It has been a grim start to 2026 on the roads and highways of Northwestern Ontario with 11 deaths recorded so far,aggravated in part by the harsh winter conditions we have experienced this year. This has once again prompted regional leaders to call for improvements to the 11 and 17 highway corridors with either more four-laning or a two plus one system (a three-lane highway configuration where the middle lane changes direction every two to five kilometres for passing). The bottleneck at the Nipigon bridge is especially problematic given that both highways converge at that point. Of course, the stretch between Nipigon and Shabaqua has gradually been widened to four lanes in spots, but the process has been underway for over twenty years, and substantial portions remain to be completed.
On top of that, the amount of traffic has increased substantially particularly with respect to transport trucks. The increase in traffic comes with demographic changes as older drivers have been retiring and it seems there is a plethora of new drivers with a lot less experience driving two lane highways. Traffic is only going to increase given that east-west traffic appears to have increased in the wake of American tariffs and to that can be added a future where nuclear waste shipments will be trucked to Ignace which is going to be the designated nuclear waste repository for all of Canada.
Of course, the call for highway improvements in the region has been as ubiquitous and lonely as the haunting calls of the loon. Annual meetings of NOMA and other regional gatherings invariably issue a call for highway improvements with the case for what is perceived by many in the region to be a piece of critical national infrastructure falling on deaf ears. And there have been opinion pieces and reports often in national venues making the case for an improved national highway system through northern Ontario but again they seem to have been only of limited impact. Even the Rosehart Report in 2008 noted that “For at least three decades, the residents of Northwestern Ontario have requested four-laning of the main highway from the Manitoba border to Southern Ontario (Highway 17)” which means that really this has been going on for half a century and yet here we are.
Northwestern Ontario is a vital zone of transit between the east and west of Canada and the case can certainly be made that as part of a resilient national economy and defense strategy, the highways through the region need to be improved. There is even a case for an extension of Highway 11 over the top of Lake Nipigon to provide as second east-west route independent of the bottleneck at Nipigon. However, the case for public safety is also an important one and for that one needs top look at the historical record of road and traffic fatalities in Ontario over time as well as a comparison of Northwestern Ontario with the rest of the province.
Figure 1 plots the number of persons injured and persons killed per 100,000 population for all of Ontario from 1931 to 2024 using data obtained from Ontario Road Safety Annual Reports – which incidentally are only preliminary after 2022 and do not offer as detailed a look as previous reports. Nevertheless, the chart shows that there used to be a time when Ontario was smaller in population and yet highway and road carnage was rather high.
Road deaths per 100,000 population were 17 per 100,000 in 1931 and trended upwards to peak in the early 1970s at 24 deaths per 100,000 population. They then trended downwards because of improvements in automobile safety as well as the passage of seat belt laws in 1976 and 2006. Despite the increase in Ontario population and higher urban and road use densities, by 2012, motor vehicle deaths per 100,00 population in Ontario bottomed out at about 4 per 100,000 and have remained stable since.
Compare now Northwestern Ontario statistics for Kenora, Rainy River and Thunder Bay districts over the last decade with Ontario. Figure 2 plots motor vehicle collision deaths per 100,000 population for Northwestern Ontario versus Ontario from 2015 to 2024. The average for the 2015 to 2024 period is 11.3 deaths per 100,000 for Northwestern Ontario versus 4 deaths per 100,000 for Ontario as a whole. Moreover, while the Ontario numbers have remained largely stable over the period, the ones in Northwestern Ontario exhibit a distinct upward trend when a linear fit is applied. In other words, things are getting worse.
The deaths in Northwestern Ontario over the 2015 to 2024 period have ranged from a low of 7.8 deaths per 100,000 population in 2016 to a high of 13.8 in 2021. As for 2026, if deaths continue at the current rate, there could well be 40 deaths this year or about 16 per 100,000 population. Going back in time for Ontario, the last time there were approximately 16 traffic collision deaths per 100,000 population in Ontario was 1981 – that was nearly half a century ago. Or if you like, Northwestern Ontario road and highway death rates in 2026 will be akin to Ontario in the 1930s.
So again, we again ask the question. When will Highway No. 1 through Northwestern Ontario be fixed? Will we have an answer before 2076?
