The Report That Vanished
Eighteen recommendations from Parliament’s Transport Committee. A government commitment to respond. A prorogation in between. And the questions about ALTO that remain unanswered today.
In September 2024, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities tabled its 18th Report: Issues and Opportunities: High Frequency Rail in the Toronto to Quebec City Corridor. Six meetings. 33 witnesses. Four written briefs. Eighteen recommendations.
Transport Canada’s own briefing materials said the government “intends to provide a formal response this Fall/Winter.” The response was never tabled. Documents obtained under Access to Information by The Canadian Press (May 28, 2025) show that the project was simultaneously being rebranded as HSR through an internal process that had been under way since September 2023 — a year before the committee report was even tabled, with more than $330,000 paid to an outside marketing firm. Parliament was prorogued on January 6, 2025. Bill C-15 received royal assent on March 26, 2026 — without the cost analysis, the document release, or the VIA-impact study the committee had asked for.
The recommendations did not fail on their merits. They did not have to be answered. Prorogation ended the committee that asked them; the request to respond technically survives, but the response itself does not. In practice, when prorogation occurs before a response has been tabled, the question evaporates with the parliamentary session.
The result: a $60–90 billion infrastructure project moved through to royal assent of its enabling legislation without the cost analysis, the preparatory-documents release, or the VIA-impact study that a bipartisan committee had formally asked Parliament to require.
What the Transport Committee did
On March 7, 2023, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities agreed to study the proposed High Frequency Rail project, along with two proposed Alberta projects. The committee initially anticipated four meetings; on September 18, 2023, it voted to extend the study. Between September 20, 2023 and February 29, 2024, the committee held six meetings on the file.
It heard from 33 witnesses: ALTO’s own chief executive Martin Imbleau (then styled CEO of VIA HFR–VIA TGF Inc.); Transport Canada’s ADM for High Frequency Rail Vincent Robitaille; VIA Rail president Mario Péloquin; the Railway Association of Canada; Amtrak; the Urban Institute; HEC Montréal; planners at l’Université de Montréal; chambers of commerce from Trois-Rivières, Québec City, and Metropolitan Montreal; mayoral representatives from Drummondville and Trois-Rivières; Unifor and the International Transport Workers’ Federation; and consultants including civity Management Consultants from Germany. It received four written briefs.
The committee was bipartisan in the strongest sense. The chair was Peter Schiefke (Liberal). Vice-chairs were Mark Strahl (Conservative) and Xavier Barsalou-Duval (Bloc). NDP transport critic Taylor Bachrach sat on the committee. Conservative members included Scot Davidson, Leslyn Lewis, and Dan Muys — currently Conservative Associate Shadow Minister of Transport. Liberal members included Vance Badawey, Andy Fillmore, Angelo Iacono, Annie Koutrakis, and Churence Rogers.
The 18-recommendation report was tabled in September 2024. Transport Canada’s October 2024 Deputy Minister briefing materials acknowledged the report and stated:
“The Standing Committee on Transportation, Infrastructure and Communities has just tabled its report entitled Issues and Opportunities: High Frequency Rail in the Toronto to Quebec City Corridor, to which the Government of Canada intends to provide a formal response this Fall/Winter.”
— Transport Canada, Deputy Minister briefing (TRAN), October 10, 2024The commitment was made in writing. The response was never tabled.
Recommendations on cost, documents, and VIA Rail
Of the eighteen recommendations, four are particularly consequential when read against the project as it stands today. Each was specific, evidence-grounded, and addressed a substantive public-interest question. None has been substantively answered.
That the Minister of Transport require VIA HFR–VIA TGF Inc. to provide within six months a budget and a timetable for completing this project, including an analysis of the incremental cost between HFR and HSR, and that this report be tabled in the House of Commons and reported to committee.
Never produced. By the time the report was tabled in September 2024, the corporation it was directed at had already been paying an outside marketing firm for a full year to rebrand the project as HSR — the Cossette contract was signed in September 2023, three months before the committee began its second year of hearings. The name “Alto” was selected internally by April 2024. By the time the recommendation’s six-month deadline arrived, the pivot was eighteen months under way. The cost comparison the committee asked for was not produced before the pivot, and has not been produced since. The $60–90 billion AACE Class 5 range in Q-923 (April 22, 2026) now stands without this analysis behind it.
That the government release the Joint Project Office’s full, unredacted report on the HFR project.
Not released. The Joint Project Office consumed approximately $18 million in CIB-subcontracted preparatory studies — engineering work by Aecon and Arup, contracts with Ernst & Young, and other studies. Its underlying analysis has never been made public. ALTO is proceeding on the basis of preparatory analysis that Parliament’s own committee formally asked to see.
That the Minister require VIA HFR–VIA TGF Inc. to provide an analysis of the impact a dedicated rail line will have on existing VIA Rail service in the Toronto–Quebec City corridor: the viability of maintaining current services, the number of trains, on-time performance, and the possible impacts on freight traffic.
Not produced. The Senate Transport and Communications Committee, examining Bill C-15 in February 2026, raised the same concern: Transport Canada said VIA-served communities would continue to be served and that service “may be optimized,” and the Senate “questions that assumption.” The analysis the House committee asked for would have answered the question both committees now raise. It has not been provided.
That the Government of Canada and VIA HFR–VIA TGF Inc. ensure that HFR does not result in a reduction of service to communities currently served by VIA Rail, and that VIA’s regional rail services be connected to the future HFR service wherever possible.
Not committed to. ALTO’s published materials refer to “optimization” of existing VIA services but contain no binding commitment that current VIA-served communities will retain present service levels. The House committee request, the Senate committee’s February 2026 concern, and questioning from members in committee (including MP Dan Muys on February 23, 2026) all point at the same unanswered question.
Four other recommendations that touch ongoing CRI work
Several other recommendations bear directly on questions the Initiative has documented elsewhere.
Asked the government to look to publicly operated HSR systems in Spain, Switzerland, Austria, and Germany to inform the procurement model. The procurement that followed (Cadence: CDPQ Infra, AtkinsRéalis, Systra, Keolis) was a private-led P3 structure. The public-operator comparison was not published.
Asked that the service design be “centred on the objective of providing a mode of transportation that is competitive with travel by car and by air, in order to maximize modal shift.” ALTO’s station decisions (covered in The Last Mile) bear directly on this. The modal-shift analysis was not published.
Asked that travel time be calculated downtown-to-downtown, including transit connections. ALTO’s public travel-time figures continue to be quoted station-to-station rather than door-to-door.
Asked for a governance mechanism “to make coordinated decisions, thus allowing effective communication and collaboration with cities.” The current architecture (covered in What We Know About ALTO’s Reporting and Accountability) places ALTO under the Financial Administration Act Part X regime without project-specific enabling legislation.
From marketing contract to royal assent
The sequence of events that produced the HSRN Act — once the Access to Information record published by The Canadian Press in May 2025 is laid out alongside the parliamentary record — runs across nearly thirty months. Two processes overlap: the bipartisan committee study and the internal rebranding contract. They were both happening throughout 2024.
Four substantive questions, voided procedurally
Prorogation is a normal feature of Westminster parliamentary government. It is not, in itself, exceptional. What is worth examining is the combination of three things — a substantive bipartisan committee report, an explicit government commitment to respond, and a project redesignation followed by prorogation in the narrow window between the commitment and its fulfilment — and the result that the questions remain unanswered today.
Recommendation 4 asked specifically for the cost difference between HFR and HSR. The redesignation made the comparison more important, not less. It was not produced. The $60–90 billion AACE Class 5 figure in Q-923 now stands as the public record on ALTO’s cost.
Recommendation 6 asked for the JPO’s full unredacted report. The work it commissioned — ~$18 million in engineering studies, consultancies, financial advice — remains outside public view. ALTO is proceeding on the basis of analysis the public, including parliamentarians, has not seen.
Recommendations 8 and 10 asked, twice, that the dedicated line not reduce VIA service to existing communities. The analysis has not been produced. The commitment has not been given. The same question was raised again by the Senate, and again by MP Dan Muys at committee on February 23, 2026. Asked at least three times across two chambers; not answered.
Recommendation 5 asked for analysis of successful publicly operated HSR systems before the procurement model was locked in. The procurement (Cadence P3) proceeded before the analysis the committee called for was produced.
The TRAN committee asked the right questions in the right order: cost analysis before the procurement was locked in, preparatory documents released before the project advanced, VIA-service impact studied before a dedicated line was built. The corporation it asked had, by then, already been paying a marketing firm for a year to rebrand the project in a different direction. The procedural sequence that followed — the unmet October 2024 commitment, the formal December 2024 designation document, the January 2025 prorogation, and the eventual royal assent of legislation enacted without the committee’s recommendations being answered — meant that the question of whether the rebrand should have been accompanied by the analyses the committee had asked for never had to be answered substantively before the project moved forward. None of these events is uniquely attributable to any one government, party, or process. What is documented here is that, taken together, they produced an outcome in which a $60–90 billion infrastructure commitment was given its enabling legislation without the parliamentary scrutiny the public record shows Parliament’s own committee had asked for.
Four mechanisms that remain available
The erasure of TRAN Report 18 is procedural rather than substantive. The witness evidence remains in the parliamentary record. The recommendations remain in the tabled report. The unanswered questions remain unanswered — but they have not become unaskable.
The current TRAN committee
could adopt a motion to revive the relevant recommendations from Report 18, formally request the response that was not provided in the 44th Parliament, and update the recommendations to reflect the HFR–to–HSR redesignation. The underlying evidence is already on the record; no new hearings would be required.
A Senate motion
could request government responses to the substantive recommendations of TRAN Report 18 that bear on questions now governed by the HSRN Act. The Senate’s February 2026 TRCM Second Report already echoed several of the same concerns; a follow-up motion tying them to the unanswered House recommendations would establish bicameral pressure.
Order Paper questions
can ask directly why specific recommendations have not been answered. Q-923 (Lawrence) and Q-1191 (Reid) have begun this work in the 45th Parliament; explicitly naming the recommendations of Report 18 would put the procedural-erasure question on the parliamentary record.
Access to Information
applications can target the JPO report, the December 16, 2024 HFR–to–HSR briefing note (AY-2024-537411), and the technical record Recommendation 6 had asked be made public. These are sympathetic targets because Parliament’s own committee already formally requested release.
None of these mechanisms requires the government’s cooperation. Each is available to opposition members of either chamber, and to citizens whose Access to Information rights cover the underlying documents. The erasure of the report is reversible if the political will to revive it exists.