The Ontario government has awarded the first contract to begin widening of Highway 17 between Kenora and the Manitoba border, though the long-awaited twinning project is still expected to stretch years into the future.
After over a decade of government promises to move forward with the project, the province says work on the first of three sections will begin this spring, and conclude by 2025.
The contract announced Wednesday by the office of Kenora-Rainy River MPP Greg Rickford covers a 6.5 kilometre stretch running from the Manitoba border to Highway 673.
That’s just a chunk of the 40 kilometres of blacktop between Kenora and the Manitoba the province plans to widen from two to four lanes over the coming years.
Section 2 of the project is an 8.5-kilometre stretch from Highway 673 to Rush Bay Road, and Section 3 runs 25 kilometres from Rush Bay Road to Kenora. Both still require environmental assessments, route planning, and design.
“The Twinning of Highway 17 is a legacy infrastructure project that will make roads safer in the Kenora region,” Rickford said in a statement. “Families deserve to feel safe on the roads and that is exactly what our government will accomplish by widening this stretch of the highway.”
Minister of Transportation Caroline Mulroney called the awarding of the contract “an exciting milestone towards making this critical highway safer for drivers in Northern Ontario.”
First Nations in the area gave the highway widening project their conditional consent to Section 1 last year, without yet granting it for later phases.
Rickford’s office said the construction contract includes “requirements to work with Indigenous partners in the area” and claimed it will support 310 jobs, though it didn’t share how that figure was reached.
The contract for work on section 1 was awarded to Kenora-based Moncrief Construction, according to Rickford’s statement. A representative for Moncrief said Wednesday the company had not yet received confirmation of the award from the Ministry of Transportation.
Rickford’s office did not disclose the dollar value of the contract in its release, and neither the Ministry of Northern Development, Mines, Natural Resources and Forestry nor the Ministry of Transportation could immediately confirm contract details Wednesday.
In 2009, when the provincial government first said it would go ahead with the project, it estimated widening a 10-kilometre stretch from the Manitoba border would cost $100 million.
Rickford himself had earlier said he hoped the project could begin as soon as 2019.
