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FREDERICTON — New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt says she won’t back off plans for a new toll near the boundary with Nova Scotia despite criticism it goes against interprovincial free trade goals.
“We’re certainly moving ahead with the plan to put tolls on the roads, the same as our neighbours in Nova Scotia and P.E.I. have done,” Holt told The Canadian Press in a Tuesday interview.
“To make sure that the people who are using the infrastructure are contributing toward the cost of maintaining it and keeping it safe.”
Last month’s budget — in deficit by a record $1.3 billion — included a new toll by 2028 on out-of-province vehicles on the Trans-Canada Highway in Aulac, N.B. Officials estimate the levy will rack up $10.4 million annually for a province over $13 billion in debt.
Rhonda Tulk-Lane, president and CEO of the Atlantic Chamber of Commerce, says the highway toll goes against countrywide efforts to tear down internal trade barriers.
“These measures raise costs … they discourage investment, and they erode the very economic resilience we are working so hard to build,” Tulk-Lane wrote in a March 24 open letter.
She added that New Brunswick’s plan, along with Nova Scotia’s existing toll on a section of the Trans-Canada Highway known as the Cobequid Pass, is a barrier to free movement. Provincial and territorial governments have placed renewed focus on eliminating internal trade barriers in an effort to boost Canada’s GDP by billions of dollars amid an ongoing trade war with the U.S.
For her part, Holt says her government isn’t trying to erect trade barriers but is instead joining the toll club.
“New Brunswick is actually the only province that hadn’t had this kind of road toll in place. Like I say, Nova Scotia has had it for a long time, P.E.I. as well at a significantly higher cost,” Holt said.
The chamber of commerce, Holt said, should be “levelling that communication towards all provinces that have these.”
Tulk-Lane’s March letter did call on Nova Scotia to remove its Cobequid Pass toll, which applies to out-of-province vehicles and ranges from $4 for motorcycles to $24 for certain heavy vehicles. In P.E.I., drivers on the Confederation Bridge are charged $20 upon leaving the province toward New Brunswick.
New Brunswick is no stranger to local roadway fees. The Saint John Harbour Bridge had a toll for several decades before the province transferred ownership to the federal government about 15 years ago and the roadway became free to use.
