It’s an honour to rise again in the Ontario Legislature, and I’d like to take this opportunity to share with the Legislature an update on an important infrastructure project in Sarnia–Lambton. This week, our government wants public consultations into the much-needed and much-discussed Highway 40 widening project in Sarnia–Lambton. Expanding the seven-kilometre stretch of highway that links Lambton county’s chemistry valley and Highway 402 is a critical infrastructure project that will support future growth in the chemistry industry in Sarnia–Lambton and Ontario and improve highway safety for residents of Lambton county.

Our government began the preliminary design and environmental assessment work for the Highway 40 widening in April 2022. Public consultations are the next step in delivering on this important project. I encourage all interested residents of Sarnia–Lambton to visit the website highway40widening.ca to review the project documents and to add their input on how best the Ontario government can expand this highway in the best way possible for our community.

Again, please visit highway40widening.ca before December 10 to share your opinion on the design and build of this future highway expansion.

Mr. Speaker, expanding Highway 40 is another example of this government’s plan to build Ontario with investments in our transportation system that will reduce gridlock, improve economic productivity, and get drivers home to their loved ones faster.

As the member knows, it is our utmost priority to ensure we have safe and efficient highways across this province, and that includes Highway 11. We have some of the safest roads in all of North America. We have the trans-Ontario standard that is met by this province and this province only—across the country and across North America.

And we will continue to work—we had the Good Roads Association that was at Queen’s Park just this past week, listening about further measures that can be taken.

We commit to always ensuring that we have the safest roads, and working towards safety across this province, especially on the roads. We do have some of the safest roads, but we’ll continue to make sure that we do whatever we can, making the necessary investments on Highways 11 and 17 in the north, to do—and ensure that our roads remain safe.