Newmarket Era, April 6, 2017

Page 1

THURSDAY APRIL 6, 2017

14,000 REBATE! PROVINCIAL

$

on all

ELECTRIC FOCUS 185 KM RANGE!

18001 LESLIE ST,

(South of Greenlane) Newmarket

905-853-5000

Voted the BEST Window Company again by Reader’s Choice Awards! See Our Ad In This Paper

NEWMARKET SHOWROOM

16700 Bayview Ave., Unit 15

905.853.9400

www.northerncomfortwindows.com

ONLINE at yorkregion.com News, events and information on your desktop, laptop or mobile device

Sunday Reads

Library and Archives Canada photo

The Canadian Railway Troops in France bolt rails to the ties.

Vimy Ridge: Track to battle laid by local soldiers AMANDA PERSICO apersico@yrmg.com The Battle of Vimy Ridge is a defining moment in Canadian History, where the Canadian Corps fought for the first time under the same banner.

Between 15,000 and 20,000 Canadian troops crept over the ridge around 5:30 a.m. Easter Monday, April 9, 1917. Those soldiers at the front lines had to be fed. "Trucks weren’t used as much during the First World War," said

Ross Toms, an avid history buff and executive at the Royal Canadian Legion branch in Richmond Hill. "The roads were not good. They used a narrow railway." Building those small narrow railroads was left to the Canadian

Railroad Troops, which included the 127th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force. The 127th Battalion consisted of young men from York County, namely the Richmond Hill, Newmarket,

Explore unsolved mysteries, meet interesting people, read new work by Canadian authors. yorkregion.com/sundayreads

uReport the News newsroom@yorkregion.com www.facebook.com/yrmgnews @yorkregion yorkregion.com/ureport

l See BATTALION, page 11

NEWS

Housing market in ’crisis,’ builders president warns LISA QUEEN lqueen@yrmg.com The Greater Toronto Area housing market is already a perfect storm of unbridled demand and burdensome public policy. It’s going to take significant changes to calm a scenario where the average price of a home has topped $1 million, buyers camp out at sales centres for a chance to purchase a house and families are forced to turn to far-flung communities outside the GTA to buy a home. That’s the message from Bryan Tuckey, the president of the Building Industry and Land Development Association. "Significant declines in builder inventory and record prices for low- and highrise houses, the GTA housing market is in crisis and it’s time for governments to work with us to address these problems," he said. "It’s time to say that housing is

a priority in the Greater Toronto Area. All of your public policy, all of your resources, I firmly believe need to begin to be directed to making it happen everywhere or it will continue. People will go farther afield or the prices will increase." Tuckey pointed to several reasons behind the frenzied market, where the average price of ground-level housing from townhouses to single families home hit $1,081,013 in February, a 30 per cent year-over-year increase. Demand is only going to increase, he said. The GTA, the fastest growing region of Ontario, will see its population increase by 2.8 million or 43 per cent to almost 9.5 million by 2041. Although the provincial government is demanding more intensification to curb urban sprawl and to maximize investl See HOUSING, page 12

Mike Barrett/Metroland

Homes under construction at a new build site along Line 6, between Simcoe Road and Melbourne Drive, in Bradford West Gwillimbury.

NEWS

Are Liberals taking taxpayers for a ride? PC critic asks ADAM MARTIN-ROBBINS amartinrobbins@yrmg.com The Liberal government appears to have influenced the selection of multimillion-dollar GO train stations in the ridings of two York Region cabinet ministers despite an expert report slamming the choices, Conservative transportation critic Michael Harris said. Last June, the government and Metrolinx approved the Kirby station in the Vaughan riding of Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca and the Mulock station in the Newmarket-Aurora riding of Housing Minister Chris Ballard.

But last month, a newly released consultant’s report, commissioned prior to the approval of the stations, listed numerous flaws with both locations. Harris has significant concerns about how the stations were approved, adding that of the dozen stations approved as part of a GO system expansion, Kirby and Mulock appear to be the only ones approved despite "glaring" challenges in the consultant’s reports. "Something is seriously wrong, obviously, with this scenario when you’ve got Metrolinx approving GO stations in ministers’ ridings when their own studies strongly advise against them. They clearly indicate the loca-

tions don’t meet very basic transportation needs," he said. "So, really, the question is why are we, in fact, are we moving ahead with them? The answer is obvious. Liberals do what they do best and they will use your money to advance their cause, and when it serves them best, they’ll do so, ignoring the experts’ advice, and they’ve done so in this case." Ballard dismissed Harris’s concerns. "Other than bringing forward the community’s desire for a station to Metrolinx’ attention, I had nothing further to do with the process," he said. Del Duca, who rebuffed interview requests and responded

with a statement, didn’t directly address Harris’s concern about any influence that may have been used in selecting the Kirby station. While Harris said MPPs, including cabinet ministers, are supposed to advocate for projects that benefit their communities, he questioned how the consultant’s report was so blatantly disregarded. "When you’ve got high capital costs, negative net present values, longer travel times, costly losses as a potential, why are we moving forward with them?" he said. The report on the $100-million Kirby station found the benefits "are not large enough to outweigh

the anticipated negative impacts to GO Transit and the economy." Among other things, it predicts GO passengers who board "upstream" from the Kirby stop would see their travel times rise to the point where about 3 per cent would jump in their cars and drive instead. That would translate, over a 60-year period, into a net loss of 3.3 million transit trips and the addition of 688.1 million kilometres of car travel, adding to gridlock and pumping more greenhouse gases into the environment, the report says. The cost to transportation usl See DID, page 2

“Over 50 Award Winning Years in York region” MARKETS LIKE THIS SELLERS NEED

EXPERIENCE, TRUST AND KNOWLEDGE. Bill Jenkins BROKER

®

Call Bill & Brenda Jenkins today! 905-727-1941

15004 YONGE STREET, AURORA

Brenda Jenkins SALES

REPRESENTATIVE


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.