PM helps kick off construction of Mississauga Bus Rapid Transit corridor

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Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen.

Thank you Bob Dechert for your kind introduction, and thanks for the great work you’re doing making sure Mississauga’s priorities are heard in Ottawa.

Welcome also to my colleagues, the Honourable Lisa Raitt, MP Lois Brown, and our other honoured guests, Ontario Minister Harinder Takhar, Mayor Hazel McCallion and Rob Prichard of Metrolinx. 

It’s a pleasure to be back in Mississauga, Canada’s sixth-largest and fastest growing major city.  I’m pleased to be here with Minister Takhar and Mayor McCallion for yet another GTA transportation infrastructure announcement.

Over the last four years, I have joined provincial and civic officials many times to unveil new GTA transit and transportation projects.  We’ve met on buses, train platforms, LRT stations and now here at the Mississauga Transit campus.  One might say we’ve got to stop meeting like this, except there are five-and-a-half million residents of the Greater Toronto Area who want us to keep working together to improve transportation infrastructure throughout the region.  And, of course, we have needed such work during this global economic recession.  So that’s exactly what we have been doing.

Under our Government’s "FLOW" plan, the transportation action plan for the GTA, we have been supporting several large-scale projects that are designed to keep people and goods moving efficiently and safely throughout the region.

We want to ensure commuters get to work on time and get home to their families at the end of the workday as quickly and securely as possible.

We also understand that the exhaust from millions of cars and trucks stuck in gridlock is a hazard to public health and quality of life, and a major source
of greenhouse gas emissions in our country.

Over the last year and a half, we have accelerated some of the GTA public transit and transportation infrastructure projects as part of Canada’s Economic Action Plan to counter the global recession.  These projects which have created jobs and stimulated economic activity during the downturn, include:  Extension of the Spadina subway line to York University and the Vaughan Corporate Centre, construction of the AcceleRide bus rapid transit system along Brampton’s key transportation corridors, the widening of railway bridges carrying the GO train, construction of Toronto’s first LRT corridor on the Sheppard Avenue line, and expansion of this huge transit campus where we are gathered today.

I am therefore very pleased to announce the start of construction on the big project that has brought us all together … The Mississauga Bus Rapid Transit Project!

This east-west bus corridor from Winston Churchill Boulevard to Renforth Drive will be the public transit equivalent of a superhighway.  These big, new, express buses will whisk thousands of riders every day through 12 Mississauga stations along an 18-kilometre corridor paralleling Highway 403 and Eglinton Avenue.  Dedicated exclusively to buses, this will be a key link in the 100-kilometre BRT corridor connecting municipalities all the way from Oakville to Pickering.

By 2013, when the project is scheduled for completion, GTA commuters will be able to bus from one end of the region to the other, as fast or faster than they can now by car, with dozens of convenient connections to north-south transit routes.  And they’ll be able to plug in their laptops or just watch the city go by, from comfortable seats next to big windows.

It sure beats the morning crawl along the Gardiner, or dodging huge semis on the 401!

But comfort, safety and convenience aren’t the only benefits.  Improving the efficiency of public transit has a real, long-term, positive economic impact.  And that’s why our Government, in cooperation with the province and all the cities of the GTA including Mississauga, are investing millions in public transit and transportation infrastructure. 

The GTA is the pulsing heart of the national economy.  With its dynamic financial, manufacturing, and technology sectors, it is a major player in the continental economy and, increasingly, a metropolitan powerhouse in the global economy.  A big part of the GTA’s success is its sophisticated transportation infrastructure.  And a big part of its success in the future will derive from the investments we’re making today to make the system smarter, faster, safer and better.

The Mississauga Bus Rapid Transit Project is a great example of that, and of our government following through on its commitments, in this case our commitment under the Canada-Ontario FLOW agreement signed in 2007.

We look forward to further infrastructure investments in the GTA, especially extending Highway 407 east to Highway 35 and 115.

Ladies and gentlemen, Canadians should be very proud of the fact that, during the worst global recession in half a century, our country has significantly outperformed its peers.  Among major advanced economies,
we were the last in, least affected and we are coming out the fastest and strongest.

We kept Canadians working with stimulus projects like the Mississauga BRT corridor and job-sharing agreements like the one that benefited a thousand employees of office furniture manufacturer Global Upholstery in Downsview, which I visited earlier today.

We have now recouped virtually all the jobs lost during the downturn.  We have the lowest deficit and debt burdens among the major industrialized nations, by far.  And through our economic stimulus efforts, we are achieving a comprehensive upgrade of our national infrastructure.

So congratulations and thank you to everyone who played a role in bringing this Mississauga Bus Rapid Transit project to fruition.  You have made an important contribution to our future here today.

Thank you.

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