The Bradford Bypass will not get a Federal Impact Assessment after all. 

Bypass opponents had been pinning their hopes on the new Minister for the Environment and Climate Change, Steven Guilbeault, who, alas, turns out to be a damp squib. He came to the conclusion

“there is no basis to revisit the former minister’s determination.”

The Federal route is a dead end.

Bypass Petition

Guilbeault's decision swiftly followed Leah Taylor Roy's presentation of her bypass petition to the House of Commons last Tuesday. The new MP for Aurora-Oak Ridges-Richmond Hill reminded MPs that:

“the existing assessment was done over 25 years ago, in 1997, and on October 7 of last year, the Ontario government exempted this project from a provincial environmental assessment…

“The bottom line is that these petitioners are asking the federal government to do its duty, because the Province of Ontario did not. It is the Government of Canada's duty and responsibility to deliver on both ensuring the climate change targets that Canada committed to on the international stage and, more importantly, ensuring that we do everything we can to protect our fragile ecosystem.”

Her pleas fell on deaf ears.

I don’t know if she had a one-to-one conversation with the Minister before he made his announcement – or if she had the active support of my own MP, the Delphic retired banker, Tony Van Bynen. But I rather doubt it. I suspect she was on her own.

So, what next?

Everything now turns on Doug Ford losing his majority in the provincial election on 2 June 2022. And the NDP and Liberals coming to some kind of accommodation if neither wins an outright majority (which, as I write, seems likely).

Last November iPolitics told us the NDP would cancel the bypass and the Liberals would consider building it:

but Leader Steven Del Duca said in an email that “no shovel should go in the ground until all the relevant studies, including the environmental assessment, have been updated in an open and transparent way.”

Del Duca, who has always been robust in his criticism of Highway 413, is much more nuanced when it comes to the Bradford Bypass. For some time now he has been sending out signals that if the municipalities want the bypass they can have it.

But things are not so straightforward. Municipalities in favour of the bypass are also calling for updated environmental studies.

Wilkinson got it right

The Minister, Steven Guilbeault, refuses to intervene, saying his predecessor, Jonathan Wilkinson, got it right when he concluded in May 2021 that:

“the regulatory review processes that apply to the Project and related consultations with Indigenous peoples provide a framework to address the potential adverse… effects and public concerns raised in relation to those effects.”

But four months later, in October, the Ford Government exempted the Bradford Bypass from key requirements of the Environmental Assessment Act 1990 using regulation 697/21.

On 13 January 2022, York Region’s Committee of the Whole quizzed officials from the Ministry for Transportation about this very issue.

Newmarket’s Mayor John Taylor wants to know what the Ministry doesn’t have to do now – thanks to regulation 697/21 - that they would have had to do before.

We wait to hear.

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See also the analysis behind Jonathan Wilkinson's decision of May 2021.

Click "read more" to read the reaction from Groups calling for updated environmental studies.

PRESS RELEASE February 10, 2022

Simcoe County, ON – The Impact Assessment Agency of Canada has announced it will not revisit its decision to deny a Federal Impact Assessment designation for the Bradford Bypass. The request to review that decision was initiated by three small groups of residents all of which will be affected by the Bradford Bypass, Forbid Roads Over Greenspaces (FROGS), the Concerned Citizens of King Township (CCKT) and the Stop the Bradford Bypass group based in Bradford West Gwillimbury. Minister Guilbeault agreed with the agency’s recommendation that since “there have not been any material changes to the Project ” there was no need to revisit the decision.

The groups who launched the request to revisit the designation cite that Ontario’s exemption from the Environmental Assessment Act, found significant archeological sites, weakening of endangered species protection and municipal requests to understand impacts to Lake Simcoe were significant enough to demonstrate a lot has changed since the first request and deserving of a second look.

“Because the federal government and its agencies have decided to let this go without any further study, we are going in blind now. We don’t have a budget; we don’t have engineering studies; we don’t know what it’s going to do to Lake Simcoe and none of that will matter. Build now, pay the price later. It seems no level of government cares enough about the known impacts – water contamination, loss of endangered species habitat, loss of fisheries, destruction of ancient heritage sites, increased carbon emissions – to do what they were elected to do. This will only embolden the speculators who are already buying up huge amounts of farmland around the bypass to convert into sprawl. It seems no level of government is particularly concerned about how we will feed ourselves or ensure our water stays clean,” says Bill Foster, a founding director of Forbid Roads Over Green Spaces (FROGS), which has fought the highway since 1993.

Claire Malcolmson, Executive Director of the Rescue Lake Simcoe Coalition says, “So this is how we make decisions in the midst of a climate emergency with Lake Simcoe on the brink? We just let bureaucratic inertia and fear of change prevent us from saving ourselves? This decision is beyond disappointing. Can’t wait to tell the kids how little anyone with the power to change the status quo cares about them and their future.”

“I am very disappointed with this outcome,” says Tricia Hulshof of the Stop the Bradford Bypass group, “but I am most disappointed for neighbours along the route who were hoping that they would have more time before their homes are expropriated. However, the resolve against this highway continues and is growing stronger. People are concerned about the cost, the harm to the Holland Marsh Wetland and Lake Simcoe. We will continue to speak out for them. Our future generations, our communities and Lake Simcoe have been abandoned by every level of government.”

Concerned Citizens of King Township (CCKT) Chair, Bruce Craig says, “Seven Lake Simcoe watershed municipalities requested an Impact Assessment for the Bradford Bypass project. The Province of Ontario is not respecting these wishes, and now the Federal government has shown that they won’t support local priorities either. This is no way to protect Lake Simcoe.”

Margaret Prophet, Executive Director of the Simcoe County Greenbelt Coalition says, “We were hoping that the federal government would make good on its global climate commitments and interest in Lake Simcoe. Today’s announcement shows that status quo highway building that pollutes our air and water will continue unabated by the federal government or the province. My kids have done nothing to deserve the estimated extra 89 M kilograms of carbon that will be created each year from this highway, but they will suffer the consequences of this decision. Now it will be up to the people who want better, including our youth, to keep pushing for the change we need, not the change that some deem politically possible.”

“Many municipalities and the people within rely on a healthy Lake Simcoe for quality of life and livelihoods. The Lake Simcoe watershed supports a $240 million / year sustainable recreation sector, but of course it relies on healthy water and fish. This decision kicks fishing, swimming, and sustainable recreation providers in the gut, in favour of sprawl, pollution, and an expensive highway that won’t solve local traffic congestion issues. Lake Simcoe has been completely abandoned by many of the political leaders who say they love it”, says Malcolmson of the Rescue Lake Simcoe Coalition

The group states that this won’t be the end of the opposition – the highway is too destructive and too costly to allow it to go unchecked as the province and some municipalities along the route have chosen to do.

Says Prophet, “Almost 50% of people in the region don’t want this highway. We will continue to speak for them and the 7 municipalities and local leaders who are equally concerned about this project. We won’t stand idly by while neighbours are being forced from their homes, ancient burial sites are destroyed and endangered species’ habitat is bulldozed. This is an agenda to destroy the Ontario we know and love. Now it’s only people that stand in the way and up to them to demand better.”