MacPass workers to move jobs as harbour bridges go toll-free

Halifax Harbour Bridges employees working in the MacPass customer care centre are being moved into new roles, amid provincial-wide changes.  

“A little over 80 per cent of all the traffic going across the bridges had MacPasses on the windshields,” Kelly Shiers, a spokesperson for Halifax Harbour Bridges, told The Signal in an online interview on March 11. 

There are nine people employed at the MacPass customer service centre. Halifax Harbour Bridges hopes to absorb all nine into new roles in the provincial government, but Shiers said there are months of work ahead before they will leave MacPass.  

“We’re trying to make it as easy as possible for them to get into the next chapter of their life, which is not going to be at MacPass,” said Shiers.  

“It’s not just cuts to the MacPass customer service centre, there is also our treasury department that is also affected.”  

On March 3 Kim Masland, Nova Scotia’s minister of public works, announced the impending removal of the bridge tolls, at the same time raising minimum wage and dropping the province’s harmonized sales tax down one percentage point.  

The original plan was to eliminate bridge tolls on April 1 but that schedule was sped up, as travel over the city’s two harbour bridges became free last weekend and the toll gates on the Macdonald bridge were removed.

The MacKay bridge toll gates will be removed on March 28.  Drivers now flow through the current toll gates with ease, as decades of practice have built this well-oiled machine. Cars feed from two lanes into seven tolls, and back into two lanes to cross the bridge.  

“Now you don’t need a MacPass to get the cheapest way across the bridge, everybody’s going for free,” said Shiers. 

“If you are still using your MacPass to get into the fast lane at Cobequid [Pass], or to go across the Confederation Bridge in P.E.I., those facilities are still accepting it.” 

However, the MacPass plus system at Halifax’s Stanfield International Airport ceased on March 3, and drivers have until March 31 to leave the parkade using the MacPass plus program. 

“If you paid to cross the bridge before, it’s a dollar in your pocket now,” said Shiers.  

Bridge toll operators and security are contracted out to the security firm GardaWorld. Those employees will be moved into new roles within the organization.  

GardaWorld did not respond to an interview request.  

There are over 230,000 active MacPass account holders in 2025.