A large, diverse crowd of farmers and other citizens of all political affiliations gathered at Ferme Legault near Rigaud on Saturday, September 19 to show they are unified against the proposed Alto high-speed passenger rail project.
The Strong and United Rally began with a parade of tractors, many covered with anti-Alto signs or pulling wagons with displays opposing the project, arrived at the site. Messages on those signs were mostly related to the negative effects the rail line could have on agriculture, but others also expressed concern that the project could adversely affect winter snowmobile trails, which are both a big part of recreation and the regional economy.
Daniel Legault, whose family farm hosted the rally, said he is proud to be a farmer and cannot understand the logic of destroying the rural environment. With his barn full of dairy cattle behind the stage, Legault said it would be very difficult to manage a farm bisected by a high-speed rail line.
With a provincial election approaching on October 5 in Québec, and municipal elections on October 26 in Ontario, there was a strong political presence at the rally with several Parti conservateur du Québec (PCQ) Leader Éric Duhaime attended, greeting people in the crowd, and then delivered a short address from the stage, expressing strong opposition to the Alto project.
“We’re going to fight that project and make sure we win!” Duhaime told the crowd.
“The project is a threat to our agricultural land!” Duhaime continued.
He said the Québec Conservatives would instead focus on improvements to existing infrastructure.
Several other PCQ and Parti Québécois (PQ) candidates were in the audience along with municipal candidates from Ontario.
Karine Bercier of St-Isidore, a farmer and certified public accountant (CPA), urged landowners in the audience not to wait until they receive an expropriation notice to start asking questions. She urged them to speak with lawyers and accountants about to how ensure they are protected financially and legally.
“We’re not just talking about acres, we’re talking about family wealth that may have taken generations to build,” she noted.
“We need to prepare our families for this risk while fighting like hell to make sure it never becomes a reality!” Bercier concluded.
Erin Durant, a litigation lawyer from Vars who has been aggressively scrutinizing the Alto proposal and documenting information against the proposal, said now that the estimated cost of the project is up to $150 billion after originally being $60 to $80 billion, the interest, and cost of connecting the Alto terminal planned for the north end of Toronto to downtown Toronto is still unknown. Durant added that there is nowhere else in the world with high-speed rail where trains operate at speeds of up to 300 kilometres per hour in temperatures as low as minus 30 Celsius.
“How’s that going to work?” Durant wondered.
Durant continued by highlighting how consulting engineers under contract with the federal government were asked to review the Request for Proposal (RFP) for prospective contractors for the Alto project. She alleged that the request was put to market without any specifications and that the bidders were presenting the most expensive options. Durant said documents she has obtained indicate the review of the RFP found there would be no meaningful Indigenous of public input, and that the government could not expect any widespread public support.
Durant questioned why more elected officials were not sufficiently opposing the Alto proposal. She said it is not a good enough excuse when municipal elected officials say Alto is a federal responsibility and there is not much they can do about it, because they can still say no.
In a plea for unit among rural residents, Durant said, “We need to stick together.” She said that once a route is announced, property owners will be approached and offered money.
“We need people to tell them when they get that letter, ‘get off my property!” exclaimed Durant.
She urged volunteers to not give up and even said it could be challenged under the constitution and Canadian Bill of Rights, which includes property rights.
Durant said that like with the proposal to open the operation of Canada’s four largest airports to private investment, the government is also setting the framework for passenger rail to be privately operated.
The Alto project is a private-public partnership between the Alto crown corporation and the Cadence consortium of various companies.
Dr. Ian Lee, and Associate Professor of Management at the Carleton University Sprott School of Business in Ottawa gave a macroeconomic overview of the Alto proposal.
Lee examined data on high-speed passenger rail systems in Europe, Japan, and China. He said while he agrees with the idea of high-speed rail, it only works in a small number of countries.
“When people say this is a big trend around the world, that is simply not true,” he told The Review in a separate interview.
“I believe Alto has seriously underestimated the cost,” he added.
Lee said in Europe and China, only seven per cent of the population uses high-speed rail. In Japan, 28 per cent of the population uses it, but policies there are designed to discourage people from driving between cities. Japan has high taxes on fuel, vehicles, and parking. Lee said Alto is estimating 70 per cent of trips between Québec City and Toronto will eventually be by rail. He called that estimate is highly unbelievable.
“The data shows this going to be a catastrophic failure,” Lee remarked.
“There is no evidence in the world for such a number,” he added.
Lee said the projected cost and ridership numbers do not make sense.
He also noted that if autonomous vehicles become a dominant form of transportation during the next decade, it will reduce the demand for public transportation.
“I do not believe these numbers at all. They are not credible in any way, shape, or form,” Lee told the crowd.
Other speakers at the Strong and United Rally against Alto included Bloc Québécois Member of Parliament Sebastien Lemire, and Pointe-Fortune Mayor Sandra Lavoratore.
Photos: James Morgan
