As the setting for her wedding, Prince Edward County generates plenty of warm and fuzzy feelings for Jennifer French. She and husband Jon were married at Waring House last fall. She says the butter tarts baked locally rival those from any locale in the country. She loves it here.

But those warm-and-fuzzies stop short at County Road 49 for the Oshawa MPP and Critic for Infrastructure, Transportation, and Highways.

Ms. French joined Bay of Quinte NDP candidate Amanda Robertson on the campaign trail in Picton last weekend. She expounded upon the deplorable condition of the former provincial highway, which was forced upon local taxpayers in 1999. This newspaper published her account of the teeth-shattering experience of driving 49 in June. (See Letters, June 26, 2024.)

“No one wants to imagine their community has the ‘honour’ of having one of Canada’s worst roads and that should be a wake up call for the province,” Ms. French said. “This isn’t a road the municipality built, it’s a road they were handed — along with the ongoing maintenance and future rehabilitation costs. At this point it is a safety issue and it should be the province’s responsibility. 

“They downloaded it 25 years ago, quickly washed their hands of it and now the province needs to take it back,” wrote Ms. French.

MPP French’s Queen’s Park colleague, Liberal Ted Hsu, took a shot at the Province during question period in June, stating the wasteful spending of $1 billion to put alcohol in corner stores across the province could have been better spent elsewhere.

“The province could take County Road 49 and make it Highway 49 again,” the Kingston and the Islands MPP said. “Does the Energy Minister (Bay of Quinte MPP Todd Smith) care about his riding?”

Major By-Election Issue

Ms. French said she and party leader Marit Stiles heard loud and clear at the recent Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) conference last month that the provincial government downloaded too much infrastructure onto municipalities that do not have the tax structure to fix decaying roads and bridges.

Rehabilitation of the 18 km stretch of 49 would cost around $30 million, well beyond the means of a small, rural municipality with thousands of kilometres of roadway to maintain already.

“Under Marit Stiles, an NDP government would build a fair partnership with the 444 municipalities, reassume a lot of what’s been unfairly downloaded and clean up the messes the Ford government has made,” said MPP French.

During her door knocking in PEC, Amanda Robertson has met residents who have had to pay for expensive motor vehicle repairs after hitting a cavernous pot hole while driving.

“You shouldn’t need a 4-by-4 to commute to work on a hard surface municipal road. This is what Prince Edward County people and the visitors that come here in the summer have had to tolerate for far too long,” Ms. Robertson said. 

“This by-election is an opportunity to voice our displeasure collectively. We’ve all felt the bumpy ride on 49. I just don’t know how much longer people in Prince Edward County can stand to be ignored.”