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Tolls on the Trans-Canada

Broadcast Date: April 19, 1999

Roads in the Maritime provinces are in bad shape, and there's little money in provincial coffers for upgrading them. First Nova Scotia, and then New Brunswick, resort to putting tolls on sections of the Trans-Canada to fund new highway construction and upgrades. In this CBC Television clip, Bill Casey, a Nova Scotia MP, is up in arms about tolls. And he's not the only one. Pat Binns, Premier of Prince Edward Island, is threatening to sue the New Brunswick government.

The New Brunswick toll highway is strategically placed so that all traffic to the Maritimes has to pass through it. This means the cost of transporting goods to P.E.I., Nova Scotia and Newfoundland is going up.
People living along the toll route are unhappy too. It was just months after the 1995 New Brunswick election that the government announced it'd be placing tollbooths on their section of the highway. And the province plans to add three more tollbooths by 2001.

Tolls on the Trans-Canada

• The New Brunswick tollbooths opened for their first full day of service on Jan. 5, 1999.
• A few months after construction on the New Brunswick highway began, Federal Transport Minister David Collenette introduced legislation preventing provinces from introducing any more tolls on the Trans-Canada Highway.
• The New Brunswick government defended the tolls, claiming a private company could build the highway faster and for less money than the government.

• Former federal Transport minister Doug Young was president of the private company that won the contract to build the new highway.
• In 1998, Young was accused of using his old Ottawa connections to win the contract. He responded: "to suggest that I would know that I would be defeated in the election... become involved in the private sector... be approached by people from Toronto, Madrid and Paris... become the head of a consortium... even people who dislike me don't think I'm that clever."

• On March 1, 2000, the New Brunswick government, then led by Conservative Bernard Lord, stopped collecting tolls on the Trans-Canada. Lord had promised to stop the tolls during the 1999 election.
• The first-ever toll section on the Trans-Canada opened on Nov. 15, 1997, and began charging drivers on December 1. This 45-kilometre four-lane section of Nova Scotia's Trans-Canada is called the Cobequid Pass Highway.

• In 2002, Nova Scotia had the only toll section of the Trans-Canada Highway, excluding bridges such as P.E.I.'s Confederation Bridge.
• In 1997, the Trans-Canada tolls in Nova Scotia were $3 per car, $4 per recreational vehicle, and $2 per axle for trucks.
• Highway 407 in Ontario was the world's first toll road with no toll takers or automatic cash machines. In 2002, all tolls were collected electronically with transponders or by digital imaging of the license plate. Highway 407 is not part of the Trans-Canada.

Tolls on the Trans-Canada

Medium: Television

Program: Compass

Broadcast Date: April 19, 1999

Guest(s): Pat Binns, Bill Casey, David Collenette

Reporter: Ian Petrie

Duration: 7:12

Last updated:
Aug. 30, 2004