NDP, Greens revive toll highway debate

The New Democratic Party and Green Party are reviving the debate over New Brunswick highway tolls in the run-up to the Sept. 27 election.

Theleaders of both parties say they're in favour of bringing back tolls, a position Don Desserud, a political scientist at the University of New Brunswick in Saint John, said he finds odd.

"It's a bit of surprise because this was an issue that was dealt with, shall we say, in 1999," Desserud said. "I would think people would let it go away."

New Brunswick's tollbooths opened for service on Jan. 5, 1999, stoking a hot debate in that year's election campaign.

Bernard Lord's Progressive Conservatives promised to scrap the tolls on the new Moncton-to-Fredericton highway. When the party swept to power in 1999, the tolls were gone within a year.

While the NDP and the Green Party say they want to bring the tolls back, the other political parties are trying to avoid the subject: The Liberals are unwilling to revisit the toll controversy, and the Conservatives have also said they're not interested in bringing back the toll debate.

Tom Taylor, a key spokesman for a group called Tollbusters that campaigned against the tolls in 1999,said his group wasn't against the tolls. They were angry because the Liberal government of the time campaigned on a promise of no tolls on the highway.

Taylor said he supports tolls as long as New Brunswick residents are exempt.

"People coming in and people leaving [New Brunswick], let them pay. Inside the province should be free for all residents," Taylor said.