50,000 sign petition asking feds to block Ontario's Highway 413 project

A major environmental group is calling on the federal government to block Ontario's controversial Highway 413, saying the proposed 52-kilometre motorway would be costly to taxpayers and damaging to the environment.

The David Suzuki Foundation is asking the federal minister of environment, Steven Guilbeault, to intervene and stop the project through a petition that's racked up more than 50,000 signatures.

Gideon Forman, a climate change policy analyst with the foundation, says the highway — which would run from Highway 401 in York Region to Highway 400 in Halton Region — would incentivize more fuel-burning vehicles, pave thousands of acres of farmland and hundreds of acres of Greenbelt and threaten endangered species along the route.

"It's a colossal waste of money," said Forman, adding that public transit and other existing highways would serve as better means of transportation.

He says the project is expected to cost Ontario roughly $8 billion.

"For half the cost of Highway 413, we could basically fix the homelessness problem in this province," he added.

Advocacy organization Environmental Defence did an extensive environmental assessment of the project, concluding it would add over 17 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

The organization's executive director, Tim Gray, says the previous Liberal government scrapped the project in early 2018 after a panel of experts it commissioned concluded it would do little to save commute time.

Despite this, Gray tells CBC News it's the risk to federally-protected species along the proposed route that warrants federal intervention.

"There are federal species at risk, dozens of them that would be impacted," he said.

He says federal law allows the environment minister to determine if a project can go ahead if its environmental impacts outweigh the benefits.

Impact Assessment Agency of Canada, the federal agency responsible for environmental assessments of major projects, confirmed to CBC News in an email that the then-federal environment minister designated the project in 2021, but the agency is still awaiting what's called an initial project description from Ontario's Ministry of Transportation.

The agency says the David Suzuki Foundation's petition and any other information from the public would be considered during the planning phase of the project, if that description meets the agency's requirements.

The government of Ontario declined to answer questions about the highway's costs, environmental impacts or the concerns of the petitioners.