The Tribune editorial (Feb. 28) criticizing council for shut-mouth decision making was long overdue. Deliberations of council over the last six years have shown increasing signs of predetermined positions based on behind-the-scene lobbying. The result is major decisions being made with only desultory debate and with no explanation of the thinking of councillors on the issue.
Many councillors appear to have adopted Coun. Maggie Laidlaw’s attitude of paying little attention to views of citizens. The mayor has acknowledged that there is little point in council hearing delegations at a decision meeting. According to the mayor, the minds of councillors often are already made up, based on earlier discussion with staff, and there really is no opportunity to take account of new facts or opinions offered at the late stage of the decision meeting.
On the issue decided at the council meeting of Feb. 25 – whether council should urge the province to add $1 billion or more to the provincial debt to build environmentally destructive and unnecessary new highways – I strongly disagree with the Tribune’s expectation that a fulsome debate would have resulted in support for such a decision.
It is not that council has shown wisdom in this area in the past. Council remains a strong supporter of the province adding $400 million to the provincial debt to build a new Highway 7, despite knowing that the new highway will cost the province 15 times more in capital and operating costs than the current highway.
The current Highway 7, although busy, has provided satisfactory highway connection for Guelph during the period when Guelph unemployment was the lowest in Ontario. Highway 7 has had no increase in traffic in 13 years and costs the province 0.5 cents/vehicle-km. Since the province collects 1.5 cents/ (vehicle-km) in gasoline tax, there is ample provincial revenue to pay for modest improvements in Highway 7 such as an improved intersection at Shantz Station Road. The widening-to-four-lanes alternative for Highway 7 would triple the capital and operating costs, but would still break even with the gasoline-tax revenue.
Locally, city council has supported MTO in going $20 million into debt to build the unnecessary Laird Road interchange on the Hanlon. To show their enthusiasm for debt, council approved transferring $9 million of the debt from the province to the city.
MTO did not require the building of the Laird interchange a decade before their assessment suggested it might be needed.  There was a potential MTO freeze on future industrial development around the intersection if more than three million square feet of buildings were constructed. There is (a) no prospect for this limit being reached in the foreseeable future and (b) the limit was negotiable upward upon proof that no threat to safety was posed by the usage of the current intersection after the new buildings above three million square feet were taken into account.
I applaud council for the decision made on no new northern superhighway. I urge council to open their decision-making to new opinions and facts and to debate issues in the public rather than behind closed doors.
Hugh Whiteley
Guelph