To the Editor,
We are a minority of citizens who own the majority of the land that Alto wants for its project of a high-speed train. In order to be heard, to be seen, we need to raise our voices against a powerful crown corporation that seems to be oblivious to life outside its office tower. So, hats off to the Alt-No movement and hats off to groups studying improvements to existing rail service.
Alto is a project that will serve no other purpose than to provide faster transportation between a few cities, cause irreparable damage to wildlife and farmers’ fields and livelihoods, tank the value of our homes, leave a scar in our landscape by carving out a passage through our land and finally disrespect local history, fencing in paradise to connect a few dots on a map.
As someone so aptly wrote recently, the land between cities is not empty space. Do the decision makers and navel gazers have any idea what goes on beyond city limits? Do they not realize that the chicken breast or the pork chop or the steak on their dinner plate was raised in these “empty spaces”? The milk their children drink may very well come from Eastern Ontario dairy farms where cows graze in these “empty spaces”. The quantity of hay required to feed beef cattle and dairy cows is grown and harvested in these “empty spaces”. The honey and maple syrup that sweeten their palates are products from trees and wildflowers that grow in these “empty spaces”. The homes that were built and the farms that were established by early settlers in these “empty spaces” are in jeopardy in the name of modernization and speed. This whole concept, in my opinion, is gut-wrenching, disappointing, absurd and selfish.
There are so many plausible and obvious alternatives as mentioned in other letters, so many other ways to spend the billions of tax payers’ dollars earmarked for this make-work project that will mostly create temporary jobs and in the end serve only a few…but sadly not serve the people whose properties will be decimated and whose daily lives will be forever changed.
Why not strive to build a system of efficient transportation that’s in the national interest, national meaning for all Canadians. There are great things to be said about high-speed rail systems but in this case the negative consequences most likely outweigh the advantages.
Remember, speed kills in more ways than one can imagine.
In Alto’s crosshairs, from North Glengarry,
Louise V. Séguin
Dalkeith, ON
