Environmental Defence Report – Highlights

Ontario’s proposed highway projects (Highway 413, the Bradford Bypass, and the 401 Tunnel) are estimated to cost taxpayers $80 billion. These highways will do nothing to ease congestion, which is already costing Ontarians $45 billion per year. Instead they will worsen pollution, gridlock, and cost of living. We have found that if this money was spent on transit instead, we could move double the amount of people per hour. $80 billion could build enough light rail to connect Toronto to Sudbury!

A recent PC government report on the controversial Highway 413 project, pushed by Doug Ford and Ontario’s powerful residential development industry, acknowledges devastating environmental consequences including threats to at-risk species and the likely destruction of sensitive ecosystems.

“Exploitative,” Caledon resident and artist Andie Trépanier said.

“Criminal,” Toronto resident Sean Killackey said.

“Incompetence,” Brampton resident David Laing said.

“Destructive,” Toronto resident Corbin Sparks said.

These were some of the words Ontarians used when The Pointer asked them to describe, in a single word, how the Doug Ford government treated Ontario’s environmental framework in 2025.

Caledon resident Tony Sevelka’s days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months and now years since he started digging into the details of a proposed blasting mega-quarry steps away from his home. His quest led him to file a freedom of information request this summer, seeking access to all public objections to the contentious project. Instead, what he received revealed a systemic failure.

Toronto, along with municipalities across Ontario, has suffered an avalanche of provincial laws, regulations, and policies affecting planning and development, all without prior consultation or engagement with the City of Toronto and its residents. As a result, residents are largely unaware both of the changes, and their impacts, and of how the City has responded to them.

We recommend that the City work with and share its communication materials with other municipalities, and encourage them to communicate these changes and their impacts to their residents.

From Mexico to China, global examples of areas where laws are lifted in the name of economic development have seen people and the environment suffer — but the Ford government is still pressing ahead with Bill 5.

With Ontario’s contentious Bill 5 enacted, special economic zones could be coming to Canada for the first time. Touted by Premier Doug Ford as a sure-fire way to “unleash” the economy, the bill has sparked growing public resistance over its implications for Indigenous Rights, the environment, labour standards and democratic accountability. The global track record of special economic zones suggests these fears are well-founded.