Ford believes Carney will designate Highway 401 tunnel as ‘national interest’ project

Ontario Premier Doug Ford believes Prime Minister Mark Carney will back his idea for a tunnel under Highway 401 through the Greater Toronto Area, though it is unclear if he had received any such assurances from Ottawa.

Carney recently named the first five projects in the national interest that will be fast-tracked, which is intended to strengthen the country’s economy, particularly in the face of U.S. tariffs.

One Ontario project was on the initial list — building small modular nuclear reactors — and Ford said Tuesday that accessing the province’s critical mineral-rich Ring of Fire region will be in the next set of projects.

It received a nod in Carney’s announcement, along with energy, high-speed rail and port projects, suggesting the federal government will indeed work with provinces to bring those to fruition down the line. 

But Ford said he also thinks Carney will help to accelerate building a tunnel under Highway 401, though he did not directly answer when asked if Carney has given him any direct assurances. 

“I just believe he will,” Ford said while in the Niagara Region at the International Plowing Match, an annual expo that celebrates agriculture and rural living.

“Considering it’s the busiest highway in North America, and 50 per cent of the GDP comes through Toronto, and (gridlock is) costing us $58 billion of lost productivity, I think it’s pretty national.”

The tunnel was on Ford’s list of five suggested projects to Carney, which also included a new James Bay deep-sea port and expanded GO train service. The premier has pitched it as a way to ease gridlock and boost productivity in the Toronto area, though critics have dismissed it as fantasy.

NDP Leader Marit Stiles said including a prospective tunnel under Highway 401 in Ford’s wish list to Carney just muddies the waters on the province’s priorities.

“I think when you start to clutter the list with what I would consider vanity projects like that, then you’re not doing anybody any favours,” she said at the plowing match. 

“I think it makes it less clear…what really constitutes a nation building project.”

Ontario has issued a request for proposals for a tunnel feasibility study and has not yet selected a proponent, but the government appears to be forging ahead with plans. Ford last month said his plan is to have a 19.5-metre-wide, three-level tunnel, with one level going eastbound, one for westbound traffic and a bottom level for transit.

The premier has said he wants to consider a tunnel from Brampton and Mississauga in the west to Scarborough and Markham in the east.

The request for proposals says the feasibility study should also consider shorter tunnel lengths, and stop/start locations considering Highway 410 and 427, and Highway 404.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2025.