The Ontario government is being called out over plans to look at alternatives to high speed rail in the Toronto to Windsor corridor.
The Progressive Conservative government says other options to improve transportation in the Windsor-Toronto corridor could be used instead of just a high speed rail system.
Windsor West New Democrat MPP Lisa Gretzky takes the train to and from Toronto on a regular basis and says alternatives won't be the game-changer that this area is looking for.
"When you're looking at the number of people that have businesses that rely on rail to get to and from areas outside of Windsor, when you look at the potential for expansion for those businesses, what the government needs to be doing is not backtracking," she says.
Windsor-West MPP Lisa Gretzky at Queen's Park on July 18, 2018 (Photo courtesy of www.ola.org)
Transportation Minister Jeff Yurek will include increased VIA Rail, bus service and an improved highway system in an environment assessment as an alternative to high-speed rail — he says the new government wants to explore every possible option.
Gretzky says municipalities along the Windsor-Toronto corridor have already shown they want high-speed rail.
"The communities involved, specifically ours, they've wanted this for a long time. These are the people that this government should be consulting with and listening too," she says. "This is a disappointment for many people to think that, after all this time and all this advocacy ... this government is just going to scrap it all together."
Gretzky says the NDP will be lobbying to get things back on track and looking towards the future.
"We're going to talk to the business leaders, the municipal leaders, we're going to continue talking to constituencies within the municipalities that would be connected through high-speed rail," says Gretzky. "Our goal is to bring everybody together."
The previous Liberal government had committed $11-billion to the project — but Gretzky says little was done and the PC government continues to pull Ontario backward as it has with sex education and in many other areas.