Ont. NDP launch northern highway safety tour

Ontario NDP have launched a nine-day 'Our Roads, Our Safety' northern tour to address frequent crashes and closures on Highways 11 and 17.

The Ontario NDP has kicked off a nine-day tour of the north, aiming to spotlight what they describe as perilous driving conditions on Highways 11 and 17 and to demand immediate government action on road safety.

The tour, dubbed ‘Our Roads, Our Safety,’ began Tuesday and will see NDP Leader Marit Stiles and a caucus of northern MPPs travel through 15 municipalities. The delegation plans to hold town hall meetings and speak directly with residents who rely on the two arteries to document ongoing concerns about highway infrastructure and maintenance.

“If you’re really serious about northern Ontario and you’re serious about how significant northern Ontario is and you’re really serious about protecting this country from the threats it faces in other places, this isn’t a project here and there kind of thing,” said Timiskaming-Cochrane MPP John Vanthof, speaking to reporters at Queen’s Park before the tour’s departure.

Vanthof highlighted the stark disparity in safety between northern and southern routes, noting that travelers are far more at risk on the two-lane highways that serve as critical links for communities and industry.

“You’re 10 times more likely to die on a provincial highway in Temiskaming than on a provincial highway in Brampton,” Vanthof said.

MPPs call two-lane highways ‘weak links’ for Ring of Fire development

The NDP caucus, which includes Mushkegowuk-James Bay MPP Guy Bourgouin, Kiiwetinoong MPP Sol Mamakwa, Thunder Bay-Superior North MPP Lise Vaugeois, Nickel Belt MPP France Gelinas and Sudbury MPP Jamie West, will make stops in communities including North Bay, Sudbury, Sault Ste. Marie, Timmins, Thunder Bay and Temiskaming Shores.

Stiles framed the highway issue as a critical barrier to economic development, particularly regarding the proposed Ring of Fire mining development. She made the comments while attending the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) convention in Toronto, an event focused on mining investment.

“Here in Toronto at PDAC, everybody’s talking about northern Ontario and that the future is in northern Ontario and developing northern Ontario,” Stiles said.

“Well, I don’t know how anybody is going to get anything done right now when the highway is as unsafe as it is.”

The NDP described the two-lane stretches of Highways 11 and 17 as “weak links” in the national transportation corridor, arguing they must be modernized and expanded to safely accommodate the truck traffic and industrial vehicles that will be required to develop the Ring of Fire.

Bourgouin’s latest highway safety bill defeated

For MPP Guy Bourgouin, the push for safer roads is a long-running and deeply personal battle. Since his election in 2018, he has introduced legislation aimed at improving northern highway safety four times. His most recent attempt, ‘Bill 49, Northern Highway 11 and 17 Safety Act,’ was defeated by the Progressive Conservative government in 2025.

The proposed legislation included a number of specific measures aimed at improving safety and oversight:

• Weigh scales and truck inspection sites that are staffed daily for at least 12 hours.
• Sufficient OPP enforcement along Highways 11 and 17.
• Truck driver testing and certification to be conducted only by ministry examiners.
• Winter road maintenance in northern Ontario to return to direct management under the Ministry of Transportation rather than private contractors.

Bourgouin’s concern is rooted in the everyday fears felt by families across the north.

“I’m worried for my daughter when my granddaughter has to travel to Kapuskasing,” he said. “We’re worried all the time but it’s it shouldn’t be that way.”

The urgency of the situation is underscored by recent statistics and tragedies.

According to figures cited by Vanthof from the Ministry of Transportation, the stretch of Highway 11 from North Bay to Cochrane was closed for 32 days between January and September of 2025. Since mid-December, at least six people have died in crashes on Highway 11, prompting the Chiefs of Ontario to demand immediate government action following a January crash that claimed the lives of three First Nations members.

Stiles argued the government has prioritized projects in downtown Toronto over the lives of northern Ontarians.

“They are the connection between people and their health care people and their jobs,” said Stiles.

Government points to $30B investment, northern safety upgrades

In response to the NDP’s criticism, the Ministry of Transportation defended its record, pointing to significant provincial investments. Ministry spokesperson Dakota Brasier told CTV News that the government has invested $30 billion to expand and strengthen highways across Ontario.

“We are also investing $4.3 billion this year, to protect drivers in the north and keep goods and people moving safely. This includes nearly $600 million for northern roads, bridges, and highways with over $350 million to make Highways 11 and 17 safer,” Brasier wrote in an email.

Brasier also emphasized that the NDP “voted against increased enforcement and key safety upgrades along these critical northern links like Highways 11 and 17.”

When questioned by CTV News in North Bay in late January about specific actions to ensure highway safety, Ontario’s Minister of Transportation, Prabmeet Sarkaria, highlighted a $400 million infrastructure upgrade package for 2024 and 2025 and an increase in the number of transportation enforcement officers to 50. He also confirmed that early work on a long-awaited 2+1 highway pilot design, intended to reduce head-on collisions, is set to begin this summer.

Meanwhile, there is also a growing push at the federal level to designate Highway 11 as a project of national interest. Such a designation would help prioritize planning and secure funding to ensure the highway is safe, reliable, and effective for future transportation demands.

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