On Saturday, September 19, farmers, landowners, families and community members from across Eastern Ontario and Western Québec will converge on Fermes Legault in Rigaud for Strong and United—Rassemblement Fort et Unis, a bilingual cross-provincial rally opposing the proposed ALTO high-speed rail project. They plan to send a clear message to the federal government: “Our communities are not expendable.”
The event will feature a tractor parade beginning at noon, followed by speakers addressing the economic, ethical, agricultural and social consequences of ALTO.
For months, communities on both sides of the Ottawa River have been raising concerns about ALTO and its potential effects on farms, homes, property, roads, local communities and agricultural land. Now, those communities are joining forces.
“ALTO doesn’t stop at the Québec-Ontario border, and neither does our opposition,” said Ben Hammond of Lachute, of BenAllen Farms, now in its fourth generation in Quebec and Ontario. “The people who will live with the consequences of this project have far more in common with each other than they do with the bureaucrats and consultants drawing lines on a map. On September 19, we’re drawing our own line: our communities matter.”
The rally is intended to demonstrate that opposition to ALTO is not confined to one municipality, one province or one group of landowners. It has become a united movement along the entire ALTO corridor.
The tractor parade will put the agricultural heart of the movement front and centre. At a time when food security and agricultural land are increasingly recognized as strategic priorities, organizers say it makes little sense to treat productive farmland as an obstacle to be cleared in the path of a rail corridor.
“You can’t eat a train,” said OFA Provincial Director and South Glengarry Councillor, Sam McDonell. “You can’t relocate a farm the way you relocate a station. You can’t replace generations of agricultural knowledge by pouring concrete somewhere else.”
The tractor parade will be followed by a series of speakers bringing economic, legal, agricultural and community perspectives to the debate. The speakers include:
Dr. Ian Lee — Carleton University
The Economics of ALTO
Erin Durant — Durant Barristers
Governance and Ethics of the ALTO Project
Anaïs Thibodeau — Gestionnaire de chaos
The Absence of Public Transit in Rural Communities
Jeremy Letelier — President, UPA Montérégie
The Social Acceptability of ALTO
Sébastien Lemire — Member of Parliament, Bloc Québécois Agriculture Critic
Canadian Food Sovereignty
Union des producteurs agricoles (UPA)
Mangeons local. Point final.
Organizers emphasize that the rally is not simply a protest against high-speed rail. It is a protest against how major infrastructure decisions are being made and who is expected to bear the consequences.
“People are being told that this is progress and that they should simply get out of the way,” said ALTNO director and East Hawkesbury Councillor-designate, Kathleen O’Connell Renaud. “That’s not how a democratic infrastructure project should work. If this project is truly in the public interest, then its proponents should be able to answer the hard questions about cost, land, agriculture, environmental impacts and community disruption—and they should be willing to listen when the people affected say they have serious concerns.”
For communities along the proposed corridor, the stakes are deeply personal. These are homes, farms, businesses, roads. neighbourhoods and generational family land. They are not lines on an engineering drawing.
The organizers are calling on residents from both sides of the Ottawa River to come to Rigaud and make their voices heard as one voice, regardless of which community or province they live in.
The schedule for Strong and United—Rassemblement Fort et Unis on Saturday, September 19 at Fermes Legault, 1100 Chemin Saint-Thomas, Rigaud, QC is as follows:
Tractor Parade — 12:00 p.m.
Welcome — 12:30 p.m.
Speeches — 12:40–2:00 p.m.
Gates open — 10:00 a.m.
Bilingual event
Free parking | All ages welcome
