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The Liberals who proposed and then scrapped Hwy. 413 before the Progressive Conservatives revived the controversial GTA freeway are promising to kill it once and for all if elected next year.

Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca said Monday he would cancel this sprawl-spreading highway and use the $8 billion in savings to build and renovate schools across Ontario.

Let me be clear, the 413 will not make your life better. Doug Ford wants to build it to make his billionaire friends happy, he told reporters.

Del Duca was a transportation minister in the government of former Liberal premier Kathleen Wynne, who kiboshed the Vaughan-Brampton-Caledon-Milton highway in 2018, years after her Grit predecessor, Dalton McGuinty, first proposed it.

Ontario Liberals stopped this reckless project once before and we will do it again, the Liberal leader said, insisting only wealthy developers who bankroll the Tories want it built.

It is inconceivable to me that Doug Ford wants to spend billions paving over farmland, destroying wetlands and undermining the Greenbelt all for a highway that will only save some commuters mere seconds.

Fords Conservatives revived the GTA West Transportation Corridor, as Hwy. 413 is formally known, even as they are promising to expand the 800,000-hectare Greenbelt around the Greater Toronto Area.

But local councils in municipalities that would be affected by the highway have been voting against it, including in Vaughan and Mississauga.

Ealier this month, NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said theres no doubt in my mind that Hwy. 413 is the wrong thing to do.

This is all about Doug Ford giving more opportunity for his developer friends to pave Greenbelt lands, to develop farmland for housing and other kind of development, said Horwath, noting it is completely backwards to promote urban sprawl.

There is no reason for that highway to be built and there are many, many reasons for it not to be built.

Green Leader Mike Schreiner also opposes the highway.

Mindful of growing opposition to its construction and aware that a federal environmental assessment could derail it as early as May, the Tories appear to be inching away from it.

Government house leader Paul Calandra stressed three weeks ago that Hwy. 413 is not a done deal.

Theres still a tremendous amount of work that needs to be done here: some consultations that have to happen with our partners in the area, an environmental assessment, Calandra said March 1.

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Once we accomplish all these consultations, if it makes sense for the highway to proceed, it will; if it doesnt, we wont, the minister said.

Robert Benzie is the Stars Queens Park bureau chief and a reporter covering Ontario politics. Follow him on Twitter: @robertbenzie

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Liberals would kill Hwy. 413 'once and for all' and invest the $8B in school repair and construction, Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca says -...