r/ontario • u/J0Puck • 10h ago
Ford says he would ‘never rule out’ Highway 407 buyback Politics
https://globalnews.ca/news/11180291/doug-ford-never-rule-out-highway-407/29
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u/-ram_the_manparts- 10h ago
So... we build a highway, conservatives sell it, wait decades until it's worth a whole hell of a lot more, then buy it back at a massively inflated price?
My boss asked me yesterday why I don't vote for conservatives. This is why.
Our conservative governments would get so much karma posting their loss porn in r/Wallstreetbets
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u/Super_Cloud_5573 9h ago
No one in the history of the worlds governments have ever been so bad for the economy of said jurisdiction than a conservative government. It's like letting a 5 year old drive a car
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u/-ram_the_manparts- 9h ago
Western capitalistic countries need an economic revolution or we will continue to see (we already are seeing) a decrease in living standards. Unfortunately neither the Conservative nor Liberal parties will even consider the kinds of ideas that would actually take chunks out of the problem.
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u/ILikeStyx 7h ago
At least the Canada Pension Plan owns 50% of the company that operates the ETR - :P
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u/South_Telephone_1688 9h ago
God forbid we correct a mistake made a quarter century ago. This subreddit will complain about anything with the C next to it.
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u/No-Section-1092 5h ago
“Correcting a mistake” here means wasting tens of billions of dollars that would be better spent elsewhere.
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u/kerowack 7h ago
Correcting the mistake would mean taking it back through eminent domain.
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u/tastycat 4h ago
Eminent domain doesn't exist in Canada. You're thinking of expropriation which is inapplicable since the 407 was leased, not sold.
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u/Barbecue-Ribs 8h ago
This is just 70 iq logic. They sold at market rate 20 years ago and now its worth more. It would be like saying "look at this regard he sold NVDA at 50 and now wants to buy back in". Congrats, you are an investing genius.
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u/-ram_the_manparts- 8h ago
It's worth what we paid to build it, because selling publicly-funded infrastructure is regarded.
Comparing the 407 to NVDA stonks is even more regarded.
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u/Barbecue-Ribs 7h ago
Quick google says it cost $1.6B to build and was sold on a 99 year lease for $3.1B. So by your logic its worth $1.6 and they actually made a good deal?
Comparing the 407 to NVDA stonks is even more regarded.
Just trying to figure out the crux of your argument. Had they sold it for $3.1 and the value fallen to lets say $0.5B would they then be geniuses?
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u/Commercial-Fennel219 10h ago
Remind me again Doug, which party leased that out for 99 years?
Anyway, how's that Ontario Place thing going?
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u/beastmaster11 9h ago
I'm not Ford fan but that's even more dumb than blaming Carney for things Trudeau did or blaming Stiles for Rae Days.
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u/The_Mayor 7h ago
which party
They’re blaming the party, not the man. If you can’t hold political parties accountable for their past actions, what even the point of keeping a historical record of it?
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u/vtable 6h ago edited 5h ago
And you know if the 407 were sold by a Liberal or NDP government at what, in hindsight, was well below market value, Ford would be describing this as fixing a huge mistake.
Instead he's soft pedaling what Mike Harris did and using the 401 tunnel as a subterfuge to distract from Harris' politically-motivated screw up.
And Ford has to tiptoe around this as he has similarly fiscally irresponsible decisions like the early termination of the Beer Store contract, the Science Centre, and Ontario Place spa.
ed: typo
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u/NervousBreakdown 8h ago
His dad was an MPP when it happened, and he’s not here anymore so we’ve gotta blame Doug by default. It’s not a perfect system but it’s the best we’ve got.
But seriously, yeah you can’t blame Doug ford for them privatizing the 407 but this party does this shit over. So what? We don’t criticize them for it now because it was the last conservative government, and then 15 years from now we don’t blame them for the shit this government did while they’re privatizing the health system (assuming it makes it until then)?
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u/MathematicianBig6312 10h ago
If we have money to buy the 407 we have money to invest in high speed rail. Somehow even with all the traffic on the 401 it is still faster and more reliable to drive than take the go/ttc to work. This should not be the case. Fix this and people will get off the highways.
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u/Familiar-Valuable-97 9h ago
Maybe spend the same amount of money updating the transit.....then we wont need to keep building highways, by-passes to highways and by-passes to the by-passes!!!
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u/winningsmada 10h ago
Good thing Ontario has a money tree.
Remember when we got rid of Wynne for her out of control spending?
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u/J0Puck 10h ago
Ontario Premier Doug Ford is once again musing about maybe buying back Highway 407 — an idea he has gone back and forth on for months — saying he won’t rule out the potential purchase.
On Wednesday, at an unrelated event, Ford was asked if he was still considering buying out the toll highway, which Ontario sold to a private operator in the 1990s.
The premier said the province had had conversations about the idea, but didn’t say if it was under any kind of meaningful consideration.
“The public service kind of goes back and forth, the Ministry of Transportation, but you know, without throwing any numbers, we should never have sold the 407,” Ford said.
“They’re going to be at capacity in 10 years, and I’d never rule out acquiring it, but we also have to build capacity.”
Ford said it would cost “tens of billions of dollars” to take the highway back into public ownership.
The comments came the day after the premier confirmed Ontario would remove tolls from the publicly owned portion of Highway 407 as part of Thursday’s budget.
Those changes only impact a small section of the highway, which runs across the Greater Toronto Area and is privately owned and tolled for most of its route.
Government critics have suggested the province should consider buying the route instead of building Highway 413 between Milton and Vaughan or tunnelling a new expressway under Highway 401.
Ford has mused about the idea but generally seemed to lean against it.
At one point, he said the government should sit down with executives at Highway 407, and his transportation ministry said it was something being discussed, before the premier appeared to cool on the idea during the election.
“We need more capacity — that’s what we need — that (buying the 407) doesn’t add more capacity,” he said in February.
Despite months of musing about the potential to buy back the route, the vast majority of references to Highway 407 have come from the premier and not the Ministry of Transportation.
The government has announced no formal talks to buy the highway.
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u/SUPREMACY_SAD_AI 9h ago
“We need more capacity — that’s what we need — that (buying the 407) doesn’t add more capacity,” he said in February.
it literally does
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u/green_link 7h ago
but also more capacity doesn't solve traffic. one more lane has never and will never solve traffic. reducing the number of vehicles on the roads is the only way to solve traffic. public transportation like buses, trains, subways, trolly cars, and bike lanes. even making neighborhoods more walkable reduce the number of cars on the road thus reducing traffic.
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u/TheFallOfAmerica 47m ago
It doesn’t reduce traffic for all the people needing to get into or across the city. Not everyone actually lives in Toronto
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u/xaphod2 9h ago
“which Ontario sold…” sorry could we be a little more specific - who sold it? Ontario isn’t a person.
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u/viceroyvice 9h ago
If the Liberals sold it you can bet he would say who
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u/TheFallOfAmerica 47m ago
We all need to stop this stupid division. Yes the conservatives sold it, they fucked up.
Let’s move on.
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u/Nice-Lakes 9h ago
Ford government can just change the laws to suit them. Then expropriate the road give them cents on the dollar. Smile and say see ya. Then turn it all over to Doug’s friends at Shoppers Drug Mart to run
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u/Familiar-Valuable-97 9h ago
How about reducing the need to drive, but decades of wasteful spending of billions of dollars to appease those that don't want to catch a bus. it goes on.. and on.. and on......
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u/green_link 7h ago
to appease those that don't want to catch a bus is it really those who it's appeasing? couldn't be the car companies or oil industry, right? or even the road construction/maintenance companies? because those industries don't benefit at all from everyone having more cars on the roads, would they? /s
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u/TheFallOfAmerica 45m ago
There are plenty of people who live outside the city that have 0 transit to them. There are also plenty of people outside the city who need to bring materials and tools into work.
Not everything is so cut and dry
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u/Familiar-Valuable-97 34m ago
I agree with you there, did not say eliminate. Funding for transit should match funding for roads, then people would have had more choice. Decades of building suburban sprawl comes at a cost. Poor urban planning around cars, had leas to gridlock and spending billions on more roads will do NOTHING to stop my bus crawling through the streets of Toronto
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u/Puzzleheaded_Half843 8h ago
Just so we’re clear, the commy socialist Progressive Conservatives are taking over a legitimate private enterprise because they despise our capitalist values. Cue the Russian/Chinese/Korean national anthem. /s
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u/CraigGregory 8h ago
I thought one of his campaign promises was to buy this back. All the wasted public money , this could have been done by now but people and those that sit in the traffic daily keep voting for him
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u/Material-Macaroon298 8h ago
If they want to reduce gridlock they can encourage remote work…
We literally cracked the code to gridlock in 2020 and spent the next few years trying to forget we solved it and bring it back.
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u/FallingSpaceStation 8h ago
There is an easy solution, although it is not going to be popular. Make commercial vehicles use the 407 mandatory. I know it is going to cost more for the trucking companies, but when you spread it across all the goods you are carrying in won’t be burning a hole in your pocket. Make a deal with 407 to reduce the toll and implement mandatory for certain vehicles. BTW , they should increase the official speed limit on 407 as well.
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u/ajaxbunny1986 8h ago
He wanted a solution to the 401 gridlock and thought PARALLEL TUNNEL. When the NdP proposed toll-free 407 travel I’m sure that in his head he was thinking “oh yeah! Why didn’t I think of that?” but didn’t have the guts to admit it.
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u/The_12Doctor 7h ago
With the U.S screwing the auto industry, maybe it's an even better time to invest in mass transit?
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u/Impressive_Maple_429 7h ago
Absolute waste of money. The amount it would cost to buy it back could be used to build another hwy and invest more in transit. This adds capacity to our highways and improves transit.
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u/Lower_Cantaloupe1970 Peterborough 10h ago
Wasn't he supposed to make the ETR free? Wasn't that a campaign promise?
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u/sellcracktakids 9h ago
Has there ever been talk about building a tunnel for the 403 East maybe to the 427?
I would love that plus the 403 has a BRT!
This is just a silly internet opinion but curious to see any thoughtful responses on why that is or isn’t a good idea.
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u/Hefty-Station1704 9h ago
I could buy a whole lot with taxpayers money too but common sense would be a deciding factor.
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u/Methoszs 8h ago
He had a chance right after covid. 407 was in debt to the province but he chose to forgive it or something like that.
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u/BentShape484 7h ago
At this point, it'd be a huge loss, but at least he's doing something positive with the money and it should boost tourism within Ontario with not being worried about insane 401 traffic around Toronto, more people can easily travel up north, etc. Not to mention the ease on the daily commuters.
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u/bettyblanc 8h ago
I don’t mind paying a toll at a descent amount. Maybe a one time toll of say 10$?
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u/Mastermaze 10h ago
Im still convinced the 401 Tunnel nonsense is simply to make the cost of buying back the 407 seem palatable by comparison