A bill attempting to make snow removal quicker on Highway 17 has failed to pass its second reading.
NDP MPP Guy Bourgouin introduced a bill aimed at prioritizing snow removal for the highway. The bill would have seen Highway 17 be treated as a 400 series highway. This would have meant that legally, snow would have to be removed within 8 hours of snowfall. Bourgouin said that reclassifying the highway would make the road safer for commuters in Northern Ontario, and dramatically drop accident rates and create fewer shutdowns. Bourgouin said that motorists were four times as likely to get into an accident as they were in Toronto.
The bill was defeated by a vote of 59-38. Bourgouin noted on twitter that three Conservative cabinet ministers from Northern Ontario, Â Vic Fedeli, Ross Romano and Greg Rickford, were absent from the vote.