Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s government considered shifting part of the planned Highway 413 route to accommodate a request from a prominent developer with significant land holdings in the project area, Global News has learned.
A confidential “advice to government” briefing prepared for Ford proposed moving the highway roughly 600 metres north in Caledon to avoid cutting through a planned housing development. The document identified the reason for the suggested change as “developer proposed alignment,” noting the adjustment would remove an interchange and unlock prime land for construction.
Property records show the parcels that stood to benefit are owned by Nick Cortellucci, a member of a well-known Ontario development family with past political donations to the Ontario PC Party and prior government approvals, including a 2021 Minister’s Zoning Order. The Cortellucci companies’ plans envision nearly 2,500 residential units — mostly single-family homes — along with commercial space, parkland, and schools.
Sources say the idea sparked debate among politicians and staff, with some warning it could delay the project’s environmental review and design work by at least a year. The revised alignment would have fallen outside the defined study area, triggering new evaluations, consultations, and preliminary design work.
Maps in the briefing closely matched a proposal Cortellucci submitted to the Town of Caledon in April 2024, which sought to protect the housing project from the highway’s current path. Two specific properties — at Old School and Chinguacousy roads and at Old School and McLaughlin roads — would have been cleared for full development if the changes were adopted.
The Ford government has since stated it is no longer pursuing route changes, noting that 90 per cent of the design work is complete and all major interchanges and crossings have been determined. Officials acknowledged reviewing the developer’s proposal as part of a standard process for considering input from municipalities, landowners, and the public on large infrastructure projects.
The Highway 413 project, a 52-kilometre link between Halton, Peel, and York Region, cleared federal environmental hurdles in 2024 and is set to begin construction this year. But the episode adds to scrutiny of the government’s relationship with developers, coming in the wake of the Greenbelt scandal, where the auditor general found politically connected developers influenced land-use decisions.