Public priority for ALTO: split nationally, divided by geography

A June 2026 Nanos survey for CTV News finds Canadians evenly divided on whether building the Toronto–Québec City high-speed line should be a federal priority — with real support confined to the corridor it would serve, and firm resistance in the West.

Nanos Research asked 1,051 Canadians, between June 26 and 28, 2026, to rate on a 0-to-10 scale how much of a priority it is for the Government of Canada to build the ALTO high-speed rail project. The question told respondents the line would be Canada’s first high-speed railway and that the estimated cost is between $60 and $90 billion, drawing on both public and private investment. The margin of error is ±3.0 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

A national tie — with the intensity at the bottom

On the collapsed scale the country divides almost exactly in half: 38% rate building ALTO a high priority (7–10) and 38% a low priority (0–3), with 20% neutral and 4% unsure. The mean is 4.8, just below the scale’s midpoint. But the full distribution is not symmetric. The single most common answer is “0 — not at all a priority,” chosen by 23% — roughly twice the 11% who pick “10 — very high priority.” The high side is more spread across 7 through 10; the low side is anchored at the floor. Where the poll registers deprioritization, it tends to be firm.

Support concentrated in the corridor

Priority tracks geography closely. In Quebec, 48% call it a high priority — significantly above the national figure — and Ontario is similar at 43%; both corridor provinces sit above the midpoint on the mean. Outside the corridor the pattern reverses: in the Prairies a majority (50%) rate it a low priority and only 21% a high one, the sole region where “not a priority” is an outright majority; British Columbia leans the same way (41% low, 31% high). Atlantic Canada sits close to the national average. Statistically, the defensible reading is that the corridor provinces lean positive and the West leans negative — individual provinces within each bloc are not clearly distinguishable from one another.

Other differences

Men are more favourable than women (mean 5.0 versus 4.6; 42% high priority versus 35%), a gap that holds up under direct testing. Age, by contrast, is essentially flat — younger and older Canadians rate the project about the same.

How to read it

Two cautions. First, the question measures priority, not approval: it asks where ALTO ranks against everything else the federal government could spend on, so a respondent can favour high-speed rail in principle and still place it low against competing demands. Second, the question anchored respondents to the project’s own cost estimate of $60–90 billion; survey responses are sensitive to the figures a question supplies, and this is the lower end of the plausible range. Regional subgroups also carry wider margins of error (roughly ±5 to ±10 points) than the national result, so fine distinctions within a region should be read with care.