Bill 212 is an egregious…

Bill 212 is an egregious overreach by the province into municipal affairs, creating unnecessary bureaucracy and preventing cities from making decisions tailored to their unique transportation needs. Spending taxpayer dollars—upwards of $48 million, on top of the $27 million in lost investment costs—to rip out the Bloor, Yonge, and University bike lanes is an outrageous misuse of public funds. These bike lanes are critical for urban mobility and providing alternatives to cars, and their removal will worsen gridlock by discouraging these viable options.

The Government's reliance on outdated statistics, like the Transportation Minister's claim that only 1.2% of commuters use bikes—a figure based on a 2011 Statistics Canada survey of the entire Toronto Census Metropolitan Area, predating most major bike lanes and covering suburban and rural areas without cycling infrastructure—is a glaring example of either embarrassing incompetence or deliberate deceit. Why is the Government bent on undermining public trust and wasting millions of taxpayer dollars on such a poorly informed agenda?

Recent Statistics Canada data show that cycling accounts for approximately 8.3% of commuter trips in University-Rosedale and 6% in Parkdale-High Park—areas in Toronto with decent bike lane access—providing clear evidence that the Bloor, Yonge, and University Ave bike lakes are well used. Citywide, data shows increased cycling adoption, with Bike Share Toronto reporting 5.7 million trips in 2023 alone. These numbers are significant considering that Toronto's cycling network remains in its infancy, and underscore the importance of infrastructure: where it exists, people use it. Removing these bike lanes will set the city back decades, pushing more commuters into cars, and further clogging roads. And of course, given that cycling may be some people's only means of transportation, it will inevitably increase cycling-related deaths.

If the Premier truly cared about reducing gridlock for the residents of Toronto, he would prioritize opening the Eglinton Crosstown LRT—a project four years overdue, $1 billion over budget, and still without a completion date. The lack of urgency and transparency from the Government on this issue is staggering, especially given its critical role in alleviating congestion.

But the bike lane controversy is a deliberate smokescreen, diverting attention from the more insidious provisions within Bill 212. The enactments under Schedule's 2 and 3 reveal the Government's real priorities and are an alarming overreach of power and display of negligence. Exempting Highway 413 from environmental assessments will destroy farmland, wetlands, and critical habitats, paving over hundreds of acres of environmentally sensitive greenspace and waterways, further exacerbating the already evident impacts of climate change. Additionally, the streamlined expropriation process erodes property rights, disproportionately affecting small communities.

The motivations behind Bill 212 are apparent when viewed within the broader context of the Ford Government’s ongoing pattern of catering to private profits over the public good. Insider deals, secrecy, and occlusion are consistent hallmarks of this administration, as demonstrated by the Greenbelt scandal. Highway 413, accelerated by Bill 212, follows this same trajectory: dismantling environmental protections, sidestepping accountability, and shifting the financial burden of these reckless policies on to taxpayers. Ontarians are left to shoulder the consequences—lost farmland, degraded ecosystems, worsened gridlock and worsened climate impacts—all while footing the bill for infrastructure that serves private, not public, interests.

This bill is not about reducing gridlock. It’s a smokescreen for advancing reckless policies and authoritarian overreach into municipal affairs. Instead of dismantling sustainable infrastructure, the government should focus on completing overdue transit projects and respecting the rights of its taxpayers. Bill 212 is an affront to urban progress, environmental sustainability, and public accountability. It will fail to relieve congestion and will cause long-term harm to the communities of Ontario.