toll highways

Small businesses are adding their voices to those who oppose toll highways.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) says 66 per cent of those who responded in a Your Voice survey are against the idea of putting a fee on nationally significant highways that are the only “practical” road connection between provinces and territories.

In Atlantic Canada, those against rose to 68 per cent.

“At a time when governments are working to eliminate barriers to internal trade, adding a toll at the New Brunswick-Nova Scotia border would take us in the opposite direction,” says Frederic Gionet in a news release, Atlantic Director for CFIB.

He says small business rely on these routes to move goods, serve customers and keep supply chains moving.

The comments from CFIB come after New Brunswick tabled a motion in their spring budget to put a $4 toll on a highway in Aulac.

This received backlash among several politicians including MLA for Cumberland North in Nova Scotia who was also pushing to have the Cobequid Pass tolls removed.

CFIB says businesses already face significant transportation, fuel and operating costs and this just adds it on.

The federation calls on New Brunswick and Nova Scotia governments to prioritize the removal of interprovincial trade barriers to make sure significant trade corridors help but not punish the movement of goods and services.