Listen to this article
Estimated 3 minutes
The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.
An independent member of the Nova Scotia Legislature is launching a lawsuit against the provincial government in a bid to get all tolls removed from a stretch of the Trans Canada Highway that goes through the Cobequid Pass.
Elizabeth Smith-McCrossin, the MLA for Cumberland North, announced her lawsuit at a news conference in Amherst, N.S. Friday morning. She was joined by the former MP for the area, Bill Casey, who – during his lengthy political career – sat in the House of Commons as a Conservative, an independent and finally, a Liberal.
“We’ve been fighting these tolls for 30 years and it’s really affected our whole community,” Casey said.”I was in the car business before I went into politics and more than a third of my business was in New Brunswick and that will stop now if New Brunswick puts their tolls in, and New Brunswick is using the Nova Scotia toll highway as an excuse to create the toll in Aulac. It’s going to be a tremendous impediment for us.”
Plans for tolls at Aulac, N.B., just across the provincial border from Amherst, were contained in New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt’s 2026 provincial budget.
Smith-McCrossin said her lawsuit is questioning the rationale for the Cobequid Pass tolls.
“It is my opinion, and the opinion of others, that the laws for this highway state that the tolls are to be removed once the debt to build the highway has been paid,” Smith-McCrossin said. “Well, that debt was paid in 2021. Despite this, the tolls remain in place for all Nova Scotia, non-Nova Scotia licensed vehicles.”
Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston removed the tolls for vehicles with Nova Scotia license plates but all vehicles from out of province still have to pay to use the pass.
“At a time when Canadians are working to reduce interprovincial trade, interprovincial barriers, to reduce barriers to travel, trade, to boost our Canadian economy and make life more affordable for Canadians from coast to coast to coast, there should not be any unnecessary barriers, such as tolls on our national transportation corridor,” Smith-McCrossin said.
The lawyer for Smith-McCrossin told the news conference that the plan is to go before int Nova Scotia Supreme Court in September to set dates for a hearing on the toll challenge lawsuit.
MORE TOP STORIES
