Northern Ontario NDP MPPs are again pushing for their colleagues at Queen’s Park to improve winter maintenance standards on Highways 11 and 17.
“This is the right thing to do,” Mushkegowuk—James Bay NDP MPP Guy Bourgouin told Sudbury.com of Bill 59. “It’s not a partisan bill, it just saves lives.”
For their part, the province affirmed in emailed correspondence with Sudbury.com that they’re looking to improve standards on these highways at trial locations this winter.
At issue is the fact these roadways are listed as Class 2 highways, which means they’re to be cleared of snow within 16 hours of a snowfall event. Class 1 highways are cleared within eight hours.
Bourgouin is the MPP behind “Bill 59, Making Northern Ontario Highways Safer Act 2022,” which seeks to reclassify these two highways as Class 1. The bill was last raised in 2019, when the Progressive Conservatives shot it down with a vote of 59-38.
Last week, it passed second reading and was referred to the Standing Committee on Regulations and Private Bills, where Bourgouin said he hopes it doesn’t die a second death.
“They’re a majority government,” he said, pointing blame to the Progressive Conservatives in the event it doesn’t pass. “They pass bills quickly when it fills their needs, and why can’t we do this when it’s the needs of people losing their lives on the road.”
Nickel Belt NDP MPP France Gélinas has joined Sudbury NDP MPP Jamie West by speaking in favour of Bill 59 in recent days, and told Sudbury.com constituents are fired up about snow clearing.
“We have been sort of fortunate this winter that we only had maybe four big snowfalls,” Gélinas said, adding that with each snow event she gets “dozens and dozens” of phone calls from people complaining about delays in snow clearing efforts.
There has been an increasingly emotional bent to their phone calls, she said, and the COVID-19 pandemic has been tearing people apart for so long that any additional strain on people’s ability to visit one another exasperates people’s existing frustrations.
“It adds to this COVID and everybody being at the end of their rope, it makes for some really, really angry people,” she said. “This is pushing good people beyond their resiliency.”
Although Bourgouin’s bill advocates for Highways 11 and 17, Gélinas said that she also wants to see Highways 69, 101 and 144 be included as Class 1 and that management for winter road maintenance be brought back into the public sector if contract standards are not met.
In 2015, Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk said Ontario roads became less safe after the Liberals changed the way they contracted out winter road maintenance in 2009, with it taking longer for roads to be cleared of snow following weather events.
“We’re all putting pressure on the government to change things, and at a minimum bring back supervision under the public realm so it is employees of the government who enforce the contracts from the government,” Gélinas said.
For now, she said that Bill 59 is a good start.
A provincial spokesperson noted in email correspondence with Sudbury.com that they are looking at improving conditions on Northern Ontario highways.
This winter, they will be conducting a “trial implementation of bare pavement target at select locations along Highways 11 and 17,” they said.
“We take winter maintenance very seriously and share the same goals when it comes to improving our performance even more. We completely agree that more needs to be done to ensure that drivers can get from point A to B safely, despite winter weather conditions, particularly in the North.
“We are currently looking at ways to carefully and deliberately improve winter maintenance operations and hope to be able to share more very soon.”
In recent months, West, who was recently named NDP critic for northern infrastructure, transportation and roads, has also been advocating that the province complete the four-laning of Highway 69 – a longstanding point of contention for area politicians.
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.