Highway 5 serves as a short connector between Highway 8 in the west and Highway 6 in the east, essentially a continuation of Highway 8. This configuration comes as a result of the truncation of both highways by the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario (MTO). The removed sections were transferred to the jurisdiction of the City of Toronto, the City of Mississauga, the Regional Municipality of Halton, the City of Hamilton, the County of Brant, and Oxford County on January 1, 1998. Until then, Highway 5 followed a large portion of Dundas Street between Toronto and Paris.