Two ministerial steps taken in right direction

Transportation Minister Donna Cansfield deserves to be commended for two steps she has taken in recent weeks.

The first we have in mind was her announcement that relief is in sight for this area's embattled commuters who daily face two major bottlenecks on Highways 10 and 410, which form the natural route to jobs in Brampton, Mississauga and northwest Toronto.

Those bottlenecks are, of course, the signalized intersection in Caledon Village with Peel Region (formerly Highway) 24 and the gap in Brampton between 10 and 410, which currently features enormous gridlocks on Heart Lake Road.

The transportation ministry had already issued a tender call for widening Highway 10 to four lanes between the north end of Caledon Village and the southern edge of four-laning below the junction with Dufferin Road 109. Work on that project is now expected to be under way before the Oct. 10 provincial election, with completion scheduled for mid-2008.

But thanks, no doubt, to the minister's intervention (and perhaps as well to some prodding from Betsy Hall, the Liberal candidate in Dufferin-Caledon riding), we now have funding for the crucial widening through Caledon Village itself, as well as for Highway 410 between Heart Lake Road and Highway 10.

Once those two projects are completed - perhaps as early as 2009 - we shall finally have a multi-lane provincial-highway route through Brampton, Caledon and south Dufferin.

The minister's funding announcements brought praise from an unusual source in John Tory. Speaking no doubt more as the current MPP for the old riding of Dufferin- Peel-Wellington-Grey than as Progressive Conservative leader, Tory said he was glad the need to widen Highway 10 was finally on the Liberal government's radar screen, because it had been on the top of his list for a long time. "I will be especially happy when I see the equipment moving in and the construction actively under way."

Tory disclosed that he and Cansfield had had numerous discussions about the safety of Highway 10 and the need to improve it.

Cansfield dealt with a different but equally important issue - the need to come up with a new, state-of-the-art driver's licence that will be accepted at the U.S. border as an alternative to a passport.

British Columbia and Washington State are already moving to issue high-tech driver's licences designed to let their drivers cross the border without a passport, a move that could cut short fears that more restrictive rules at the border will crimp tourism.

The B.C. half of that initiative hasn't received formal approval from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, but premiers and governors see the B.C.- Washington project as a way to prevent a damaging slowdown in tourism after mid- 2009, when travellers by land and water will otherwise be required to present passports.

The licences will have computer chips with radio transmitters that will broadcast an identification number linked to a computer database, allowing border officials to flag anyone who should not be allowed across the border. The Washington licences also have bar codes, and before one is issued, advanced biometrics will be used to check an applicant's face against those of existing licence holders to guard against duplication and fraud.

Cansfield met with New York officials in Albany, where the main topic was enhanced driver's licences. She said that Ontario is keenly interested in the B.C. approach, and would like to establish similar agreements with both New York and Michigan.

As we see it, the only thing better than the enhanced driver's licence would be a similarly upgraded Social Insurance Number (SIN) card that would include the holder's photograph (likely as a digital image) and a bar code that would give border officials all the information they needed to determine whether the individual does not pose a security threat.

What we really need is a federal-provincial agreement on the design and implementation of a single card the size of a credit card that would serve many functions without intruding on sensitive personal information.

Far-fetched? Perhaps. But surely such cards would be far more user friendly than bulky passports as well as being a better tool to fight terrorism.