Highway 413: build it or not?

This one divides on a line that is not the usual one. It is not Toronto against the suburbs: plenty of people in Vaughan and Brampton are against it, and plenty in Milton and Caledon want it yesterday.

Where it stands: on September 1 the province announced it is going to procurement on the eastern section and the Highway 427 extension, and named a construction manager for the 410 extension. The detailed-design contract for the central section went out in June, and a programme-management contract in July. Environmental Defence read the same announcement and pointed out that final design takes up to two years per section, so what was announced is paperwork, not pavement. Both descriptions are accurate.

The case for is straightforward: the northwest of the region is where the growth is going, the 401 through Mississauga is at capacity, and there is no continuous east-west route north of it that is free to use.

The case against has two halves that do not always agree with each other. One is environmental: the route crosses the Greenbelt, farmland and the headwaters of several rivers. The other is a traffic argument that has nothing to do with trees: induced demand, the observation that new highway capacity in a growing region fills up, and that the relief is temporary while the road is permanent.

And underneath both sits the 407 question, which never quite goes away.

Sources: Ontario’s September 2026 procurement announcement, via GlobeNewswire · Environmental Defence, the announcement hides a lack of progress · highway413.ca, process and timeline