May 16th, 2022

Del Duca’s Highway 413 plan revealed: Liberals “Definitely” plan to build, says candidate

It is clear Steven Del Duca has behind closed doors been telling his candidates something very different than what he has been telling the public. During a Punjabi language interview, Liberal Brampton East candidate Jannat Garewal contradicted Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca on Highway 413, saying Del Deca “definitely” plans on it and “doesn’t have any objections to building this highway”.

In the May 11 video on GTA News Media’s Titkok, Garewal says the Liberals are fully committed to building the 413 and believes “there is no harm” to the highway. Highway 413 and the Bradford Bypass are wasteful projects that will cost billions of dollars, take over a decade to construct, encourage sprawl and leave taxpayers footing the bill. The NDP will cancel them and fix what the Liberals and Conservatives broke.

The NDP’s Taras Natyshak: “Steven Del Duca says one thing to some audiences while he and his candidates say the opposite somewhere else. Del Duca can’t be trusted to fix the Conservatives’ deals for their buddies. He’s got backroom deals of his own. He needs to come clean with Ontarians.”

Backgrounder:

The interview is in a mixture of Punjabi and English. Full translation:

Host: The party leader is talking about I think Highway 413. They are saying we will not build it?What is the harm in building it?

Garewal: There is no harm. Stephen Del Duca was the transport minister of transportation in 2017-2018 and was also Minister of Economic Development for some time. He doesn’t have any objections to building this highway but if you see during the pandemic, we.. no not we, the Ford government cut a lot of funding for education. Our kids have suffered a lot during the pandemic. Parents also suffered, so we are saying that will you spend $10 billion on building a highway or on education.

Host: So he means.. that education….
Garewal: What is the priority?
Host: priority…yes..
Garewal: For the road or for education.
Host: yes yes.Meaning it can be delayed a bit?

Garewal: Exactly, We will definitely build this highway but we need to focus on education. Our children, the class averages are so low, our children are not able to fulfill the Ontario curriculum. We want to focus on this. We will hire 10,000 teachers. We will bring mental health supports in our schools for our kids. I get calls saying my kid is suffering from depression and can’t do his assignment. They are locked in their room and don’t want to talk to anyone, they ask me if I can help them. Mental health is important so we are bringing mental health supports into schools. About ventilation, we have to renovate schools too. Ford Government has neglected our kids. We have to just re-invest our children. Kids are our future, they will fulfill our workforce. So we want to invest in them at this time, we can build the highway later.