypass

On Nov. 4, the provincial government announced it was upping its investments in its highway program, which includes Highway 413 and the Bradford Bypass. It plans to spend $8.6 billion until 2023-2024, which likely would not be enough to finish both projects. At the same time, the Tories pledged to spend even more on public transit.

A coalition of local groups asked a second time for the federal government to conduct its own assessment of the Bradford Bypass. The law allows multiple requests if there’s new information — the groups argued that because the Ford government exempted the highway from the provincial environmental assessment process since the last request from environmental groups, circumstances had changed. 

They also argued that the Torstar/National Observer investigation into the project caused “escalating public concern,” which is one of the criteria Ottawa could use if it decided to conduct its own review. The groups hoped federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault — a former climate activist whose mandate letter specifically called on him to protect Lake Simcoe — would be more open to stepping in, but he declined the request on Feb. 10. 

The minister’s office did not directly answer when asked whether the decision conflicted with his mandate letter. The Impact Assessment Agency of Canada said in a statement that the project would still be subject to provincial studies and the federal Fisheries Act, which applies to construction and maintenance near any fish-bearing water.

Though the Ford government is continuing to push forward with the project, its opponents are still trying other avenues to stop it. On March 14, 2022 seven environmental and community groups filed a court challenge of Guilbeault’s decision, alleging that it was not based on evidence: included among them are Environmental Defence, Rescue Lake Simcoe Coalition and Simcoe County Greenbelt Coalition, all represented by Ecojustice.

Federal Court Judge Angela Furlanetto sided with the groups on April 20, 2022, finding that Guilbeault’s decision didn’t meet the “threshold for transparency, intelligibility and justification and is unreasonable as a result.” However, Furlanetto stopped short of throwing out the minister’s choice out entirely, meaning that it remains valid.

Zoryana Cherwick, a spokesperson for Ecojustice, said the judgement may clear the way for the environmental and community groups make a third request for the federal environment minister to look at the Bradford Bypass. Guilbeault’s office didn’t immediately answer a request for comment.

Prophet said it’s clear no more big highways should be built if the Ontario government wants to protect waterways and the climate.

“We have done such a good job of brainwashing the average person (to believe) that highways are a net benefit to all of us, which isn’t the case,” she said. “It’s just not right.”

Updated March 21, 2022, at 12:30 p.m. ET: This article was updated to include news that seven environmental and community groups have filed a lawsuit seeking to challenge Guilbeault’s decision not to subject the Bradford Bypass to a federal review.

Updated Nov. 16, 2021, at 1:39 p.m. ET: This article was updated to include the second public request for a federal assessment of the Bradford Bypass, and the NDP request to the Auditor General to investigate the planning and procurement processes of both highways.

Updated on Feb. 15, 2022 at 11:00 a.m. ET: This story was updated to include the results of the integrity commissioner’s investigation into the routing of the Bradford Bypass, and details of the federal government’s second decision not to intervene with the project.

Updated on April 26, 2022 at 11:53 a.m. ET: This story was updated to include news that the government decided to route Highway 413 through a conservation reserve against the advice of consultants.

Updated on April 25, 2023 at 3:20 p.m. ET: This story was updated to include news of a Federal Court decision on a challenge of Guilbeault’s decision not to give the Bradford Bypass an impact assessment.

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