For Immediate Release:
January 18, 2011
Simcoe –A decade after helping to announce the creation of a Mid-Peninsula corridor, Haldimand-Norfolk’s MPP maintains it’s still the way to go for jobs and to reduce population pressure on the Niagara Escarpment from Hamilton to the Niagara Gorge.
“I helped announce this project in 2001 – with any luck I’ll be able to help see it through,” noted Barrett. “Brant and Haldimand County deserve to benefit from this new corridor.”
The Mid-Peninsula Highway has been part of Ontario Ministry of Transportation planning as far back as the 1950s. It was revived in the early 1990s to relieve traffic congestion along the QEW with the governments of PC Premiers Mike Harris and Ernie Eves planning to fast-track the highway’s construction. The project was delayed when Dalton McGuinty became Premier in 2003 and re-initiated an environmental assessment for the project. In July, the McGuinty Government chose to shelve the project altogether.
Yesterday, Ontario PC Leader Tim Hudak reconfirmed his intention to get the highway back on track stating, “I think we need the road to create jobs, get rid of job-killing gridlock and avoid widening the QEW and endangering tender fruit land along it.”
“I continue to maintain there is great economic potential here for Brant, Haldimand, and certainly Caledonia, and Dunnville.” Barrett concluded. “Mid Pen will help alleviate future population pressure on the Niagara fruit belt, and on the Niagara Escarpment from Hamilton to the US border.”
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For more information, please contact MPP Toby Barrett at
(519) 428-0446 or (905)-765-8413, 1-800-903-8629