My question is to the Minister of Transportation, who said in his remarks that they would give our municipal partners what they need. So in that spirit, today, the region of Durham council passed a resolution requesting the permanent removal of tolls on the provincially owned portion of Highway 407. They say:

“Whereas Highway 407 from Brock Road ... in Pickering to Highway 35/115 is provincially owned and tolls are set by the province;

“And whereas the province introduced legislation that if passed would ban tolls from provincially owned highways including all 400-series highways except for Highway 407 which is located almost exclusively in Durham region”—they go on to make other important points, but they ultimately resolve to request “that the province of Ontario include the provincially owned portion of Highway 407 in any legislation banning tolls on provincially owned highways....”

My question to the Minister of Transportation is, will he indeed give our municipal partners what they need and meet this request?

That advocacy continues. I have here a request from the town of Whitby. On January 31, Durham region council said, “Whereas the temporary removal of tolls on Highway 407 during Winchester Road construction work would improve overall travel times and alleviate the traffic impacts on surrounding regional and local municipal roads.” They asked this government to temporarily remove those tolls during that period of the Winchester Road construction work.

And would you believe it, Speaker? February 6, the Ministry of Transportation says it “is not considering subsidizing or removing tolls for use of Hwy. 407 at this time.” Then, two minutes later, we have this bill. So when a community asked for no tolls, how come you’re telling them, “Too bad”?