TORONTO, ON: Documents obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) reveal that the Ontario government spent $3,225,000 on markers for the unpopular High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes during the Pan Am Games.

The documents obtained through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request show that the Ministry of Transportation spent $306,000 painting HOV markers onto the pavement, then spent $959,000 removing those same markers. The Ministry also spent $1,960,000 on signs related to the temporary HOV lanes.

“The temporary HOV lanes in Toronto caused gridlock traffic at a cost of over $3 million dollars,” said CTF Ontario Director, Christine Van Geyn. “We spent over $300,000 to paint these lanes, and then nearly a million dollars to have the paint removed only weeks later. Now the Premier is saying she may want to bring the markers back by creating permanent HOV toll lanes. How many times are we going to have to pay for these multimillion dollar paint jobs?”

The premier stated that she wants to use the revenue from any HOV tolls established to fund her $130 billion infrastructure spending program. International credit rating agency Standard and Poor’s cited this planned spending as a reason for Ontario’s recent credit downgrade.

“Premier Wynne is wasting millions of dollars painting and then un-painting road markers, giving away money to teachers unions, and spending nearly a billion dollars every month on debt interest. Now she wants us to pay a toll for roads that have already been built so she can undertake massive new spending programs and continue to squander taxpayers hard earned money,” concluded Van Geyn.

The FOI request can be found here.