NDP’s Stiles, Vaugeois visit Thunder Bay weigh station to highlight inaction on Northern highways
Sarkaria to visit “in the coming weeks”
10:13am Update: new photo added
Marit Stiles, Leader of the Official Opposition and Ontario NDP MPP Lise Vaugeois (Thunder Bay—Superior North) held a press conference at the new, yet-to-open Thunder Bay weigh station on January 16th. The purpose of the event was to highlight the Conservative government’s inaction to prioritize road safety following the senseless fatalities of five Northern Ontarians within the past month.
“Nearly every day, we see Highways 11 and 17 closed due to a tragic collision. The situation has spiraled so far out of control that people are scared to drive to work or to drop their kids off at school. Five deaths within the past month would be unimaginable in Southern Ontario and should serve as a wake-up call,” said Stiles. “Again and again, the NDP has come up with common-sense solutions for this Ford government to implement and save lives, and they’ve ignored every single one. While the Ford Government is asleep at the wheel, Northern Ontarians are paying with their lives. They cannot afford to wait.”
“We’ve been working with truckers, other road users, and victims’ families – who else does Ford need to hear from? The recent Auditor General’s report affirmed everything people have been saying for years. These issues are not new… the Conservatives simply choose not to listen,” Vaugeois said. “Unfortunately, we don’t have other highways to bypass accidents and bad road conditions. We cannot continue to lose lives.”
Last October, Minister of Transportation Prabmeet Sarkaria announced that would visit Ontario’s northern highways this winter: “We’ve made significant expansions and commitments to investments on highway 11, highway 17, we’re going to be I’m going to personally be visiting the North as well to take a look at all the highways and ensure that we’re working towards and continue to work towards safety continuously being a priority there,” Sarkaria said on October 20th. In an email to Road Warrior News received on January 12, Sarkaria’s office said he plans to visit the northern highways “in the coming weeks.”
Photo: NDP
Travis McDougall, co-founder of Truckers for Safer Highways (TFSH), joined the press conference via Zoom – organizers put a lap top on a table and McDougall “zoomed in” from his transport truck, which he had pulled over and parked in order to join the event.
“My work schedule just would not allow me to be there in person,” McDougall told Road Warrior News. “But I did want to support it, so I parked the truck and zoomed in on my cell phone, which worked pretty well.”
McDougall is a full-time driver who founded Truckers for Safer Highways with his friend Jeff Orr three years ago after a winter of horrible accidents on Ontario’s northern highways. The TFSH’s mission is “to promote and advocate for more enforcement and safety within the trucking industry;” McDougall has been consistent in calling for more and better enforcement of Ontario’s existing highway traffic laws and regulation.
“I can drive from from the GTA to the Manitoba border and never pass an open weigh scale,” he has stated in numerous interviews. “Ontario has got to hire the staff to keep the inspection stations open.” McDougall visited the Thunder Bay facility in summer 2023; he believes it will be a big help when it is finally opened, but that it needs to be staffed and operating regularly.
“The location of the Thunder Bay scale is great, it will basically catch traffic going in all directions,” he says. “I hope it’s going to be open soon, especially after spending $30 million on it. But MTO staff are now saying it will be operational ‘as needed.’ I wonder, what does that mean?”
Thunder Bay weigh scale: “I hope it will be open pretty regular,
several days per week for many hours per day,” he noted after MTO staff
announced the $30 million inspection station will be open only
“as needed.” Video: TFSH
Some of ideas Marit Stiles and the Ontario NDP’s solutions are offering to improve Northern Highways include:
- Prohibit passing or attempting to pass another vehicle going in the same direction on a highway “Chads law”
- 24/7 staffing of truck inspection station to ensure commercial drivers’ and vehicles’ competency and safety.
- Ensure snow removal on Northern Ontario Highways meets the same standard as Southern Ontario significant routes.
- Improve regulations of trucking schools and better-monitored training processes.
Ontario’s northern transportation plan “Connecting the North” was released by then-Transportation Minister Caroline Mulroney in December, 2020.
