Families of victims of tragedies that have occurred on highways 11 and 17 were in Toronto on Monday to demand improved road safety, including winter maintenance and road-twinning. They joined Ontario New Democrat MPPs, who recently took a road trip up the highways to learn more from northern Ontario drivers. Nathan Vaillant lost his wife, Cheynne, in a head-on crash with a transport due to road conditions and ice on Jan. 29. Vaillant said he doesn’t believe highway safety is being addressed. The family told CTV News that Cheynne had full winter tires on her vehicle and no charges were laid in the incident. “They can look at a map (and) tell where their accidents are, where their fatalities are,” he told reporters. “It just seems it keeps getting neglected and ignored every time.” Five people were killed in collisions on the two highways between Nov. 1, 2025, and Feb. 6, 2026, with at least 148 hours of closures. So far in 2026 alone, there have been at least 10 fatalities on northern highways. “I have to go by the spot two times a day, every day, to go to work, where she took her last breath,” said Ivan Brady, Cheyenne’s father. Jim Bailey’s son, Dallas, was only 19 years old when he died in a collision in October 2018. “Our good news of the day was there was no soot in my son’s lungs because his car burned — so our good news was his neck was broken first and he was actually dead before the fire,” Bailey said. “My son’s not the first. He won’t be the last. Cheyenne’s not the first. She won’t be the last.” The families watched a 15-minute documentary produced by the NDP about the situation on northern roads. The MPPs took a two-week road trip to gain insight and hear concerns from drivers who use the corridor. After the viewing, the MPPs put Ontario Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria on the spot, as the families watched from the gallery. “Highway safety, especially on 11/17, is at a crisis level,” said Timiskaming-Cochrane MPP John Vanthof. “Minister, what you are doing now is not working,” Mushkegowuk-James Bay MPP Guy Bourgouin added. “People keep dying on our roads.” In response, Sarkaria said the province has increased the number of transportation enforcement officers in the north this year “by over 48 individuals, conducting over 129,000 inspections, which is up over 50 per cent.” Premier Doug Ford addressed road fatalities last week in North Bay. Ford said early work on the 2+1 highway pilot project on Highway 11 north of North Bay is underway. “The 2+1, that’s never been done in North America,” he told reporters. “We’re going full steam on making sure that we expand highways that no government’s ever expanded before.” Ford added his government is prioritizing the need to expand “a treacherous track down from Sudbury, Highway 69, making that two lanes on either side.” “It’s going to make it a lot safer,” Ford said. A Ministry of Transportation spokesperson said the government has invested nearly $600 million to build and repair northern highways, roads, and bridges, with more than $350 million to improve safety and reliability along Highways 11, 17 and the 11/17 corridor specifically. Since 2024, the MTO said that more than 40 construction contracts have been awarded along those routes. But for the families of lost loved ones on the highways, action is not coming quickly enough. “There are two things in life: excuses and results. We’re getting a lot of the first, not a lot of the last,” Bailey said. RELATED STORIES:
