Ford government failed to follow expert advice on highway projects, auditor general finds | Daily News Byte

The Ford government ignored internal expert advice when making key decisions about building or expanding highways in the province, a new report by Ontario’s auditor general has found.

Ontario’s Auditor General’s annual report found the Ford government chose to pause six already funded highways — including two in Northern Ontario — in favor of four government-prioritized highways.

The report also found that the province “did not provide justification” when it removed tolls from two Durham Region highways, confirming details previously reported by Global News.

In 2019, the province classified the expansion of four provincial highways as priority projects — a decision that came at the expense of six projects already approved for construction.

That decision, made by the transport minister’s office, came despite the fact that the government’s four priorities were ranked lower by internal technical staff, the auditor general found.

“The combined proposals exceed the planned 10-year budget by $245 million,” the report said.

It also noted that the priorities were communicated by the government to ministry officials in meetings rather than in emails or letters while “leaving an incomplete record of how these decisions were made, by whom, and why,” said the auditor general.

The projects added by the government are the expansion of Highway 401, Highway 3 and two sections of Highway 17. They got an average of 469 points. The deferred plans included Highway 401, Highway 416 and Highway 11, and scored an average of 560 points.

“We found that the government made many changes to highway priorities, without reviewing all the relevant facts from their experts,” auditor general Bonnie Lysyk wrote in her annual report.

The report found that delaying six highway projects in favor of four others resulted in $158 million in public money being diverted from projects in the north down to southern Ontario.

“Our audit found that Ontario does not yet have an overall long-term transportation strategy in place,” the report said.

The auditor general said the ministry’s records indicate that 2019 is the first time in a decade — from 2012 to 2022 — that the timing of new highway projects was not planned by technical experts.

Lysyk says it won’t be the last.

The infrastructure plans submitted in 2021/22 included three government priorities that experts would not have pushed for at the time, according to the report. Those projects are the Bradford Bypass — listed as a medium priority — and expansions to both Highway 6 and Highway 40.

The cost of current government priorities for highways, including Highway 413, is on course to exceed spending over the past decade, pegged at about $8.1 billion, the report said.

The Bradford Bypass and Highway 413 have become flashpoints for opposition parties and environmental advocates.

Both Highway 413 and the Bradford Bypass are a key plank of the PC Party’s 2022 re-election campaign. By June 2022, Doug Ford — with the support of several key private sector unions — has positioned his party as the only deliver major construction projects.

In its response to the auditor general, included in its annual report, the Ministry of Transportation said it “agrees to take steps to implement recommended actions in instances where the government’s objectives do not conform to the Ministry’s subject matter experts.”

The same report found that the province removed tolls earlier than planned from two Durham highways that had their tolls removed and that no government was preparing an excuse to speed up the process.

Lysyk said the government “has not identified all the major risks of removing tolls.”

As previously reported by Global News, the province initially planned not to remove tolls on Highways 412 and 418 until the budget is balanced.

Then, before the 2022 election, the Ford government accelerated its timeline.

According to provincial documents, “the then Minister promises to revisit the tolls once the budget is balanced.”

But as the Progressive Conservatives prepare to fight for a second consecutive mandate in June’s election, the province has had a change of heart. In April, the province announced it would remove “unfair tolls” from Highways 412 and 418.

Two briefing notes obtained by Global News through a freedom of information request show then-transportation minister John Yakabuski and then-treasury board president Peter Bethlenfalvy discussing the removal of tolls in Oct. 22, 2018, with two Durham Region Progressive Conservative MPPs.

The Ministry has estimated that, over the next 30 years, lost toll revenue related to these proposals will be $608 million, according to the auditor general.

Lysyk said Ontario’s highways are the best maintained in the country with the lowest fatality rates.

© 2022 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.