Tag: public consultation

  • Development ethics for Alto

    Guest Submission · Development Ethics

    Development Ethics for Alto

    Brief to the Alto online public consultation

    JD
    Jay Drydyk
    Professor Emeritus, Carleton University
    Past President, International Development Ethics Association
    Publisher’s Note

    The ALTO HSR Citizen Research Initiative is pleased to publish this guest brief with the author’s permission. It is reproduced as written; the analysis, rankings, and recommendations are Dr. Drydyk’s own. Footnotes appear as endnotes at the foot of the page.

    Section 1

    The contractor and the public

    Suppose our roof is damaged, and we are restricted by our bank to dealing with only one contractor for the repair. The contractor tells us there are two options, A and B, both of which are risky and expensive. Then we find out there is a third option, which is not so risky or expensive. The contractor has not only concealed this from us but now refuses to talk about it.

    Is this an ethically acceptable way of doing business? No, it seems to violate basic values of honesty and transparency.

    By analogy, this seems to be how Alto has tried to do business with us as a public. The roof is our broken inter-city transportation system. The two expensive and risky options are two new high-speed rail [HSR] corridors put forward in the Alto project proposal of 2025-26. What I will call the ‘northern Shield corridor’ lies north of Highway 7, and what I will call the ‘Frontenac/Napanee corridor’ lies south of Highway 7. Farther south another corridor already exists, along the CN right of way and Highway 401. This third, most southerly corridor is the one that Alto is reluctant to discuss.1

    To put this in another way, the imaginary contractor and the real agents of Alto are both selling their solutions with logical fallacies. The contractor tells us: you need to fix your roof, so you need my options A or B. Alto: you need to fix your broken transportation system, so you need a new transportation corridor. Neither argument follows, because in each case there is a third option.

    Section 2

    Good development vs. maldevelopment

    Some development is worthwhile, but some is quite undesirable; this is an ethical difference, based on values, and with 80 years of post-WWII experience we know a lot about what these values are. Worthwhile development not only produces more, it also enhances people’s well-being and freedom, so that they are better able to shape their own lives for the better; it also does so equitably and sustainably. These are the pillars of what has been identified as a worthwhile ‘human development’ approach by the influential economist Mahbub ul Haq in collaboration with Nobel laureate Amartya Sen.2

    Meanwhile, other development researchers have studied what these broad values require in practice in cases of development projects (like Alto) that involve land-taking.3 Some guidance can be found in national legal systems, in international human rights law, and in operational policies of international financial institutions. Yet the evidence shows that ‘even when all three approaches are applied consistently, outcomes … are generally still poor’, impacting negatively on the livelihoods and well-being of people affected.4 A recent synthesis of this research has formulated six guiding principles to fill these gaps. Three of these are most significant for the Alto proposal:

    2. Fair procedures: promote inclusive decision-making through a fair and transparent procedure from the outset and throughout the lifecycle of the project;

    3. Fair distribution: ensure a fair distribution of impacts and benefits and align with the Sustainable Development Goals;

    6. Remedy and accountability: ensure remedy and accountability through access to grievance redress mechanisms, remediation and legal recourse.5

    These values and principles help to distinguish between good development and maldevelopment in five dimensions of the Alto proposal: public interest, landowner impact, community impact, environmental impact, and Indigenous peoples’ consent.

    Section 3

    Public interest, public need

    Development ethics tells us that people should not be displaced and land should not be taken for development except for projects that are in the public interest.6 What does ‘public interest’ mean here? It means that the gains or advantages created by the project are not entirely private gains, that very significant gains accrue to us as a public. An important standard of public interest is public need. Building schools and hospitals involves land-taking, by which some residents may be displaced, and yet there is great gain to the public, in having schools and hospitals, simply because schools and hospitals are things we need, as a public. This does not entail that building a particular school in a particular place is the best way to meet this need, but it does give very strong reason for building some such school where it is most needed.

    The term ‘high-speed rail’ has been used with different meanings in recent discussions, and so I want to be clear that what I will mean is rail service with maximum speeds faster than 200km/hr. This range corresponds with the definition of HSR by the International Union of Railways.7 This range includes what Alto means by ‘high-speed’, which is faster than 300km/hr, but it also includes speeds in the 200 range. Unlike the Alto definition (>300km/hr), the broader UIC definition captures the majority of high-speed rail services currently offered in Japan and Europe.8

    There is a strong case that high-speed rail, in this sense, is a public need in Ontario and Québec. According to this argument, HSR is needed to shift people’s choices in the Ontario-Québec corridor from airplanes, cars, and buses to trains. This is needed for two main reasons. First, continued reliance on cars, buses, and airplanes, for generations to come, has an unacceptable carbon footprint, which will contribute to ever greater loss of life, property, homes, and habitats through climate change. Second, continued reliance on cars, buses, and airplanes imposes a drag on economic productivity, putting downward pressure on livelihoods and well-being throughout the economy. For these two reasons, it is argued, we have a long-term need to change the mode of inter-city transport in this corridor, and, to achieve this we have a long-term public need for high-speed rail.9

    However, this does not determine where and how HSR should be built – with one exception. Building HSR stations at locations removed from city centres defeats the purpose of HSR (for travelers) by adding commuting time to reach the stations.10 As to where and how HSR is built, public benefit is only one value that matters: we also have equity/fairness/justice and sustainability to consider. There are equity issues pertaining to landowners, communities, and Indigenous peoples, which I will consider in the next three sections; environmental values will be considered in section 7. All of these raise further issues of accountability.

    Section 4

    Landowner impact

    When we notice unfairness or injustice, we are perceiving some kind of deprivation as being wrong. Even if a development project meets public needs and creates public benefits, our intuitive sense of justice will object if the project imposes unwarranted burdens and harms on others. It remains true for cooking that, ‘If you want make an omelet you have to break some eggs,’ – but not as a metaphor excusing harmful development. Thus it is widely accepted that development projects should not make people worse off, either by displacing them from their land, or through other community impacts.11

    Paying people market value for the land that is taken from them may still leave them worse off. One reason is the impact of land-taking on livelihoods. When his land was assessed for compensation by an oil pipeline project, a Ugandan farmer remarked, ‘I had 10 mango trees where I used to make a lot of money every season and look after 11 dependents, we got only 670,000 [shillings] … they didn’t think about the capital value required to plant new trees and how many years it would take us to start harvesting fruits again.’12 The Alto project does not threaten any mango trees in Eastern Ontario, but it does threaten to impact livelihoods by dividing farms. It may be possible to mitigate these effects, but it would be complicated: organizing and paying for land swaps so that each farm is made whole by other land on the same side of the fenced-off right of way. One challenge of land replacement strategies like these is to ensure that the replacement land is of as good quality as the land lost. If this is not possible, compensation for lost revenue/livelihood would require revenue sharing plans on the part of the project.

    The Ontario Federation of Agriculture has stated:

    It is not acceptable for any railway to divide properties and thereby “landlock” the interior of the lot. Any crossing must be at least 10 metres wide to allow large and irregularly shaped farm and forestry equipment to be conveyed safely across the railway. Over- and underpasses must be engineered to accommodate the weight, height, and width of not only today’s farm and forestry equipment but also what machines may be used in the future. Crossings must also be engineered to prevent equipment rollovers. Alto must also preserve drainage system functionality and not adversely affect natural drainage systems.

    Alto has stated that the entirety of the railway corridor will be fenced. Alto must consult on the fencing design to ensure farm animals cannot stray onto the tracks, as some farm animals have special fencing needs.

    In addition, Transport Canada and Alto must provide fair and proportionate compensation for other negative affections caused by the railway, which will permanently affect farm production and limit growth potential.13

    The issue here is equity: if these effects are not fully mitigated and/or compensated, the farmers will bear special burdens for the building of high-speed rail – as if an arbitrary high-speed rail tax were imposed upon farmers on whose land track was laid.

    Currently no accountability mechanisms have been established to ensure that such mitigations and compensations are carried out, and to which landowners can seek recourse in case mitigation and compensation are not carried out. Government has an ethical obligation to establish such mechanisms before making a final investment decision.

    Section 5

    Community impacts

    According to Alto:

    High-speed rail is one of the world’s safest modes of intercity transportation. This partly stems from the fact that its tracks are physically separate from regular road traffic. There are no crossings connecting roadways and the tracks, thereby minimizing the risk of collisions. In addition, the high-speed rail network’s right-of-way is completely fenced in. Elevated tracks and tunnels mean the trains can cross entire cities without interacting with other road vehicles or trains.14

    However, this same railway separation also has other consequences for human security. Limited overpass/underpass crossings may increase distances and times for fire and ambulance services, potentially causing fatal delays.15 These security gaps can be mitigated by careful planning of overpasses and underpasses; mitigation plans should be agreed with the municipalities responsible for delivering these services. Best practices of high-speed rail systems in other countries should be followed.

    Once again accountability is a problem. To date no accountability mechanisms have been established to ensure agreement and planning for timely fire and emergency health services after Alto rail lines have been built and separated from roadways. Nor is there any body to which municipalities can seek recourse in case such agreement and planning do not occur, or in case agreements are not fulfilled. Government has an ethical obligation to establish such mechanisms before making a final investment decision.

    If the Frontenac/Napanee or northern shield corridors are chosen for HSR, existing VIA service will be impacted by service cuts as longer-distance travellers shift to HSR. At present Kingston is the fifth-busiest passenger train station in the country. There is a public need to maintain viable service for these passengers and others from stations along the existing VIA corridor. Moreover, community impacts from Alto would reach far beyond eastern Ontario. If 80% of VIA revenue currently comes from passengers travelling in the Windsor-Québec corridor, and much of this is diverted to Cadence as operator of HSR between Toronto and Québec, much less will be available to support other major VIA trains, such as: Montréal-Halifax (‘The Ocean’); Toronto-Vancouver (‘The Canadian’); Winnipeg-Churchill; Jasper-Prince Rupert; Sudbury-White River; Montréal-Jonquière/Senneterre. Allowing these train services to be degraded or discontinued would constitute a clear neglect of public interest. Accordingly, the Alto HSR Citizens Research Initiative has called for two immediate legislative responses:

    Statutory Service Guarantee for the Kingston SubdivisionAny federal legislation enabling ALTO must include a statutory charter guaranteeing minimum VIA Rail service levels on the Kingston Subdivision. The charter must specify minimum daily frequencies, protect morning and evening service windows, and require public consultation before schedule changes affecting intermediate communities.

    Dedicated, Legislated Funding for the National Rail NetworkParliament must establish a dedicated funding stream for VIA Rail’s non-corridor network — The Ocean, The Canadian, and remote services — entirely independent of corridor revenue that will transfer to Cadence. This fund must be protected as a condition of any ALTO implementation agreement.16

    The appropriate timing for such legislative action would be as close as possible to the final investment decision on the Alto project.

    Section 6

    Indigenous peoples’ consent

    Alto has stated, ‘We are committed to engaging in meaningful consultations with the aim of securing the Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC), of potentially impacted communities.’17 The phrasing is ambiguous. Are they committed to achieving FPIC, or only to holding ‘meaningful consultations with the aim’ of doing so? The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is unambiguous on this point.

    Article 322. States shall consult and cooperate in good faith with the indigenous peoples concerned through their own representative institutions in order to obtain their free and informed consent prior to the approval of any project affecting their lands or territories and other resources, particularly in connection with the development, utilization or exploitation of mineral, water or other resources.18

    Meaningful consultation is not the end; it is only a means to achieving ‘free and informed consent prior to the approval of any project affecting their lands or territories and other resources’.

    The earlier High Frequency Rail project which preceded Alto included consultation with ‘more than 40 potentially impacted Indigenous communities and organizations’.19 However, that consultation focused entirely on supplementing the Request for Proposals with provisions for Indigenous social benefits and participation. There was no mention of consent with regard to impact on Indigenous territory; in any case, the Request for Proposals for HFR has been superseded by the Alto HSR proposal awarded to Cadence, now in co-development phase. Site selection and alignment have not yet been specified by Alto and Cadence. At the present time it is unclear whether any discussions have been undertaken with the Mohawk of the Bay of Quinte in Ontario or the Mohawk of Kanesatake in Quebec about use of or impact on their territories. Nor is there any evidence of commitment to recourse or accountability mechanisms for benefit/land/participation commitments that will be made to them.

    Section 7

    Environmental Impact

    For the route through the Frontenac Arch and Napanee Plain, environmental risks are significant. For the northern route largely over Canadian Shield, risks are less clear. For the southernmost corridor, environmental risks have already been incurred by the CN right of way and Highway 401; one would expect additional risks from HSR to be small by comparison. Doing nothing to shift travelers over to rail also incurs the environmental risks incurred by flying and driving, notably contributions to climate change. The difficult question is actually the normative question: which risks must be avoided? If worthwhile development is environmentally sustainable, then the answer is that we must avoid risks that are unsustainable, and this shifts the question to: what are the meaning and standards for sustainability?

    While precise answers to these normative questions are elusive, two broad ways of framing them have emerged over the past forty years to provide starting points for public deliberation about environmental risks. The 1987 Brundtland Commission proposed that development is sustainable when it meets the needs of present generations without jeopardizing the needs of future generations.20 More recently, the UNDP Human Development Report of 2020 called for steering development to ease the ‘planetary pressures’ that historical and contemporary social and economic development unleash.21 The main idea here is that development puts pressures on the planet, and the planet pushes back in ways that make present and future human flourishing more uncertain. At the extreme:

    Climate change and biodiversity integrity loss are tightly coupled core boundaries, and human activities are currently pushing both of them into a high-risk zone. If humanity breaches planetary boundaries too far or for too long, it may disrupt planetary life support systems, with substantial risks for human life as we know it.22

    The HSR corridor over part of the Frontenac Arch will also traverse an adjoining limestone plain surrounding the Napanee and Salmon Rivers. Under the limestone plain is found karst geology, featuring sinkholes, fissures, caves, and disappearing streams; above it are rare alvar ecosystems based on terrain with thin or no soil cover. These ecosystems harbour several species protected by the Species at Risk Act; it is doubtful that Alto could show that its construction can meet requirements of this Act. Construction would also affect subsurface water flows in unpredictable ways, possibly damaging freshwater access and use downstream. For other ecosystems in other places it may be possible to mitigate environmental impacts of HSR, as for example best practice standards have evolved in Europe for protecting essential pathways for migratory species. If such mitigation strategies can succeed for a CN/401 corridor, or for a northern shield corridor, they must be planned, budgeted, and carried out. However, in the Frontenac Arch and Napanee Plain these particular mitigation strategies may be of no use, due to the combination of karst geology below and alvar ecosystems above. Since biodiversity and freshwater access are two dimensions in which there are planetary boundaries, it follows that, in this corridor, an HSR line would be adding to planetary pressures rather than reducing them. Building HSR in the Frontenac/Napanee corridor, then, qualifies as environmental maldevelopment.23

    In the northern Shield corridor, biodiversity and freshwater impacts may be less pronounced and more amenable to mitigation. The HSR line and its construction are less likely to disrupt water flow in this corridor, where streams run parallel to rail alignment. The line would disrupt movement by larger mammals such as moose, elk, and bear, but these are not species at risk. More research is needed to determine what kinds of mitigation are required; international evidence suggests that there are few types of overpass that large mammals will actually use, and these are quite expensive.24 Effects on other species also requires further study and assessment. A clear standard for wildlife mitigation, with accountability mechanisms, is needed to ensure that adequate mitigation measures are chosen and implemented.

    Section 8

    Ranking the options: from morally worst to not so bad

    These two frameworks – future generations and planetary pressures – can help to orient discussion of environmental and social impacts in ethical, value-based terms. We can consider what will be the result of rolling out the various HSR options over multiple future generations. How will these decisions now affect planetary pressures exerted by humans then? Is it possible to assess or at least imagine how much closer to or in excess of planetary boundaries we get, in each scenario? In light of this, we can rank those options, as to how comparatively undesirable they are, from a development ethics perspective.

    The following rankings are only illustrative, expressing my own moral assessment, based on reasons for concern that I am aware of at the present time. This illustration, however, does have a point, namely that it is plausible and powerful to rank the options before us in terms of their enduring impact both to enhance human well-being and to reduce the dangerous pressures we are placing upon the planetary systems that sustain us. What we need, I conclude, is a public deliberation to make such a ranking.

    1
    Status quo.If there is no replacement for current VIA Rail levels of service, travelers will continue to be shunted into cars, buses, and airplanes to travel between Québec, Montréal, Ottawa, and Toronto (and indeed London and Windsor). The carbon footprint for this travel will grow apace. There being no other proposals on the horizon to compensate, I conclude that continuation of the status quo on VIA Rail will mean continued contribution to the death, illness, and destruction of property and habitats that result from carbon-induced climate change.
    2
    Frontenac/Napanee corridor, without mitigation.Mitigation for landowners and community safety are feasible and morally mandatory; however, for the sake of ranking consider the possibility that it is not carried out, so we have: unnecessary and inequitable loss to livelihoods and human security. In that respect, this option ranks worse than the following one:
    3
    Frontenac/Napanee corridor, with human/community mitigation.Well-being and equity issues in the previous option are removed, but, on the environmental side, ecological mitigation seems unlikely. Over many generations, then, the effects we can anticipate from HSR include (a) expansion of human well-being; (b) reduction in the particular pressures imposed by the carbon footprint of travel between Windsor and Québec; but (c) significantly increased planetary pressures both on biodiversity and on freshwater access.
    4
    Northern Canadian Shield corridor, without mitigation.Although much of this territory is more remote, there are still roads, tracks, and migratory paths that can be cut off by HSR fencing. Human security and wildlife migration will still be impacted unless mitigation measures are adopted.
    5
    Northern Canadian Shield corridor, with mitigation.With landowner and community mitigation, inequitable losses are reduced, so that we can anticipate (a) expansion of human well-being, along with (b) reduction in the particular pressures imposed by the carbon footprint of travel between Windsor and Québec; (c) with mitigation it may be possible to avoid increasing planetary pressures on biodiversity, but this is not perfectly clear, either; (d) adverse impacts on fresh water are less likely. Rolling this forward over multiple generations, we want to ensure monitoring for unforeseen environmental problems. This could be addressed by establishing capability in each region affected by HSR for ongoing environmental monitoring, funded by revenue sharing from operation of HSR service.
    6
    Southern CN/401 corridor, without mitigation.Because this corridor already exists, one might expect fewer new adverse impacts. However, without mitigation, mandatory grade separation and fencing will adversely affect humans and other species alike, which makes this option worse than the final one.
    7
    Southern CN/401 corridor, with mitigationfor community and wildlife impacts to highest standards of European/Asian HSR, with further direction from the environmental assessment. With landowner and community mitigation, inequitable losses are reduced, so that we can anticipate (a) expansion of human well-being. In addition, the problem of depriving service to Kingston is avoided. Over future generations we can also expect (b) reduction in the particular pressures imposed by the carbon footprint of travel between Windsor and Québec. Following best European/Asian practices, modified by site-specific environmental assessment, (c) with mitigation it may be possible to avoid increasing planetary pressures on biodiversity as well as (d) impacts on fresh water. Still, rolling this forward over multiple generations, we want to ensure monitoring for unforeseen environmental problems by establishing, in each affected region, capability for ongoing environmental monitoring, funded by revenue sharing from HSR operation.

    The worst option, according to this, is the status quo. Doing nothing now about intercity travel has the worst impact on well-being and planetary pressures for future generations. The Frontenac/Napanee options are not much better. An independent public panel, I believe, would confirm these rankings and could also shed more light on the others.

    Section 9

    Recommendations to the Government of Canada

    1
    Make corridor proposals public, including the CN/401 corridor. Immediately require Alto to develop and make public feasible alignment plans for (a) the CN/401 corridor, along with any alignment plans under active consideration for (b) the northern Canadian Shield corridor; and (c) the Frontenac/Napanee corridor. Require each of these plans to include cost estimates for wildlife and road crossings at high international standards, for land replacement to maintain farm viability, and for revenue sharing to fund ongoing monitoring of environmental impacts.
    2
    Make corridor choice a public choice. Prior to Final Investment Decision, appoint an independent public panel to recommend choice between corridor proposals (including the status quo), (a) on grounds of public interest, community impact, and environmental impacts/pressures; (b) considering these impacts for several generations (c) with powers to modify any proposals submitted, and (d) with a mandate to recommend mechanisms of recourse and accountability.
    3
    Obtain Indigenous peoples’ consent. Prior to Final Investment Decision, ensure that free and informed consent to impacts on their lands has been given by affected Indigenous peoples, along with mechanisms of recourse and accountability for community and environmental impacts on those lands as well as for commitments to Indigenous participation and community benefits.
    4
    Establish accountability mechanisms and environmental monitoring. Withhold Final Investment Decision until mechanisms of recourse and accountability have been established to support commitments for (a) landowners, (b) communities, (c) wildlife impacts, and (d) Indigenous communities. Do not invest in an HSR proposal that does not allocate revenue in the operational phase for ongoing regionally-controlled environmental monitoring.
    5
    Protect VIA Rail with legislation and funding. Establish service levels and funding streams for regional service along the Windsor-Montreal corridor and for VIA Rail’s non-corridor network – The Ocean, The Canadian, and remote services.
    Section 10

    Recommendations to Alto

    A1
    Corridor proposals. From the perspective of development ethics, corridor choice is not yours to make; this is properly a public choice. Accordingly, you are obligated to prepare development options for all of the feasible HSR corridors, to facilitate public choice among them.
    A2
    Request and obtain Indigenous people’s consent. Ensure that free and informed consent to impacts on their lands has been given by affected Indigenous peoples.
    A3
    Negotiate livelihood replacement. In negotiating with landowners, ensure that compensation covers livelihood replacement (including, for farmers, drainage and access to fields), including revenue sharing if necessary.
    A4
    Negotiate revenue sharing for ongoing regionally-controlled environmental monitoring during the operational phase.
    A5
    Negotiate mechanisms of recourse and accountability to support commitments made for (a) landowners, (b) communities, (c) wildlife impacts and environmental monitoring, and (d) Indigenous communities.
    References

    Notes

    1
    ALTO HSR Citizen Research Initiative, How History Led Us Here, March 2026, citizenresearch.ca/how-history-led-us-here, and Where We Stand on the Route, altohsrcitizenresearch.ca, accessed April 9, 2026.
    2
    Mahbub ul Haq, Reflections on Human Development (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995). Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999.
    3
    Peter Penz, Jay Drydyk, and Pablo Bose, Displacement by Development: Ethics, Rights, and Responsibilities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).
    4
    Smyth, Eddie, Susanna Price, and Frank Vanclay, ‘Fair and Equitable Land Access (FELA) by Development Projects: Enhancing Governance for Sustainable Development Outcomes When Projects Displace People,’ (Sustainable Development 2025, p. 3.
    5
    Ibid.
    6
    Penz, Drydyk, and Bose 2011, p. 211.
    7
    Union Internationale des Chemins de fer (UIC), ‘The Definition of High Speed Rail’ (UIC Communications: 2018). Accessed April 13, 2026. uic.org.
    8
    Wikipedia, ‘High-Speed Rail in Europe’ (March 31, 2026) en.wikipedia.org. Wikipedia, ‘Shinkansen’ (March 14, 2026) en.wikipedia.org.
    9
    While I find that this argument is sound, it is only fair to note that others disagree. The core argument I have outlined is supplemented with other lines of argument in Alto’s ‘Fast Forward’ document (Alto (VIA HFR – VIA TGF Inc.), ‘Fast Forward: Shaping Canada’s Future with a High-Speed Rail Network’ (March 2025) altotrain.ca) For opposing arguments see Tasnim Fariha, and David Jones, ‘High-Speed Potential, High-Stakes Decisions: The Policy Case for Alto’ (C.D. Howe Institute, December 11, 2025) cdhowe.org, Jerome Gessaroli, ‘Canada’s next Budget Bomb Is the Alto High-Speed Rail Project’ (Macdonald-Laurier Institute, January 14, 2026.) macdonaldlaurier.ca. The Citizens Research Initiative argues for upgrading the status quo to a ‘High Performance Rail’ system with top speeds not exceeding 200km/hr. (Where we Stand on the Route, op. cit.) For arguments that raise complications rather than expressing outright opposition, see also: Johnny Renton, ‘The Good, Bad and Awful of the Alto High Speed Rail Project, and How to Fix the Flaws and Concerns Surrounding It.’ (Substack: Next Stop, Downtown Canada, February 4, 2026) johnnyrenton.substack.com; Kathryn Smith Exon and Egon Terplan. ‘Keeping High-Speed Rail on Track: Learning from Other North American Projects’ (Toronto: School of Cities, June 6, 2025) schoolofcities.utoronto.ca; and Michael Schabas, ‘Alto Conceptual Design and Business Case” (January 12, 2026) available on Google Docs, Google Docs.
    10
    ALTO HSR Citizen Research Initiative, The Station Location Problem (2026) citizenresearch.ca/station-location.
    11
    Penz, Drydyk, and Bose, Chapter 7.
    12
    Nassir Mwanje, ‘Community Perceptions of Fair Compensation in Land Expropriation: Insights from Uganda through a Capability Approach’ (Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, forthcoming).
    13
    Ontario Federation of Agriculture, ‘High-Speed Rail’ (2026) ofa.on.ca/issues/high-speed-rail.
    14
    Alto (VIA HFR – VIA TGF Inc.), Advanced Engineering Driving High-Speed Rail (February 19, 2026) altotrain.ca.
    15
    ALTO HSR Citizen Research Initiative, Fire Services – Citizen Research (March 2026) citizenresearch.ca/fire-services, and Healthcare Access – Citizen Research (March 2026) citizenresearch.ca/healthcare-access.
    16
    ALTO HSR Citizen Research Initiative, ‘VIA Rail on the Kingston Subdivision: Service Erosion, Funding Collapse, and the National Rail Risk from ALTO HSR’ (April 2026) citizenresearch.ca/via-future.
    17
    Alto (VIA HFR – VIA TGF Inc.), ‘Building Together: Indigenous Partnerships in Alto’s Vision’ altotrain.ca.
    18
    United Nations, Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (General Assembly, 2007) un.org
    19
    Alto (VIA HFR – VIA TGF Inc.). What We Heard & What We’re Doing Report. 2023. altotrain.ca.
    20
    World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987).
    21
    The ‘planetary pressures’ framework is based on several decades of ‘planetary boundaries’ research. To simplify: the core idea is that there are nine specific dimensions of planetary change that range from low risk to growing risk to high risk for human flourishing. Among these, ozone depletion, climate change, biodiversity, ocean acidification, land use change, and freshwater use are most familiar in the public sphere. A good entry point into the literature is Human Development Report 2020: The Next Frontier; Human Development and the Anthropocene, Chapter 2, ‘Unprecedented – The Scope, Scale and Speed of Human Pressures on the Planet’ (New York: UNDP, 2020), pp. 45-68.
    22
    UNDP op. cit., p. 51.
    23
    See Andrew Hyett, How Hydrology Shapes the Design – and Cost – of High-Speed Rail (March 2026) citizenresearch.ca, and the following publications by ALTO HSR Citizen Research Initiative (2026): Potential Effects of High-Speed Rail on the Napanee River citizenresearch.ca/napanee-river-2; A River in the Path of Two Rail Corridors citizenresearch.ca/salmon-river;
    24
    See Hyett op. cit. and two other publications of ALTO HSR Citizen Research Imitative (2026): The Wildlife Crossing Problem citizenresearch.ca/wildlife-crossings; Wildlife Connectivity, Hunting Heritage, and Game Species Habitat: Impacts of the Proposed ALTO High-Speed Rail Corridors citizenresearch.ca.
    Guest submission by Jay Drydyk, Professor Emeritus, Carleton University · Published by the ALTO HSR Citizen Research Initiative · citizenresearch.ca
    Independent, non-partisan research on the proposed Toronto–Quebec City high-speed rail corridor.

  • Bound before briefed

    City of Kingston: Bound Before Briefed

    Britain spent a decade learning what happens when councils sign confidentiality agreements with a high-speed rail promoter. The lessons were on the record. Kingston signed anyway.

    ALTO HSR Citizen Research Initiative · Governance and Transparency Brief · Published July 2026 · Updated following the July 10 signing
    ⚠ Update · The agreement has been signed

    This brief sets out the questions Kingston City Council should have asked before entering a non-disclosure agreement with ALTO. By the time it reached councillors, on Monday, July 13, the agreement had already been signed — the Whig-Standard reported that the City signed on Friday, July 10, and the signing became public on July 14. Whig-Standard

    The document’s title turns out to be literal. Councillors were bound on the Friday and briefed on the Monday — bound by an agreement the City says applies to them personally, three days before the questions below were put in front of them. The brief did not arrive too early to matter. It arrived after the decision it was meant to inform.

    Two facts from that reporting change the picture materially. First, a City spokesperson confirmed that the agreement binds city staff and councillors alike — every person who receives technical information from ALTO. Second, asked whether the City had a choice, the same spokesperson said: “This is not optional.”

    The analysis below is the brief as sent to councillors, unchanged. The questions it raises were answerable before Friday. That they are printed here after the signing, rather than asked before it, is the point.

    Critical Finding

    Of the five questions this brief puts to Council, one has already been answered, and answered badly. The agreement binds elected members, not merely officers. A councillor who receives technical information about the corridor cannot discuss it with the constituents whose land that corridor may cross. The remaining four — whether the agreement expires, what precisely it covers, whether MFIPPA and open-meeting obligations are expressly preserved, and what ALTO would actually have withheld without it — remain unanswered on the public record.

    A second finding sits underneath the first. ALTO describes these agreements as instruments that enable two-way data sharing and productive collaboration. HS2 Ltd, facing the same criticism in Britain, said its agreements were mutual and entered into by consent. The City of Kingston says the agreement was not optional. A contract that one party had no choice but to sign is not a collaboration. Both characterisations cannot be true, and it is the City — not the critics — that has contradicted the promoter.

    Kingston’s neighbours faced the identical request and treated it as a decision. Two eastern Ontario counties have now refused ALTO’s confidentiality agreement outright, both unanimously, both on the public record — the United Counties of Prescott and Russell in May, and the United Counties of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry on June 15. Frontenac County voted formally on April 15 to oppose the proposed corridors through the county. Whether Kingston’s agreement was ever put to its own elected representatives — by motion, in open or closed session — has not been established on the public record.

    The most important fact in this brief is the one that follows from that. SDG refused the agreement and then published ALTO’s presentation to the public. The choice Kingston was offered — sign and be informed, or refuse and be ignorant — is not a real choice. A council next door declined to sign and released the material anyway.

    Download
    City of Kingston: Bound Before Briefed — Full Brief (PDF)
    The briefing note circulated to Kingston City Council, preserved as issued. Ten-minute read.
    Download PDF
    What was signed

    “This is not optional”

    The agreement was executed on Friday, July 10, between the City of Kingston and ALTO, the Crown corporation developing the corridor. ALTO’s account of why is straightforward and, in its own terms, reasonable: planning work is not final; early concepts, technical analysis and emerging ideas are still being refined; and sharing preliminary material without its full context could give the impression that decisions have already been made. Confidentiality agreements, the corporation says, are used widely in the infrastructure industry and structure these discussions so that evolving information can be shared. Whig-Standard

    The Mayor’s defence follows the same line. Such agreements are common in major infrastructure planning; they allow technical information to be shared so that municipalities can provide informed input; the agreement is not an endorsement of any particular route or station location; and the City remains committed to transparency and will share information publicly when it is able to.

    Set against that framing, the City spokesperson’s own words do a great deal of work. The agreement applies to all city staff and councillors who receive technical information from ALTO. It was required in order for the City to receive any technical information at all. And it was not optional.

    A confidentiality agreement that one party had no choice but to sign is not a collaboration. It is a condition of entry.

    This is the distinction the British record turns on, and it is worth being precise about it. The objection is not that confidential material was shared confidentially. It is that information was withheld until silence was promised — that access to the facts was made conditional on a commitment not to use them. That is not a description of HS2. It is now, on the City’s own account, a description of Kingston.

    Part One · The mechanism

    Access conditioned on silence

    In Britain, councils were not handed material and then asked to protect the commercially sensitive parts of it. They were told they could see nothing at all unless they signed first. Many were required to sign before they could engage with HS2 Ltd on the questions that mattered most locally — where stations might go, how they would be designed, and which route the promoter preferred. Warwickshire County Council could not receive early design updates until it had signed. New Civil Engineer Warwickshire World

    A council’s capacity to scrutinise the promoter is made conditional on a promise not to tell the people it represents what that scrutiny has revealed.

    The council does not become better informed in any way it can act upon. It becomes better informed and simultaneously disabled from using the information in the one forum where a council is supposed to act: in public, on the record, in front of the residents whose homes and farms lie in the corridor.

    That is the general case. In Kingston it now has a specific and uncomfortable form. Because the agreement binds councillors rather than officers alone, a member of Council who is briefed on the alignment cannot discuss what they have learned with the constituent whose property it crosses. The representative becomes an insider. Whatever else the agreement achieves, it removes from thirteen elected people the ability to do the thing they were elected to do.

    Part Two · The scale, and the creep

    Four agreements became three hundred and thirty-nine

    Freedom of Information disclosures eventually forced HS2 Ltd to reveal how far the practice had spread. The progression was four agreements in 2012–13, ten in 2014, twenty-seven in 2015, thirty-four in 2016, seventy-one in 2017, and one hundred and twelve in 2018. New Civil Engineer

    4
    confidentiality agreements signed in 2012–13, at the outset
    HS2 Ltd, via FOI
    112
    signed in 2018 alone, as the practice took hold
    HS2 Ltd, via FOI
    339
    bodies bound, by the figure cited in the House of Lords
    Hansard

    HS2 Ltd then resisted disclosing who had signed for eighteen months, releasing the list of 253 organisations only after the Information Commissioner intervened. A further thirty-eight agreements with individuals were never named. By the end, the signatories included dozens of councils, the Health and Safety Executive, the National Trust, Historic England, and five universities.

    The circle of people who could speak freely about a public project — funded by the public, running through the public’s communities — had been drawn so tightly that a supporter of the scheme in the House of Lords was moved to ask what, exactly, all these organisations had to hide.

    The creep has already begun here

    Reporting on the Prescott and Russell decision confirms that ALTO requires every landholder who permits field survey access to sign a non-disclosure agreement, not only municipalities. The first agreement is never the last. It establishes the template, the precedent, and the expectation — for this municipality, for the next one down the corridor, for landowners, consultants and agencies, and for every subsequent phase of the project. Tribune-Express

    Part Three · The terms

    Twenty-six of twenty-eight had no end date

    Of the twenty-eight English local authorities identified, the Town and Country Planning Association found that twenty-six had agreements with no end date. New Civil Engineer

    No sunset clause. No automatic release on publication of the environmental assessment. No expiry when the route was confirmed and the commercial sensitivity had evaporated. Silence in perpetuity, over material that in most cases became public anyway — simply later, and on the promoter’s timetable rather than the community’s.

    This is the single most consequential drafting failure in the entire British record, and it is also the easiest to prevent. An officer negotiating in good faith, focused on getting the data flowing, will not necessarily notice that the agreement never expires. Whether Kingston’s agreement contains an expiry date is not, at the time of writing, on the public record. It is a one-word answer, and the City can give it today.

    Part Four · Both sides, fairly stated

    The promoter’s case, and what the record shows

    Nothing in this brief argues that no confidentiality is ever warranted. The argument is narrower: the terms matter enormously, the English terms were bad, and they were bad in ways that were entirely avoidable if identified in advance.

    What the promoter saysWhat the British record shows
    The agreements are mutual and entered into by consent. ALTO describes instruments that enable two-way data sharing and support productive collaboration on planning. The City of Kingston’s own spokesperson says the agreement was not optional and was required to receive any technical information at all. HS2 Ltd made the identical “mutual and consensual” claim about agreements that councils could not decline without being cut off.
    Confidentiality protects residents from unnecessary blight and confusion. Sharing early information without full context could suggest decisions have been made. Note the shape of the argument: the secrecy is offered as a protection for the affected. It is worth asking whether residents in the corridor, given the choice, would prefer to be protected from knowing. In Britain, the discovery of the agreements produced anger, not relief.
    These agreements are common in major infrastructure. They allow municipalities to give informed input. They are common. That is the finding, not the defence. The Raynsford Review examined precisely this common practice and concluded that it corroded public trust in the project it was meant to protect.
    The agreement is not an endorsement of any route or station. The City will share information publicly when it is able to. “When we are able to” is the operative phrase, and its meaning is set by a document the public has not seen. If the agreement has no expiry, the answer is: at the promoter’s discretion, indefinitely.

    The most honest defence of signing came, in Britain, from Doncaster. The council signed because it relied on HS2’s data to scrutinise and challenge the design; without signing, exposing the route’s damaging effects would have been harder still and might have produced more blight rather than less. Doncaster Free Press That is not a foolish argument, and it should not be caricatured. It is the argument of a body that has accepted the promoter’s framing of the available choices — sign and be informed, or refuse and be ignorant — without first testing whether that framing is true.

    Prescott and Russell tested it. So did Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry. Both refused — and neither is, on the available evidence, less informed about ALTO than Kingston is. One of them has published the promoter’s presentation. Kingston cannot.

    Part Five · The independent verdicts

    What Britain concluded, in public, before Kingston signed

    The Raynsford Review (Town and Country Planning Association, 2018)

    Led by a former construction minister, this review of the English planning system found that the agreements undermine public trust in major infrastructure. It criticised the widespread use of confidentiality agreements by the HS2 company and identified a corrosive public sense that planning no longer protects people’s interests. It found that the agreements created real anger among local politicians and deeper resentment in affected communities once their existence came to light.

    Raynsford’s line — the most useful distinction in the literature

    Raynsford did not oppose confidentiality as such. He accepted the case for it where competing route options are under assessment and public knowledge could inflate land prices — and opposed it where it undermines public trust or may shield inappropriate relationships between developers and those making decisions. The test is not whether confidentiality is ever justified. It is whether this confidentiality, on these terms, for this long, is.

    The House of Lords — criticism from the project’s own supporters

    Baroness Kramer, a consistent advocate of HS2, argued that the presumption must always be transparency, with confidentiality as the exception, and that the slow release of information on cost, land and compensation had harmed the project and generated suspicion. Lord Berkeley proposed an independent assessor to review every HS2 confidentiality agreement against a presumption of public accountability. The people who most wanted HS2 built were among the loudest voices warning that the secrecy was destroying its public licence.

    The culture did not stay in its lane

    HS2 Ltd paid roughly £1.67 million in settlement agreements to forty-eight former employees from April 2016, with confidentiality clauses written in; a number of whistleblowers were among them. The company also redacted the names of attendees from its board minutes, against the Information Commissioner’s stated presumption in favour of naming those acting in a professional capacity. An institution that begins by protecting route data does not reliably stop there. New Civil Engineer

    Part Six · The neighbours

    The same request, refused twice next door

    ALTO has made materially the same approach to municipalities across the corridor: access to technical material, in exchange for a confidentiality agreement, plus permission to enter municipal land for field survey. What distinguishes Kingston is not the request. It is the response, and the process by which the response was reached.

    United Counties of Prescott and Russell — refused, May 2026

    All eight mayors on the UCPR council voted against a resolution that would have granted ALTO access to counties’ land for survey work and committed the Counties to a non-disclosure agreement. Each mayor declared their position on a registered vote. Warden Mario Zanth, mayor of Clarence-Rockland, directed the CAO to inform ALTO that the council did not want the corporation on its territory, having refused both the confidentiality agreement and land access. Zanth’s stated objection was that the corporation demanded secrecy before it would disclose the technical details municipalities were asking about — the chemistry of de-icing fluids and the risk to wells, the electricity supply, and other questions of direct local consequence. Tribune-Express ONFR

    United Counties of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry — refused, June 15, 2026

    SDG Counties Council unanimously rejected both ALTO’s request to access counties-owned land for environmental and technical study and its request that SDG sign a non-disclosure agreement — an agreement that would have prohibited councillors and staff from discussing with the public any details of their meetings and communications with the corporation. Council was given three options: full access, partial access, or none. It chose none, without further debate. North Glengarry Mayor Jamie MacDonald grounded his objection in accountability, saying of the agreement: “Here they’re telling us we can’t share any information in them.” The Review

    Frontenac County — a formal, public vote on the corridor, April 15, 2026

    Frontenac County Council formally voted to oppose the proposed high-speed rail corridors through the county, favouring routes along existing rail lines or the Highway 401 corridor. The resolution cited disruption to residential areas, agricultural lands and environmentally sensitive features; impacts on municipal infrastructure including road closures; risks to emergency response times; and uncertainty about the long-term financial implications for municipalities. Council supported a Kingston stop and called for no expropriation west of Ottawa until the Ottawa–Montreal segment nears completion. County of Frontenac

    City of Kingston — signed July 10; the authorising process is not on the public record

    Whether the agreement was authorised by a motion of Council — in open session, or in closed session with a reporting-out resolution — or executed by staff under delegated signing authority without coming to Council at all, has not been established. The distinction is not academic. An agreement authorised by a recorded vote is a decision residents can argue with. One signed under delegated authority means the City bound itself, and its councillors, on a matter of plain public interest without the body accountable for that interest ever recording a view.

    The choice Kingston was offered is not a real choice

    The case for signing rests entirely on a premise: that a council which refuses the agreement is left in the dark. The City spokesperson put it plainly — the agreement was required in order to receive any technical information at all, and it was not optional.

    That premise has been tested next door, and it failed. SDG refused the agreement, refused land access, and then shared ALTO’s presentation with the public. From that published material, residents of SDG can now learn what ALTO intends: that field sampling across the corridor is scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2026 and will feed the impact assessment; that the surveys cover wetlands, forests, avian wildlife, and fish and wildlife habitat; that archaeology, cultural heritage, and “sensitive receptors” such as parks, schools and hospitals are treated as socio-economic components; and that noise, vibration, hydrogeology, soil quality and surface water are the physical components under examination. The Review

    A council that refused to sign has told its residents more about ALTO’s plans than a council that signed is now permitted to.

    This is not a rhetorical point. It is the whole argument, and it can be verified by anyone with a browser. The bargain Kingston accepted — silence in exchange for information — was offered on the premise that there was no alternative. Two neighbouring counties declined it, and one of them proceeded to put the promoter’s own material on the public record. The alternative existed. Kingston did not take it, and has not explained why.

    One further detail of timing deserves an answer. The Eastern Ontario Wardens’ Caucus — the body through which these counties have been coordinating their response — was scheduled to discuss ALTO at a meeting in Kingston, in July. Kingston signed on July 10.

    The Initiative has written to Kingston city councillors asking a single question, answerable in one sentence: was the agreement authorised by resolution of Council, and if so, what is the resolution number and date — or was it executed under delegated authority, and under which by-law? We will publish the answer when we receive it, whatever it is.

    Part Seven · Where things stand

    Five questions, one answered

    These are the five questions the brief puts to Council. None is hostile. Each was answerable by staff in a sentence — before Friday. This is their status as of publication.

    Answered
    Who is bound — officers, or members? Both. The City confirms the agreement applies to all staff and councillors who receive technical information. This is the outcome the brief identifies as the most serious: an agreement that binds elected members converts representatives into insiders.
    Unanswered
    Does it expire? No sunset date has been disclosed. Twenty-six of the twenty-eight English councils signed agreements with no end date at all.
    Unanswered
    What, exactly, is covered? Whether the agreement is confined to genuinely commercial and personal information, or reaches route alignment, station siting, cost and community impact, has not been disclosed.
    Unanswered
    Are the statutory carve-outs express? Whether the agreement expressly preserves the City’s obligations under MFIPPA and the open-meeting provisions of the Municipal Act has not been disclosed. A municipality cannot lawfully contract out of those duties — but a poorly drafted agreement can create a chilling effect that operates as though it had.
    Unanswered
    What was actually being withheld without it? ALTO is a federal entity subject to the Access to Information Act. If the material behind the agreement is disclosable in due course regardless, the agreement is not buying confidentiality. It is buying delay.
    Outstanding
    How many of these has ALTO already signed? With municipalities, agencies, consultants and landowners — and on what terms? In Britain, that number was the story. It went from four to more than three hundred while nobody was counting.
    Every question above can be answered without disclosing a single confidential fact. The terms of an agreement are not the contents of an agreement.

    This is the point on which the whole matter turns, and it is worth stating without heat. Publishing the agreement — its duration, its scope, whom it binds, what it carves out — discloses nothing ALTO has a legitimate interest in protecting. It reveals no alignment, no cost, no property. A city genuinely committed to transparency, and unable to say more about the substance, can nonetheless say everything about the instrument. That it has not yet done so is a choice, and it is a choice the City can reverse this week.

    Download Full Brief
    City of Kingston: Bound Before Briefed (PDF)
    The briefing note as circulated to Kingston City Council, with the full British record, the Ontario statutory overlay, and the five questions in their original form
    Download PDF
    The English record

    The confidentiality did not protect HS2

    Refusal was never the only alternative to signature, and this brief did not urge it. An agreement that would survive scrutiny is time-limited — expiring on a defined public milestone; scope-limited — confined to genuinely commercial and personal information, with alignment, cost and impact data expressly excluded; statute-preserving — with explicit carve-outs for MFIPPA and open-meeting duties; officer-bound, not member-bound; and publicly disclosed — the agreement itself, if not its contents, placed on the public record.

    Every one of those five terms exists because HS2 lacked it. None of them costs the promoter anything to which it is entitled. Four of the five can still be secured by amendment, and the fifth — publication of the instrument — requires nothing from ALTO at all.

    The English record offers one final observation, and it is not a partisan one. The confidentiality did not protect the project. It corroded HS2’s public licence, hardened the opposition, and left even the scheme’s allies defending a company that looked as though it had something to conceal. Kingston has signed. It has not yet explained. Those are different things, and only one of them is now beyond recall.

    Sources

    Primary documents and reporting

    1.
    Elliot Ferguson, “Kingston signs non-disclosure agreement for high-speed rail talks,” The Kingston Whig-Standard, July 14, 2026. thewhig.com
    2.
    “UCPR denies ALTO access to lands, rejects request for NDA,” Tribune-Express, reporting the United Counties of Prescott and Russell council session of May 27, 2026. tribune-express.ca
    3.
    “TGV : Prescott-Russell bloque Alto et refuse de signer une entente de confidentialité,” ONFR / TFO, May 2026 — carries Warden Mario Zanth’s directive to the CAO and his stated reasons. onfr.tfo.org
    4.
    James Morgan, “SDG Council rejects Alto request for land access and NDA,” The Review, June 23, 2026 — reporting the unanimous SDG Counties Council decision of June 15, the terms of the proposed agreement, and the public release of ALTO’s presentation. thereview.ca
    5.
    County of Frontenac, “Council votes to oppose Alto routes through Frontenac County,” April 15, 2026. frontenaccounty.ca
    6.
    “Exclusive: HS2 ramps up use of gagging orders,” New Civil Engineer, July 1, 2019 — the year-by-year progression of agreements and the TCPA finding that 26 of 28 local authority agreements had no end date. newcivilengineer.com
    7.
    “Revealed: the 253 companies and public bodies to sign HS2 gagging orders,” New Civil Engineer, November 16, 2020 — the signatory list released after the Information Commissioner’s intervention. newcivilengineer.com
    8.
    “Exclusive: HS2 paid £1.67m to silence ex-employees,” New Civil Engineer, October 14, 2019. newcivilengineer.com
    9.
    Nick Raynsford, Planning 2020: Final Report of the Raynsford Review of Planning in England, Town and Country Planning Association, November 2018. Reported context on the HS2 confidentiality agreements: Warwickshire World
    10.
    Christian Wolmar, “HS2 likes to keep things secret,” December 2020 — carries the Raynsford distinction between legitimate and illegitimate confidentiality, and the board-minute redactions. christianwolmar.co.uk
    11.
    House of Lords debate on HS2 confidentiality agreements — contributions of Baroness Kramer and Lord Berkeley, Hansard. Hansard record
    12.
    “Doncaster Council signed non-disclosure agreement with HS2 bosses,” Doncaster Free Press — the fullest published statement of a council’s reasons for signing. doncasterfreepress.co.uk
    13.
    Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. M.56; Municipal Act, 2001, S.O. 2001, c. 25, s. 239 (open meetings); Access to Information Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. A-1. Statutory points in this brief are offered as questions for the City Solicitor, not as legal conclusions.
    ALTO HSR Citizen Research Initiative  ·  citizenresearch.ca  ·  Governance and Transparency Brief  ·  July 2026
    Independent, non-partisan research on the proposed Toronto–Quebec City high-speed rail corridor.

  • A friendly witness

    ALTO HSR Citizen Research Initiative · Research Brief

    A Friendly Witness

    How a supportive submission to ALTO lists the things the project cannot deliver.

    ALTO HSR Citizen Research Initiative · Research Brief · Published July 2026 · On Trajectoire Québec’s memoir to ALTO, 24 April 2026
    Critical Finding

    Trajectoire Québec’s memoir endorses high-speed rail. But its nine recommendations describe downtown stations, affordable fares, more intermediate stops, preserved conventional service, and seamless local integration — the specification of a high-frequency conventional railway, not of a 300 km/h greenfield line. Measured against ALTO’s actual design, the memoir substantively meets none of its own recommendations, leaves one open (passenger experience), and runs into structural conflict, adverse economics, or the project’s own premise on the rest. The friendliest submission on the consultation file reads as a list of the project’s gaps.

    Two of the adverse assessments depend on ALTO’s unpublished plans — whether airport stations appear, and how central the endpoint stations finally sit — and could improve. The others follow from physics and economics: the severance and peripheral siting a grade-separated 250+ km/h alignment entails, and the cost and ridership figures in the Initiative’s reference-class work.

    Download
    A Friendly Witness — Full Brief (PDF)
    Recommendation-by-recommendation assessment of Trajectoire Québec’s memoir against ALTO’s actual design
    Download PDF
    The Endorsement

    An endorsement built on a poll, not a case

    Trajectoire was an early backer of VIA Rail’s high-frequency proposal (the TGF). Its memoir now supports high-speed rail — but conditionally, “dans la mesure où” the project delivers accessibility, integration, and equity. The memoir’s own narrative traces the shift from high-frequency to high-speed not to a technical or economic case but to a 2024 opinion poll it cites — 92 per cent preferring high-speed over high-frequency — and to the stated preferences of local mayors. What the organization asks for did not change when its endorsement did. It wanted a frequent, reliable, affordable, well-connected interurban railway before the pivot, and it wants one still. The recommendations describe that railway; the endorsement sits on top of it.

    9
    recommendations in Trajectoire’s memoir
    memoir summary of recommendations
    ~0.07
    ALTO benefit–cost ratio, central estimate
    Initiative reference-class analysis
    43 → 54
    community friction, before → after the consultation
    Initiative friction index
    Recommendation by Recommendation

    Nine recommendations, measured against the design

    The memoir’s own summary lists nine recommendations. Set against the design ALTO is advancing and the Initiative’s research record, each resolves into a verdict.

    Trajectoire’s RecommendationWhat ALTO’s Design Delivers
    1. Downtown stations, universally accessible, integrated with local and interurban networks. Central stations sit inside existing transit networks, enabling efficient connections and reducing car dependence to reach the train.A grade-separated alignment engineered for 250+ km/h — the speed all three RFP bidders independently proposed — cannot be threaded into dense downtowns at a cost the project will bear, which pushes stations toward the periphery. Trajectoire’s own examples — the pull of the downtown Palais station over Sainte-Foy, the car-inducing effect of Ottawa’s out-of-centre station — are the pattern ALTO’s design tends toward, not away from.
    Assessment:Structural conflict
    2. Urban integration with no impassable barriers for pedestrians and cyclists. The network should knit into the urban fabric without severing pedestrian and cycle routes or forcing long detours.High-speed track must be fully grade-separated and fenced along its length. That severance is the impassable barrier the recommendation asks the project to avoid — a condition of running trains at that speed, not an incidental feature. The Initiative’s forward friction measure captures the gap: a high-performance spine scores roughly 29 against ALTO’s ~65.
    Assessment:Structural conflict
    3. Affordable and accessible to all. A publicly funded project should serve the whole population, with fares that keep the train competitive with the car for youth, families, and seniors.Central cost near $143 million per kilometre, a benefit–cost ratio around 0.07, and low ridership (~0.29 trips per capita) in the Initiative’s reference-class work create structural pressure toward premium, cost-recovery fares — the opposite of the equity pricing the recommendation requires.
    Assessment:Contrary to the economics
    4. Tight cost control; private participation if needed; no crowding-out of urban transit. The project must not consume the federal funding that urban transit networks depend on.The same economics point to fiscal displacement — the exact crowding-out the recommendation fears. Nothing in the record indicates the tight cost control it asks for.
    Assessment:Contrary to the economics
    5. Stations at Montréal-Trudeau (YUL) and Québec / Jean-Lesage (YQB) airports. Direct airport connections would capture regional and international travellers and spare them a transfer.As far as ALTO’s public plan shows, airport stations are not included. This verdict depends on plans ALTO has not fully published and could change.
    Assessment:Not in the plan
    6. Amend ALTO’s mandate to provide more intermediate stations. More stops would broaden ridership and build social acceptance along the corridor.Every intermediate stop erodes the journey-time advantage that is the sole justification for a 300 km/h greenfield line over higher-frequency upgrades. The recommendation therefore asks the government to partially unwind the project’s premise. Trajectoire half-concedes this, proposing passing loops so express trains can overtake local ones.
    Assessment:Against the premise
    7. Preserve and improve conventional interurban service on the existing network. The corridor service Trajectoire once championed under the high-frequency banner must not be degraded.A separate greenfield line does nothing, on its own, to preserve or improve VIA’s conventional service. The Initiative has documented a benchmark substitution in ALTO’s costing material, where the high-frequency baseline is replaced by an undifferentiated “Conventional Rail.” The dual-asset move that would satisfy this — a new spine that also frees the legacy network — is the HPR framework’s, and ALTO does not offer it.
    Assessment:Unaddressed
    8. European / Asian-standard passenger experience, distinct from air travel. Simple ticketing, clear information, easy baggage, no airport-style check-in.An operational choice made late in delivery. The record gives no signal either way; it is fair to call this undetermined.
    Assessment:Open
    9. Secure social acceptability through rigorous, proactive consultation. Acceptability must be built through genuine, early, influential consultation.Community friction, on the Initiative’s index, rose from 43 to 54 after the consultation round — the process increased opposition rather than building acceptability. Measured against that movement, a supportive organization’s polite call for better consultation is a finding that the consultation so far has failed its own test.
    Assessment:Failing
    The Pattern

    A supportive submission describes a different train

    Set the recommendations beside one another and a single shape emerges.

    The recommendations describe high-frequency rail

    Downtown access, more stops, affordable fares, network integration, preserved conventional service — item by item, this is the value proposition of high-frequency conventional rail, the case the Initiative advances under the HPR framework, restated by an organization convinced it is endorsing something else.

    Even the friendly witness describes the gaps

    The friendliest submission on the consultation record describes the project by what it lacks. That matters precisely because the witness is favourable: the gap between what ALTO is and what its supporters want is not a partisan artifact. It is visible even to those cheering the train on.

    Structural, not merely contingent

    Two adverse verdicts — airport stations and endpoint centrality — depend on ALTO’s unpublished plans and could improve. The rest follow from the design itself: the severance and peripheral siting a grade-separated 250+ km/h alignment entails, and the cost and ridership economics in the Initiative’s reference-class work. Those move only with the choice of technology.

    Where Things Stand · July 2026

    Summary ledger

    In summary, against the recommendations in the memoir:

    Open
    Passenger experience (Rec 8): undetermined — an operational choice made late in delivery.
    Not met
    Downtown, accessible, integrated stations (Rec 1): structural conflict with a grade-separated high-speed alignment.
    Not met
    Urban integration without severance (Rec 2): the fenced, grade-separated corridor is itself the barrier.
    Not met
    Affordable fares for all (Rec 3): the economics push toward premium, cost-recovery pricing.
    Not met
    Cost control; no crowding-out of urban transit (Rec 4): the economics point to fiscal displacement.
    Not met
    Airport stations at YUL and YQB (Rec 5): not in the public plan — contingent on ALTO’s plans.
    Not met
    More intermediate stations (Rec 6): against the express premise of a 300 km/h line.
    Not met
    Preserve / improve conventional service (Rec 7): a separate greenfield line does not deliver it; the dual-asset HPR move is absent.
    Not met
    Social acceptability via consultation (Rec 9): friction rose 43 → 54 after the consultation round.

    Trajectoire Québec supports the train. Its recommendations, read against ALTO’s actual design, are not — in the main — met by the project as scoped. The organization is not asking for tweaks to a design it accepts; it is describing, recommendation by recommendation, a high-frequency railway that the high-speed greenfield line was never built to be.

    Download Full Brief
    A Friendly Witness (PDF)
    Recommendation-by-recommendation analysis for decision-makers, MPs, and constituents tracking the consultation record
    Download PDF
    Source

    The submission assessed

    1.
    Trajectoire Québec, Train à grande vitesse entre Québec et Toronto : une occasion à saisir pour améliorer les transports interurbains au Québec. Memoir presented to ALTO, 24 April 2026. trajectoire.quebec
    2.
    Assessment draws on the Initiative’s research record — the reference-class cost and ridership models, the community friction index, and Privy Council Office briefing note A-2025-00015, which confirms that all three RFP bidders independently proposed 250+ km/h greenfield alignments.
    ALTO HSR Citizen Research Initiative  ·  citizenresearch.ca  ·  Research Brief  ·  July 2026
    Independent, non-partisan research on the proposed Toronto–Quebec City high-speed rail corridor.
    ALTO HSR Citizen Research Initiative · Note de recherche

    Un témoin bienveillant

    Comment un mémoire favorable à ALTO énumère ce que le projet ne peut offrir.

    ALTO HSR Citizen Research Initiative · Note de recherche · Publié en juillet 2026 · À propos du mémoire de Trajectoire Québec à ALTO, le 24 avril 2026
    Constat essentiel

    Le mémoire de Trajectoire Québec appuie le train à grande vitesse. Mais ses neuf recommandations décrivent des gares en centre-ville, des tarifs abordables, davantage de gares intermédiaires, le maintien du service conventionnel et une intégration locale fluide — le cahier des charges d’un train à grande fréquence conventionnel, non d’une ligne neuve à 300 km/h. Mesuré à la conception réelle d’ALTO, le mémoire ne satisfait substantiellement aucune de ses propres recommandations, en laisse une ouverte (l’expérience client) et se heurte, pour le reste, à un conflit structurel, à une économie défavorable ou à la prémisse même du projet. Le mémoire le plus bienveillant du dossier se lit comme une liste des lacunes du projet.

    Deux des constats défavorables dépendent des plans non publiés d’ALTO — la présence de gares aéroportuaires et le degré de centralité des gares terminales — et pourraient s’améliorer. Les autres découlent de la physique et de l’économie : la coupure et l’implantation périphérique qu’entraîne un tracé dénivelé à 250 km/h et plus, ainsi que les chiffres de coûts et d’achalandage établis par les travaux de l’Initiative sur classe de référence.

    Télécharger
    Un témoin bienveillant — note complète (PDF)
    Évaluation, recommandation par recommandation, du mémoire de Trajectoire Québec au regard de la conception réelle d’ALTO
    Télécharger le PDF
    L’appui

    Un appui fondé sur un sondage, non sur un argumentaire

    Trajectoire a été l’un des premiers appuis de la proposition de train à grande fréquence de VIA Rail (le TGF). Son mémoire soutient désormais le train à grande vitesse — mais de façon conditionnelle, « dans la mesure où » le projet assure accessibilité, intégration et équité. Le récit même du mémoire attribue le passage de la grande fréquence à la grande vitesse non pas à un argumentaire technique ou économique, mais à un sondage de 2024 qu’il cite — 92 % préférant la grande vitesse à la grande fréquence — et aux préférences exprimées par des maires. Ce que l’organisme réclame n’a pas changé lorsque son appui, lui, a changé : un train interurbain fréquent, fiable, abordable et bien connecté. Les recommandations décrivent ce train; l’appui repose par-dessus.

    9
    recommandations dans le mémoire de Trajectoire
    sommaire des recommandations
    ~0,07
    ratio avantages-coûts d’ALTO, estimation centrale
    analyse sur classe de référence de l’Initiative
    43 → 54
    friction communautaire, avant → après la consultation
    indice de friction de l’Initiative
    Recommandation par recommandation

    Neuf recommandations, mesurées à la conception

    Le sommaire du mémoire énumère lui-même neuf recommandations. Mises en regard de la conception qu’ALTO fait avancer et des travaux de l’Initiative, chacune se résout en un constat.

    La recommandation de TrajectoireCe que la conception d’ALTO livre
    1. Gares en centre-ville, universellement accessibles, intégrées aux réseaux locaux et interurbains. Les gares centrales s’inscrivent dans les réseaux de transport existants, facilitant les correspondances et réduisant la dépendance à l’auto pour accéder au train.Un tracé dénivelé conçu pour 250 km/h et plus — la vitesse que les trois soumissionnaires ont proposée de façon indépendante — ne peut être inséré dans des centres-villes denses à un coût que le projet acceptera d’assumer, ce qui repousse les gares vers la périphérie. Les exemples mêmes de Trajectoire — l’attrait de la gare du Palais plutôt que de Sainte-Foy, l’effet incitatif à l’automobile de la gare excentrée d’Ottawa — sont le motif vers lequel la conception d’ALTO tend, et non dont elle s’éloigne.
    Constat :Conflit structurel
    2. Intégration urbaine sans barrières infranchissables pour piétons et cyclistes. Le réseau doit s’intégrer au tissu urbain sans couper les cheminements piétons et cyclables ni imposer de longs détours.Une voie à grande vitesse doit être intégralement dénivelée et clôturée sur toute sa longueur. Cette coupure est la barrière infranchissable que la recommandation demande d’éviter — une condition de la vitesse, non un détail. La mesure de friction prospective de l’Initiative résume l’écart : une dorsale à haute performance obtient environ 29, contre environ 65 pour ALTO.
    Constat :Conflit structurel
    3. Abordable et accessible à toutes et tous. Un projet financé par des fonds publics doit servir toute la population, avec des tarifs qui gardent le train compétitif face à l’auto pour les jeunes, les familles et les aînés.Un coût central près de 143 millions de dollars le kilomètre, un ratio avantages-coûts d’environ 0,07 et un achalandage faible (~0,29 déplacement par habitant) dans les travaux de l’Initiative créent une pression structurelle vers des tarifs élevés, de recouvrement des coûts — l’inverse de la tarification équitable qu’exige la recommandation.
    Constat :Contredit par l’économie
    4. Contrôle serré des coûts; participation privée au besoin; pas d’éviction du transport urbain. Le projet ne doit pas absorber le financement fédéral dont dépendent les réseaux de transport urbain.La même économie pointe vers une éviction budgétaire — précisément le risque que redoute la recommandation. Rien au dossier n’indique le contrôle serré des coûts qu’elle réclame.
    Constat :Contredit par l’économie
    5. Gares aux aéroports de Montréal-Trudeau (YUL) et de Québec / Jean-Lesage (YQB). Des correspondances aéroportuaires directes capteraient les voyageurs régionaux et internationaux en leur épargnant un transfert.À ce que montre le plan public d’ALTO, les gares aéroportuaires ne figurent pas. Ce constat dépend de plans qu’ALTO n’a pas entièrement publiés et pourrait changer.
    Constat :Absent du projet
    6. Modifier le mandat d’ALTO pour prévoir plus de gares intermédiaires. Plus d’arrêts élargiraient l’achalandage et bâtiraient l’acceptabilité le long du corridor.Chaque arrêt intermédiaire érode l’avantage de temps de parcours, seule justification d’une ligne neuve à 300 km/h plutôt que d’améliorations à plus haute fréquence. La recommandation demande donc au gouvernement de défaire en partie la prémisse du projet. Trajectoire le concède à demi, en proposant des voies d’évitement pour que les express dépassent les trains locaux.
    Constat :Contraire à la prémisse
    7. Préserver et améliorer le service interurbain conventionnel sur le réseau existant. Le service du corridor existant — celui que Trajectoire a autrefois défendu sous la bannière de la grande fréquence — ne doit pas être dégradé.Une ligne neuve et distincte ne fait rien, à elle seule, pour préserver ou améliorer le service conventionnel de VIA. L’Initiative a documenté une substitution de référentiel dans les documents de coûts d’ALTO, où le scénario à grande fréquence est remplacé par un « rail conventionnel » indifférencié. L’approche à double actif qui satisferait cette recommandation — une dorsale neuve qui libère aussi le réseau patrimonial — relève du cadre HPR, et ALTO ne l’offre pas.
    Constat :Non traité
    8. Expérience client aux standards européens et asiatiques, distincte de l’avion. Billetterie simple, information claire, bagages faciles, sans enregistrement de type aéroportuaire.Un choix opérationnel arrêté tard dans la réalisation. Le dossier n’offre aucun signal dans un sens ou dans l’autre; il est juste de le dire indéterminé.
    Constat :Indéterminé
    9. Assurer l’acceptabilité sociale par des consultations rigoureuses et proactives. L’acceptabilité se bâtit par une consultation réelle, précoce et capable d’influer sur le projet.La friction communautaire, selon l’indice de l’Initiative, est passée de 43 à 54 après le cycle de consultation — le processus a accru l’opposition au lieu de bâtir l’acceptabilité. Mesuré à ce mouvement, l’appel poli d’un organisme favorable à de meilleures consultations est le constat que la consultation a jusqu’ici échoué à son propre test.
    Constat :En échec
    Le motif

    Un mémoire favorable décrit un autre train

    Placez les recommandations les unes à côté des autres et une seule forme se dégage.

    Les recommandations décrivent un train à grande fréquence

    Accès au centre-ville, plus de gares, tarifs abordables, intégration aux réseaux, maintien du service conventionnel — point par point, c’est la proposition de valeur du train à grande fréquence conventionnel, la thèse que l’Initiative défend sous le cadre HPR, reformulée par un organisme convaincu d’appuyer autre chose.

    Même le témoin bienveillant décrit les lacunes

    Le mémoire le plus bienveillant du dossier décrit le projet par ce qui lui manque. Cela compte précisément parce que le témoin est favorable : l’écart entre ce qu’ALTO est et ce que ses partisans souhaitent n’est pas un artefact partisan. Il est visible même pour ceux qui encouragent le train.

    Structurel, non simplement contingent

    Deux constats défavorables — gares aéroportuaires et centralité des terminus — dépendent des plans non publiés d’ALTO et pourraient s’améliorer. Les autres découlent de la conception elle-même : la coupure et l’implantation périphérique qu’entraîne un tracé dénivelé à 250 km/h et plus, ainsi que l’économie des coûts et de l’achalandage des travaux de l’Initiative. Ceux-là ne bougent qu’avec le choix technologique.

    Où en sommes-nous · juillet 2026

    Bilan récapitulatif

    En résumé, au regard des recommandations du mémoire :

    Indéterminé
    Expérience client (rec. 8) : indéterminée — choix opérationnel arrêté tard.
    Non satisfait
    Gares centrales, accessibles, intégrées (rec. 1) : conflit structurel avec un tracé dénivelé à grande vitesse.
    Non satisfait
    Intégration urbaine sans coupure (rec. 2) : le corridor clôturé et dénivelé est lui-même la barrière.
    Non satisfait
    Tarifs abordables pour tous (rec. 3) : l’économie pousse vers une tarification de recouvrement.
    Non satisfait
    Contrôle des coûts; pas d’éviction du transport urbain (rec. 4) : l’économie pointe vers l’éviction budgétaire.
    Non satisfait
    Gares aéroportuaires à YUL et YQB (rec. 5) : absentes du plan public — tributaire des plans d’ALTO.
    Non satisfait
    Plus de gares intermédiaires (rec. 6) : contraire à la prémisse express d’une ligne à 300 km/h.
    Non satisfait
    Préserver / améliorer le service conventionnel (rec. 7) : une ligne neuve distincte ne le livre pas; le geste à double actif du cadre HPR est absent.
    Non satisfait
    Acceptabilité sociale par la consultation (rec. 9) : la friction est passée de 43 à 54 après la consultation.

    Trajectoire Québec appuie le train. Ses recommandations, lues au regard de la conception réelle d’ALTO, ne sont pas — pour l’essentiel — satisfaites par le projet tel que défini. L’organisme ne demande pas des retouches à une conception qu’il accepte; il décrit, recommandation par recommandation, un train à grande fréquence que la ligne neuve à grande vitesse n’a jamais été conçue pour être.

    Télécharger la note complète
    Un témoin bienveillant (PDF)
    Analyse, recommandation par recommandation, pour les décideurs, les députés et les citoyens qui suivent le dossier
    Télécharger le PDF
    Source

    Le mémoire évalué

    1.
    Trajectoire Québec, Train à grande vitesse entre Québec et Toronto : une occasion à saisir pour améliorer les transports interurbains au Québec. Mémoire présenté à ALTO, 24 avril 2026. trajectoire.quebec
    2.
    L’évaluation s’appuie sur les travaux de l’Initiative — les modèles de coûts et d’achalandage sur classe de référence, l’indice de friction communautaire, et la note d’information A-2025-00015 du Bureau du Conseil privé, qui confirme que les trois soumissionnaires ont proposé de façon indépendante des tracés neufs à 250 km/h et plus.
    ALTO HSR Citizen Research Initiative  ·  citizenresearch.ca  ·  Note de recherche  ·  juillet 2026
    Recherche indépendante et non partisane sur le corridor de train à grande vitesse Toronto–Québec proposé.

  • Ready to tender

    Ready to Tender, Not Yet Approved

    Cadence has opened the procurement for the first segment of ALTO — while its own notice says the project is not yet approved.

    ALTO HSR Citizen Research Initiative · Procurement Brief · Published July 2026 · ALTO consultation closed April 24, 2026
    ⚠ What the document says

    On June 23, 2026, Cadence — the private partner chosen to develop ALTO — published a Preliminary Notice to Market for the Ottawa–Montreal segment, the first part of the line to be built. It sets out the contracts, the delivery models, and a tendering schedule that starts this summer. Cadence PNM

    The same notice states that construction has “no official launch date” and that the entire build-and-operate phase is “subject to the government of Canada’s final confirmation of the investment.” In other words: the machinery to build this is being switched on before the decision to build it — and the money to pay for it — has been confirmed.

    The point in one sentence

    You do not need an access-to-information request to see this one. It is a public document, unredacted, published by the developer itself — and on its own pages it does two things at once: it commits the construction industry to a two-year tendering calendar for the project’s biggest contracts, and it confirms that the project is not yet funded, not yet finally approved, and does not yet have a confirmed start date.

    This is the same sequence this Initiative has documented at every earlier stage: the commitment comes first, the decision that would justify it comes later. What is new is that it is now happening in the open, in the developer’s own words, rather than in a briefing note released years after the fact.

    None of this settles whether high-speed rail should be built. It is a question about order of operations — whether a project should be this far into procurement before the public analysis, the final business case, and the funding decision are in place.

    Read the source
    Cadence Preliminary Notice to Market — Central Segment
    A public document (document no. ALTO-CPDP-00000-PW-080000-500BC10-000001F), issued June 2026 by Projet Cadence Rail s.e.c. Available in French and English.
    Download PDF
    What it is

    A tender calendar, not a green light

    A “Preliminary Notice to Market” is a signal to construction firms: here is the work that is coming, here is roughly when it will be tendered, start putting your teams together. Cadence is careful to say it is not a formal call for bids and not a commitment to buy anything. That caution is worth taking at face value — but it cuts both ways. The document is not a decision to proceed; it is the paperwork that gets the supply chain ready to proceed. And it is being issued now, ahead of the decision that determines whether there is anything to proceed to.

    The notice is explicit about that gap. It says construction is “contemplated to begin in 2029–2030, although no official launch date has been confirmed,” and that the build-and-operate phase — the phase where the line actually gets built — happens only “subject to the government of Canada’s final confirmation of the investment.” Yet the tendering timetable it publishes does not wait for that confirmation. It begins in the summer of 2026.

    Summer
    2026
    first major tender opens (trains), with stations and the Montreal tunnel to follow through 2027
    Cadence PNM, Table 2
    2029–30
    construction “contemplated,” but with no confirmed start date
    Cadence PNM
    Not yet
    federal investment decision — the build phase is “subject to” it
    Cadence PNM

    The order here is the whole story. Under any ordinary reading of how a public project should work, the sequence is: decide whether to build it, confirm the money, then tender the work. This notice runs two of those steps in parallel — the tendering starts while the decision and the money are still described, on the same pages, as outstanding.

    The Two Columns

    What the notice commits to, and what it leaves open

    The clearest way to read the document is to line up what it treats as fixed enough to build a procurement schedule around against what it says is still undecided. Both columns are drawn from the same notice.

    Treated as ready to tenderStill described as undecided
    The contract packages. The notice sets out more than seventeen contract packages (WP1–WP17) — trains, signalling, stations, the Montreal access tunnel, two major bridges, and the track itself — each with a delivery model already assigned.The final route. The “more precise corridor” is still promised for autumn 2026. For the Toronto–Ottawa segment, the notice leaves open the choice between a northern route through the Canadian Shield and a southern route through farmland — unresolved.
    The timetable. A tender calendar running from summer 2026 (trains) through 2027–2028 (tunnel, bridges, civil works), package by package.The start date. Construction has no confirmed launch date; 2029–2030 is described only as “contemplated.”
    The delivery company. A dedicated entity, “InfraCo,” led by CDPQ Infra, is to be the contracting party for all the builders, with a second company, “OpCo,” to run operations.The funding. The entire build-and-operate phase is “subject to the government of Canada’s final confirmation of the investment” — which the notice does not report as having been given.
    The technical spec. Design speed of 320 km/h; full electrification; no level crossings; a twin-bore tunnel roughly 15 km long and 9 m wide under the Riviere des Prairies and Mount Royal into Montreal.The business case. No final business case has been published. The government’s own answer to Parliament in June 2026 was that the cost-benefit, net-present-value, and 30-year subsidy figures are “not finalized.”

    Read together, the two columns describe a project detailed enough to hand contractors a two-year work plan, and unsettled enough that its route, its price, its business case, and its go-ahead are all still open. Those are not usually true of the same project at the same time.

    The Machinery

    What is actually being tendered

    The notice divides the first segment into more than seventeen work packages. Most people following this issue do not need the package numbers — but the shape of the list matters, because it shows how much of the hardest and most expensive work is being brought to market before its design is finished.

    The trains and the systems come first

    The first tender out the door, in summer 2026, is for the rolling stock — roughly 60 trainsets. The signalling and control systems follow in the autumn. These are network-wide contracts: they are written for the first segment but carry options to extend to the rest of the line later.

    The tunnel and bridges are tendered before they are fully designed

    The single most demanding piece — the Montreal access tunnel, a twin-bore ~15 km bore under a river and a mountain into the downtown — is brought to market on an early-involvement basis because its design and ground conditions are not yet settled. Two major bridges (the Riviere des Mille-Iles and the Ottawa River) are in the same position. The riskiest, priciest work is being tendered at the point where the least is known about it.

    The benefit numbers arrive without a source

    The notice repeats headline figures — $24.5 billion a year in GDP, more than 50,000 construction jobs, 5,000 operating jobs — with no study, method, or citation attached to any of them. They are stated as facts in a document whose own government has told Parliament the underlying cost-benefit analysis is not finished.

    Who Runs It

    Who is in the room

    The notice confirms the structure of the group that would build and run the line. This is a matter of public record from the document itself; it is set out here as fact, not as accusation.

    Cadence is a consortium. The notice names CDPQ Infra (the infrastructure arm of Quebec’s public pension fund) as the lead infrastructure and equity member, with Air Canada as an equity member; SYSTRA and AtkinsRealis as the design leads; and Keolis and SNCF Voyageurs as the operations leads. The new delivery company, “InfraCo,” would be led by CDPQ Infra and would sit above and contract with all the individual builders.

    Two features are worth noting plainly, both straight from the document. First, the same consortium that is designing the strategy also sits atop the company that will award and manage the contracts — while the notice’s own rules bar consortium members from bidding on the major contracts and require engineering firms to take part “as subcontractors.” Second, Air Canada — the airline whose routes this train is meant to compete with — is an equity holder in the developer, a position the notice describes by reference to the airline’s experience linking its flights with rail in Europe. Readers can weigh what those arrangements mean; the point here is only that the developer’s own notice puts them on the record.

    The Fine Print

    Three things easy to miss

    The contracts would be in English only

    The notice contemplates publishing the major contracts in English only, with French “courtesy versions” available on request — a notable choice for a federal project running through Quebec and Ontario. It justifies this by pointing to the English-language agreement Cadence signed with Alto.

    You may not talk to the people who run it — except through Cadence

    Firms taking part in the procurement are told they “must refrain from any direct communication” with “Project Stakeholders” — a category the notice defines to include landowners and communities — except as Cadence permits, on pain of disqualification.

    A federal law puts the project largely beyond local jurisdiction

    The notice cites the High-Speed Rail Act, which declares the railway a “work for the general advantage of Canada.” That designation places the project under federal jurisdiction and applies provincial and municipal law only “to the extent that such laws may validly apply” — the mechanism that narrows what municipalities and provinces can require.

    None of these is hidden. They are in the notice, in plain sentences. They are collected here because, together, they describe a procurement that is moving quickly, keeping tight control of who may speak to whom, and operating under a statute that limits local say — all before the funding decision the same document says is still to come.

    Where things stand · July 2026

    Summary ledger

    Reading the notice against the question a citizen would reasonably ask — is this project actually decided? — here is where the document leaves things.

    Under way
    Procurement. Tendering for the first segment’s major contracts begins summer 2026 and runs through 2028.
    Under way
    Delivery structure. InfraCo (led by CDPQ Infra) and OpCo are to be set up as the contracting and operating companies.
    Stated but unsourced
    Benefits. $24.5B annual GDP, 50,000+ construction jobs, 5,000 operating jobs — asserted with no study or method attached.
    Not yet done
    Final route. The precise corridor is promised for autumn 2026; the Toronto–Ottawa north/south choice is left open.
    Not yet done
    Business case. No final business case published; the government told Parliament the cost-benefit, NPV, and subsidy figures are “not finalized.”
    Not yet done
    Start date. Construction has no confirmed launch date; 2029–2030 is only “contemplated.”
    Not yet done
    The go-ahead. The build-and-operate phase is “subject to the government of Canada’s final confirmation of the investment” — not reported as given.

    The top of that list is moving. The bottom of it is not. A procurement this advanced usually means a project this decided — and by the developer’s own account, this one is not. The notice asks the construction market to get ready to build something the government has not yet committed to build, at a price no one has finalized, on a route not yet chosen. The reasonable question for anyone following this is not whether the train is a good idea. It is why the building has started before the deciding.

    Sources

    Primary documents

    1.
    Projet Cadence Rail s.e.c., Preliminary Notice to Market / Avis préalable au marché — Alto Project Central Segment, document no. ALTO-CPDP-00000-PW-080000-500BC10-000001F, dated June 23, 2026 (cover) / June 22, 2026 (milestone table). A public document issued in French and English. All quotations and figures in this brief — the tender schedule (Table 2), the “no official launch date” and “subject to…final confirmation of the investment” language, the WP1–WP17 package structure, the InfraCo/OpCo and consortium structure, the 320 km/h and tunnel specifications, the English-only contract approach, the stakeholder-communication restriction, and the GDP and jobs figures — are drawn from this notice. citizenresearch.ca (PDF)
    2.
    Government of Canada, response to Order Paper Question Q-1191 (Scott Reid, Lanark–Frontenac), House of Commons, tabled June 17, 2026 — source for the statement that the project’s cost-benefit, net-present-value, and 30-year subsidy figures are “not finalized.”
    3.
    ALTO / Cadence, statements that a more precise corridor is to be unveiled in autumn 2026, referenced in the notice’s appendix and in prior public communications.

    This brief summarizes a single public document in plain language. It does not argue that high-speed rail should or should not be built; it examines the order in which this procurement is proceeding relative to the decisions that would authorize it. A fuller treatment of the notice appears in the Initiative’s Accountability Record.

    ALTO HSR Citizen Research Initiative  ·  citizenresearch.ca  ·  Procurement Brief  ·  July 2026
    Independent, non-partisan research on the proposed Toronto–Quebec City high-speed rail corridor.

  • Sign first, see later

    Sign First, See Later

    A confidentiality precondition runs through ALTO’s field studies and corridor maps — for municipalities and for Indigenous rightsholders alike.

    ALTO HSR Citizen Research Initiative · Research Brief · Published June 2026
    The finding in brief

    Two of ALTO’s own June 2026 reports, read together, reveal a pattern. To let ALTO’s crews onto its land for field studies, the United Counties of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry would first have had to sign a non-disclosure agreement; they declined. And to see the early corridor maps for their own territories, Indigenous communities were asked to sign a collaboration or confidentiality agreement first.

    In both cases the information came with the same condition attached: silence. This is a question of public trust, not of whether the trains are a good idea.

    “The most basic question — where might the line go? — was answered only after a confidentiality agreement was signed.”
    — the pattern across ALTO’s own June 2026 reports
    The Evidence

    What the documents show

    The pattern is set out not in commentary but in ALTO’s own records and a municipal council package — the same condition appearing in two separate processes, applied to two different kinds of party.

    The municipal case The rightsholder case
    Set out in the United Counties of SDG’s June 15, 2026 council package. ALTO sought a Permission to Enter agreement for environmental field study and geotechnical work — boreholes, test pits, and tree clearing — on county-owned parcels, with the Counties required to sign a non-disclosure agreement as a condition of access. Council declined the request. Set out in ALTO’s Indigenous Consultation What We Heard Report. Initial corridor maps, prepared in November 2025, were shared only with communities that had signed a collaboration agreement or a non-disclosure agreement. For the others, ALTO worked to secure non-disclosure agreements to share maps as early as possible (p. 14). A community could not see the corridor maps for its own territory until it accepted a confidentiality undertaking. View ALTO’s report

    A confidentiality clause is ordinary between two private companies. It is a different matter when the other party is a public body, or an Indigenous community being consulted about its rights.

    The Municipal Case

    What was actually requested

    ALTO sought a “Permission to Enter” (PTE) agreement covering two kinds of work. The first is environmental field study — wetland and habitat assessment, wildlife and bird surveys, and the collection of noise, vibration, hydrology, soil and archaeological data, described as largely non-invasive. The second is geotechnical investigation: boreholes, test pits and other ground disturbance to characterise what lies beneath the surface. The County’s own report notes that this second category would require clearing trees to bring in heavy equipment, with the land to be “restored” afterward.

    The agreement also runs in favour of the private developer consortium, Cadence, not only the Crown corporation — so a landowner’s signature binds them to both. And it requires the landowner to keep the arrangement confidential.

    The request and its supporting materials are on the public record in the United Counties’ June 15, 2026 council package: the CAO Key Information Report, the ALTO presentation of May 5, 2026, and the Map of Impacted SDG Properties.

    “It tells you nothing about the route”

    ALTO’s presentation states, more than once, that a Permission to Enter does not indicate the final alignment and is not proof that a property sits on the route. Yet the same council package includes a map that identifies specific “Subject Lands,” and the geotechnical work is targeted at named parcels. You do not drill boreholes everywhere; you drill where you expect to build.

    On the public record

    In March 2026 the Mayor of North Glengarry said the alignment had shifted from the existing rail line through town to the township’s “far northeast corner” — the area, next to Highway 417, where the identified study parcels sit. The claim that the studies reveal nothing about the route, and the targeted footprint of the work, do not sit easily together.

    “A municipality holds and shares information on behalf of its residents. A non-disclosure agreement is the one condition it cannot quietly accept.”
    — the transparency question the request puts to a public body
    The Analysis

    A pattern, not an exception

    A municipality holds and shares information on behalf of its residents; an Indigenous community is being consulted toward its free, prior and informed consent. In both settings, the value of the process depends on people being able to know — and to discuss — what is proposed for their land. A precondition of silence cuts against that.

    What makes this a pattern rather than a one-off is that the same condition appears in two separate processes, applied to two different kinds of party, documented in the same set of reports. It is part of how the project is being run.

    Why confidentiality changes the calculus

    A public body that signs a non-disclosure agreement narrows what it can tell residents about studies on public land, and narrows what is reachable under freedom-of-information law. A rightsholder asked to sign before seeing a map is asked to accept a constraint before it has the information needed to weigh the project. Informed consent and an informed public both depend on having the information first.

    Consent and Transparency

    The tension the precondition creates

    ALTO states that it consults Indigenous communities with the aim of securing their free, prior and informed consent. Consent is harder to call fully informed when the information is released only after a confidentiality agreement, and harder to call fully free when seeing the map requires signing first. None of this is to say that any community objected to the agreements — the report does not say so, and this brief does not speak for any community. The observation is narrower, and is about ALTO’s process: the condition it attaches to its own information.

    For municipalities, the duty runs the other way — toward openness. Ontario’s freedom-of-information regime exists precisely so residents can learn what public bodies know. An access agreement that forecloses disclosure sits in tension with that duty, which is part of why the United Counties declined.

    The Decision

    What the municipalities decided

    The refusals were not isolated. The body that owns the land said no; the host township and a regional caucus were already on record against the project; and a neighbouring county refused the very same non-disclosure agreement.

    United Counties of SDG — the landowner

    The Counties, which own the land, voted down the access request (By-Law No. 5538). Councillors pointed to the impact on agriculture and were wary that granting access would itself be read as support for the project.

    North Glengarry — the host township

    The township where the parcels sit had already endorsed the regional resolution opposing the project in its current form, and its mayor and council have continued to speak against it.

    Prescott-Russell — the neighbour

    On May 27, 2026 the neighbouring United Counties of Prescott and Russell unanimously refused to sign a non-disclosure agreement and declined access for surveys, with the warden framing it as a stand for transparency and local autonomy. Council minutes

    Eastern Ontario Wardens’ Caucus

    The regional caucus opposes the project in its current form — the resolution North Glengarry endorsed in April 2026.

    What To Watch

    What happens next

    The field studies are active and, by ALTO’s own account, will continue through 2026 and beyond. The southern route now under study — through Kingston and the Frontenac Arch — will not reach public consultation until 2027. Access to the ground, and the agreements that come with it, can arrive well before the public conversation does.

    The next test is a willing host. Kingston has asked for a station and wants its staff to work directly with ALTO. A municipality that wants the outcome may accept terms a reluctant one refused. Whether the confidentiality precondition travels south, and whether it has already been signed anywhere, can be tested directly: through freedom-of-information requests to the municipalities along the route.

    Anticipated Objection

    “Isn’t this just opposition to high-speed rail dressed up as a complaint about process?”

    No. The concern is the terms on offer, not the existence of a railway. The refusing councils have not asked for no rail; they have asked that the project coordinate with existing passenger service and existing corridors, and that decisions be made in the open. The question is not whether ALTO may protect commercially sensitive information — firms do that routinely.

    It is whether the public’s information about a public project, on public land and on the territories of rightsholders, should be available only to those who first agree not to share it. Better passenger rail and an open process are not in conflict.

    The bottom line

    The question is not whether ALTO may protect commercially sensitive information — firms do that routinely. It is whether the public’s information about a public project, on public land and on the territories of rightsholders, should be available only to those who first agree not to share it.

    A reasonable standard would be simple: the corridor maps, field-study scopes, and access terms that affect a community should be available to that community without a confidentiality precondition. Better passenger rail and an open process are not in conflict.

    Read the full brief offline or share it.

    Download the brief (PDF)

    Sources

    Primary documents and statements

    1.

    ALTO, Indigenous Consultation What We Heard Report (June 2026), incl. p. 14 — initial corridor maps shared only with communities that had signed a collaboration or non-disclosure agreement; ALTO describes the agreements as a means of sharing maps as early as possible. altotrain.ca
    2.

    ALTO, Public Consultation What We Heard Report (June 2026).
    3.

    United Counties of SDG council package, June 15, 2026 — CAO Key Information Report; ALTO presentation, May 5, 2026; Map of Impacted SDG Properties; and By-Law No. 5538.
    4.

    The SDG access vote and councillor statements as reported by the Morrisburg Leader, June 18, 2026.
    5.

    North Glengarry’s April 13, 2026 endorsement of the regional (EOWC) resolution, and its mayor’s continued public opposition — The Review, April 16, 2026, and Cornwall Seaway News.
    6.

    United Counties of Prescott and Russell, Regular Council Meeting, May 27, 2026 — council declined to sign a non-disclosure agreement and refused access for surveys. Meeting agendas and minutes
    7.

    Transport Canada announcement, Kingston, June 22, 2026.
    ALTO HSR Citizen Research Initiative  ·  citizenresearch.ca  ·  Research Brief  ·  June 2026
    Independent, non-partisan research on the proposed Toronto–Quebec City high-speed rail corridor.

  • Not off the hook

    CRI community brief · June 2026

    Not Off the Hook

    In Alto’s own words: why a Kingston station makes the southern corridor more uncertain for the communities around it, not less.

    Alto HSR Citizen Research Initiative · Independent & non-partisan

    The short version

    The June 22 announcement can feel like a finish line for the communities between Ottawa, Kingston and Peterborough. It is closer to a starting gun. Alto’s CEO has said the company is now “concentrating on the southern corridor,” that the corridor there is still wide, and that the alignment will be drawn “in the next few months.” A station in Kingston does not spare the townships the line must cross to reach it, instead, it commits the line to crossing them.

    Three reasons people think the fight is over and why each is wrong

    After a feel-good announcement, it is natural to assume the danger has passed. Here are the three readings going around the corridor, and why each one misreads what was actually said.

    What it feels like
    What is actually true
    “The route moved to Kingston, so my area is safe.”
    A station is a destination, not a route. The tracks still have to travel the whole Ottawa–Kingston–Peterborough band to get there. A Kingston stop does not lift the line off the surrounding townships; it commits the line to passing through them.
    “A decision was made.”
    It was not. The Minister directed Alto to study a southern option, hedged “subject to technical feasibility and project requirements.” The alignment for this segment is not chosen until the 2027 consultation, with the impact assessment to follow.
    “If I’m not right on the 401, I’m fine.”
    Alto’s CEO said the line will not follow the 401 the whole way, and that the Ottawa-to-near-Kingston stretch is “probably too curvy.” That means the inland, off-highway countryside is exactly where the route is still open.

    What the CEO actually said

    In an interview the day of the announcement, Alto’s president and CEO described a search area that is widening, not closing. He said the northern route along the Highway 7 corridor has not been scrapped, it is “not off the table”. However, the likelihood of going back north is “less and less obvious,” because the company is now “concentrating on the southern corridor.”

    He described the corridor between Ottawa, Kingston and Peterborough as still “fairly wide,” and said the job over the next few months is to determine how to get from Ottawa to Kingston with the “alignment of least impact” by following existing infrastructure where possible and trying to limit impact on the agricultural sector. He added that the line likely would not follow Highway 401 entirely, and that the Ottawa-to-near-Kingston stretch is too curvy to use the highway as a corridor there.

    Read together, those statements describe the southern band as the primary search area, still wide, and actively being drawn right now. That is the opposite of a settled outcome according to Alto’s CEO.

    A wider search area, not a narrower one

    “Wide corridor” is Alto’s own phrase, and a wide corridor means nothing inside it is fixed. The band still runs from Ottawa to Peterborough by way of Kingston, and the communities inside it — among them Stone Mills, Greater Napanee, Tyendinaga, Rideau Lakes, Tay Valley and South Frontenac — are not on the edge of this decision. They are inside the active study area. Adding Kingston as a destination does not shrink that band; it gives the line a reason to run through the middle of it.

    “Least impact” is a promise, not a plan

    The reassuring language — “least impact,” “follow existing infrastructure,” “limit impact on agriculture” — is worth reading carefully. None of it is defined, none of it is published, and none of it is a commitment any community can hold Alto to yet. “Least impact” still means an impact, on someone, somewhere; and the decision to avoid the 401 where it is too curvy means the alternative runs through open farmland and rural settlement. A goal stated in an interview is not a protection written into a route.

    It is also the moment to keep the alternative on the table. Many residents told the consultation they would rather see existing rail service improved first (we call it High Performance Rail) before a new line is carved through the countryside. That option does not disappear because a station was named; it is exactly the question a wide-open corridor should still be asking.

    The clock, and why now is the moment

    The decision that affects you has not happened. Here is when it does.

    This fall (2026)
    Alto narrows the Central segment (Ottawa–Montréal) corridor and runs another round of public consultation.
    2027
    Consultation on the western segment (Toronto–Ottawa) — which contains the Peterborough–Ottawa southern option and the Kingston question — the segment that decides the route through these communities.
    ~January 2027
    The federal impact assessment is expected to begin and run about two years, with its own input opportunities.

    The alignment is on the drawing board over the next few months. The relief that follows a feel-good announcement is exactly what empties the room while the line is being drawn. The communities that stay organized and on the record are the ones whose concerns will define what “least impact” ends up meaning.

    What keeps your community on the map

    • Stay organized across township lines. The corridor crosses many municipalities; the case is strongest when those communities speak together rather than each assuming the line will land on someone else.
    • Document your property now. Photographs, surveys, drainage, wells and septic, farm operations and field connectivity. A clear record is your strongest tool the moment a route is proposed nearby.
    • Put your council and your MP on record. Municipal resolutions and parliamentary questions can demand the alignment criteria and the evidence. Keep your community’s position documented before the route is drawn.
    • Ask to see the rules. “Least impact” should come with published criteria and weightings. Ask for them. A standard you cannot read is a standard no one can be held to.
    • Mark the dates. Fall 2026 (Central), 2027 (your segment), and the impact assessment. Those are the rooms where the route is decided: be in them.

    A station for Kingston is not a reprieve for the corridor. The line still has to get there. Alto has said it has not decided how.

    Download the full brief (PDF)

    Sources

    1. Elliot Ferguson, “Alto CEO says there are options to add Kingston to rail project,” Kingston Whig-Standard, June 22, 2026.
    2. Transport Canada, news release on the What We Heard report and Kingston as a potential stop, June 22, 2026. canada.ca
    3. Alto, Public Consultation — What We Heard Report, Corridor Study Area (134 pp), June 2026. altotrain.ca

    Quoted phrases are the words of Alto’s president and CEO as reported in the Kingston Whig-Standard interview of June 22, 2026. The Alto HSR Citizen Research Initiative is an independent, non-partisan research project examining the proposed corridor through Eastern Ontario.

  • Heard not counted

    CRI analysis · June 2026

    Heard, Not Counted

    Alto’s What We Heard report is precise about how many people it reached and silent about what they said. That silence is not an omission — it is the design.

    Alto HSR Citizen Research Initiative · Independent & non-partisan

    What Alto counts, exactly

    324,026 unique online visits
    24,142 questionnaires completed
    19,903 map pins dropped
    14,503 media mentions

    What Alto leaves uncounted

    — how many raised each theme
    — concerns by category
    — any sentiment split
    — which issues mattered most

    The same report, two standards of precision: six significant figures for the inputs, no number at all for the outputs.

    The argument

    The report is accountability-shaped but accountability-proof. It maximizes the visible evidence that consultation happened while removing every element that would let anyone test what it produced — so that hearing is decoupled from consequence.

    1

    The smoking gun: asymmetric precision

    The clearest evidence isn’t interpretive — it’s on the page. Alto reports its inputs to six significant figures and its outputs with no number at all (see the ledger above).

    The qualitative colouring is asymmetric in the same breath. In adjacent sentences of the executive summary, support gets intensifiers and active voice — nation-building “viewed positively, alongside strong enthusiasm,” supporters who “expressed a desire” to move forward. Opposition gets neutral process-verbs and passive voice — land-acquisition opposition “was voiced,” concerns “raised… on many occasions.” Both are unquantified; one is painted warm and active, the other cool and passive. That asymmetry, in a single paragraph, is the legitimation machine in miniature.

    2

    A report that cannot be wrong

    The report says its themes were produced by “Artificial intelligence tools… semantic clustering, multi-label classification,” which also “were used to support report writing.” Add the absence of magnitude, the absence of attribution, and the instruction that the themes “are not presented in a specific order and they are all significant” — and the report becomes structurally unfalsifiable.

    There is no figure to check against the inputs, no ranking to dispute, no claim that could be shown false. “All significant” is not a finding; it is a flattening — it pre-emptively denies that overwhelming, concentrated opposition would look any different from a scatter of mild concerns. A report that cannot be wrong is not a record. It is a position statement wearing a record’s clothes.

    3

    The frame was set before the room opened

    The corridor that was consulted on was drawn first — from technical and financial criteria (“the straightest possible route,” “minimizing construction costs”) and the three 2025 RFP submissions — and then presented for feedback. The exercise is explicitly “corridor refinement”: consultation on the width of a band already drawn from cost-minimization, not on whether or where. The seven “project outcomes” are stated as fixed premises the consultation serves, never as propositions it could test.

    The consultation’s frame excludes the project’s own justification. A participant could object to a curve; they could not put on the record that the stated outcomes might be better met by upgrading existing lines — the question the public itself kept raising as “improve VIA first.” The frame did the foreclosing; the consultation only refined inside it.

    4

    Consent invoked, consent disclaimed

    Both reports invoke “Free, Prior, and Informed Consent” — and the word doing the work is consent. Yet the report never claims consent was obtained; it says Alto consults “with the aim of securing” it, then states flatly the process “is not a rights determination process.” It wears the standard as a credential while disclaiming the thing the standard names.

    Its own numbers undercut the credential: of 40 Indigenous communities contacted, 29 held meetings and 12 made further submissions — a thinning base for a report it calls “validated.” And corridor maps were shared only with communities that had signed a collaboration or non-disclosure agreement. Consultation conducted under NDA is a contradiction in terms for a public, rights-bearing process: you could only see what you were consulted on by signing away the ability to discuss it.

    5

    Responsiveness, staged

    The report — which documents Kingston-area demand — was released the same day, at Queen’s University, alongside the Minister’s direction to study a southern route through Kingston. The sequence manufactures a narrative of listening and responding. But the response is a direction to study, hedged twice (“potential,” “subject to technical feasibility”), and the real consultation on that segment is pushed to 2027. The report stages responsiveness in the present while deferring the substance past the next news cycle.

    6

    What this argument does not claim

    A sharper critique is also a more honest one. Naming what Alto can rebut makes the rest land harder.

    • Not that Alto ignored concerns. It didn’t — the southern-corridor section names farmland, the Frontenac Arch, karst and groundwater specifically. The defensible claim is narrower and deadlier: Alto records concerns in a form that cannot be acted on or audited.
    • Not that the comment counts are bad faith. The public-facing range (“nearly 20,000” vs “nearly 45,000”) is two framings and partly an artifact of windowing and de-duplication. The fair point is rhetorical: Alto’s own site reaches for the smaller number.
    • Not that using AI is the flaw. The flaw is that the taxonomy is undisclosed and the outputs unquantified. The target is the opacity, not the method.
    • Not that this was a representative poll. Neither report claims it was. The platform measures the intensity of the concerned — which is exactly why the absence of any sentiment or geographic breakdown is the tell.

    The line that holds

    Alto published a 134-page account of a consultation that is precise about how many people it reached and silent about what they said — and that silence is the product, not an omission.

    Download the full brief (PDF)

    Sources

    1. Alto, Public Consultation — What We Heard Report, Corridor Study Area (134 pp), June 2026.
    2. Alto, Indigenous Consultation — What We Heard Report, Corridor Study Area (24 pp), June 2026.
    3. Transport Canada, news release on the What We Heard report and Kingston as a potential stop, June 22, 2026. canada.ca

    Quoted phrases are taken directly from the reports named above. The Alto HSR Citizen Research Initiative is an independent, non-partisan research project examining the proposed high-speed rail corridor through Eastern Ontario. This analysis addresses how the consultation was reported; it takes no position here for or against the project itself.

  • 30 Pieces

    Community Advocacy

    The Thirty Pieces Problem

    Why communities must not accept ALTO’s conditional concessions.

    ALTO HSR Citizen Research Initiative · Community Advocacy · Published April 2026 · Updated June 2026
    How to read this page

    This is a direct address to communities in the ALTO corridor. Everything cited here is on the public record — drawn from ALTO’s own published Community Partnerships Policy (altotrain.ca), from verified council meeting transcripts, from public sponsorship listings, and from stakeholder reports. Read the documents. Then decide what you think is being offered — and why.

    A Current Example · June 2026

    It begins with a logo at a festival

    The clearest illustration of what this page is about appeared in June 2026 — not in a council chamber in the southern corridor, and not as a trail or a conservation grant, but as a sponsorship logo at a celebration of Franco-Ontarian culture.

    ALTO is listed as an Official Sponsor of the 2026 Festival Franco-Ontarien, the flagship annual celebration of Franco-Ontarian culture held in Ottawa. The festival serves precisely the francophone communities along the Ottawa–Montreal segment of the corridor — among the communities most directly affected by that section of the proposed route. The sponsorship places ALTO’s name, logo, and presence at the centre of a major cultural gathering in the very community the project would run through.

    Verified — Festival Franco-Ontarien partners page (ffo.ca), June 2026

    Visibility and “activation,” made visible

    ALTO’s logo appears among the festival’s Official Sponsors, alongside major institutional and corporate backers. To announce the partnership, the festival published a message welcoming ALTO’s support and describing a shared ambition to bring communities closer together and to make it easier to gather and share francophone culture, traditions, and pride. ffo.ca/partenaires

    That welcome message was met with public criticism from members of the affected corridor community, who objected that a francophone institution was lending its name and credibility to a project they regard as a threat to the very communities it represents. The festival subsequently removed the post. ALTO, however, remained listed as an Official Sponsor on the festival’s website — the visible partnership intact, the public celebration of it quietly withdrawn.

    As the rest of this page documents, ALTO’s own community-funding policy explicitly lists “visibility for the Corporation” and “the opportunity to engage directly with the community” among the things it values in the projects it supports. The festival sponsorship is that aim realized: favourable association with a trusted community institution, in a community the project would directly affect. The vehicle is a sponsorship rather than a grant, but the function is identical.

    None of this implies wrongdoing by the festival. Cultural organizations depend on sponsorship, and accepting it is neither unusual nor improper. But the public is entitled to see who funds the institutions that anchor francophone cultural life — particularly when the funder has a direct and material stake in a project that runs through the communities those institutions represent. The reaction the announcement drew, and the quiet removal of the post that followed, are exactly the kind of signal this page asks communities to notice and name rather than smooth over.

    The festival is not an exception. It is the most public, most recent instance of a pattern that has a name, a budget, and a published policy behind it. The rest of this page sets out how that pattern works — and why every community and institution in this corridor should understand it.

    The Pattern

    A familiar playbook

    Major infrastructure projects have long known that the most effective way to manage dissent is not to silence it, but to purchase it — selectively, quietly, and just expensively enough to matter.

    The mechanism is well-understood in the literature on large infrastructure governance. Targeted concessions are offered to communities or organizations most likely to generate organized opposition. The concessions need not be large; they need only be large enough to fracture solidarity, create a sense of obligation, and introduce ambiguity where principled opposition once stood clear.

    This is not a hidden strategy. It is documented in the histories of pipeline negotiations, highway expansions, and stadium developments across North America. In those cases, communities that accepted small concessions found, after approval, that the concessions evaporated while the harms did not. What distinguishes the ALTO case is that the mechanism has been formalized, named, given a budget, and posted on ALTO’s own website. It is called the Community Partnerships Policy. You can read it yourself — and you should.

    ALTO’s Published Programme

    The Community Partnerships Policy: what it actually says

    ALTO’s Community Partnerships Policy is a formal, six-page document governing how the Corporation will distribute grants to organizations along the Quebec City–Toronto corridor. It covers eligible organizations, project types, assessment criteria, budget ranges, and reporting requirements. It was published on ALTO’s website and is presented as a transparency measure.

    Read on its own terms, the document is unremarkable. Community investment programmes are standard features of large infrastructure projects. But several provisions, taken together, reveal the strategic logic underlying the programme — and communities should understand that logic before they apply.

    Source Document

    ALTO Community Partnerships Policy (Published)

    The policy covers registered charities, non-profit organizations, schools, municipal services, First Nations organizations, and community associations. Grants range from under $10,000 to a maximum of $50,000 per project, with no multi-year commitments. Applications are assessed by an internal committee and approved by ALTO’s Chief Officers Committee.

    ALTO has also published a companion page on Indigenous partnerships and a separate Indigenous Peoples Participation Funding programme.

    Community Partnerships Policy   Indigenous Partnerships Vision   Indigenous Peoples Participation Funding

    The policy’s stated objectives are economic vitality, environmental vitality, and social vitality — language familiar from any corporate social responsibility framework. What deserves closer attention are the assessment criteria by which applications are evaluated, because ALTO included two criteria that are, for a programme operating in actively contested communities, remarkable.

    ALTO’s published assessment criteria — Step 2AWhat it means in practice
    ① Adherence to one or more areas in section 4.1Standard eligibility check.
    ② Benefits for the communities targeted by the projectStandard community benefit criterion.
    ③ Alignment with the Corporation’s valuesOrganizations whose work or public positions conflict with ALTO’s objectives are less likely to score well here. The criterion is undefined, unappealable, and determined internally by ALTO.
    ④–⑥ Eligible territory; geographic scope; quality of planningAdministrative criteria.
    ⑦ Visibility for the CorporationALTO’s own language. Applications that generate positive public exposure for ALTO score better. Applications from organizations known for opposing the project do not.
    ⑧ Opportunity to engage directly with the community (activation)Again, ALTO’s own language. The programme explicitly values the opportunity to place ALTO representatives in direct community contact — in precisely the communities where the project is contested.
    ⑨–⑩ DE&I principles; alignment with sustainable developmentStandard programme criteria.

    Criteria ③, ⑦, and ⑧ are not neutral administrative measures. Read together, they describe a funding programme designed to reward community alignment with ALTO, generate favourable public visibility for the Corporation, and create structured opportunities for ALTO staff to establish presence in affected communities. This is not a community benefits programme. It is a community relations programme with a grant attached.

    “A concession that does not address the harm is not a remedy. It is a price tag attached to your silence.”

    ALTO HSR Citizen Research Initiative
    Section 4.3 of the Policy

    The prohibition on advocacy

    The Community Partnerships Policy contains one further provision that deserves to be read by every organization considering an application. Under section 4.3, the following project types are explicitly listed as ineligible:

    Ineligible — ALTO policy text

    Lobbying campaigns

    Defined as ineligible in ALTO’s own policy text. Grants may not be used for advocacy activities — including, it must be inferred, advocacy concerning ALTO itself.

    Ineligible — ALTO policy text

    Projects of a controversial nature… or raising issues of social acceptability

    A corridor community’s opposition to ALTO could plausibly be described as raising “issues of social acceptability.” This criterion is defined by ALTO’s internal committee, not by an independent standard.

    The implication is direct: an organization that accepts ALTO funding cannot use that funding for advocacy, including advocacy about the project that is funding it. In practice, this creates a chilling effect that extends beyond the funded project itself. An organization that has accepted ALTO money — for a community festival, a wetland restoration project, an education programme — will reasonably hesitate before publicly opposing the project that funded it. The transaction does not require silence. It tends to produce it anyway.

    This is not speculation about ALTO’s intentions. It is a predictable consequence of any funder-recipient relationship in a context of active controversy. It is why transparent conflict-of-interest disclosure by funded organizations — including in any public position they take on the project — is essential.

    The Offers

    What has been reported in the corridor

    Beyond the formal programme, the same logic can play out through informal channels — some of it already visible in municipal proceedings, some of it foreseeable but, by design, leaving little or no record. None of these carry legal weight or any accountability mechanism. When the project receives approval — if it does — none of them are enforceable. They will simply be forgotten, differently, by everyone who heard them.

    Documented — Napanee Town Council, April 14, 2026 (transcript verified)

    A trail alongside the tracks

    The Mayor of Greater Napanee referenced correspondence headed to County Council suggesting “some form of a trail associated to it on the outside of the fence.” His own framing: “if we’re not gonna have a whole lot of choice on this then we’re gonna get out of it.” The trail was not offered by ALTO — it arose from community correspondence. That makes it a more significant example, not less: the rationalization was entirely spontaneous.

    Foreseeable — likely a formal mitigation measure

    Other avenues: conservation land and offsets

    Cash grants are not the only currency available to a project of this scale. A railway acquires and controls large amounts of land, and some of it is likely to be transferred to conservation organizations as part of ALTO’s environmental mitigation and offsetting. Such transfers would be formal, documented, and binding — but that does not make them neutral. A transfer that benefits a conservation organization can still soften the scrutiny of a body that might otherwise be among the project’s most credible critics, and a parcel of offset habitat does not replace a fragmented biosphere. The thing to watch is whether mitigation land is presented as a community benefit rather than as what it is: compensation for harm the project concedes it will cause.

    Formal programme — ALTO website

    Community partnership grants

    ALTO’s published Community Partnerships Policy makes grants of up to $50,000 available to eligible corridor organizations for environmental, economic, and social projects. Selection criteria explicitly include “Visibility for the Corporation” and “Opportunity to engage directly with the community.” No multi-year funding is available.

    Public statement — ALTO Chief Executive

    The future Kingston station

    ALTO’s Chief Executive indicated that Kingston might receive a station “in the future.” This is a commitment unbacked by any timeline, funding envelope, or legal obligation — and offered during a period of active public opposition from the Kingston region.

    Verified — ffo.ca partners page, June 2026

    A festival sponsorship in the francophone corridor

    ALTO is listed as an Official Sponsor of the 2026 Festival Franco-Ontarien — Ottawa’s flagship francophone cultural celebration, serving the communities along the Ottawa–Montreal segment of the corridor. A festival post welcoming ALTO’s support was later removed following public criticism; the sponsorship listing on the festival’s website remained in place.

    Taken together — the documented trail, the public statement about a future station, the formal grants programme, the festival sponsorship, and the conservation-land transfers a landholding project can always reach for — these describe a coherent strategy that works on more than one level at once: formal, procedurally legitimate measures (grants, sponsorships, and mitigation transfers) that generate visibility, goodwill, and community presence, and a layer of informal undertakings made in meetings and remembered differently by different parties.

    Documented Evidence — Greater Napanee Council, April 14, 2026

    The rationalization on the record

    The April 14, 2026 ordinary session of Greater Napanee Town Council provides the clearest documented example of the dynamic this page describes — and it came not from ALTO, but from within the community itself.

    The Mayor referenced correspondence heading to Lennox & Addington County Council that suggested a trail might be built alongside the rail corridor. His precise words: “if this rail line is going to be produced or built one way or the other, there’s a suggestion that there’d be an option to put some form of a trail associated to it on the outside of the fence… if we’re not gonna have a whole lot of choice on this then we’re gonna get out of it that will benefit the municipalities.”

    The trail did not come from ALTO. It came from a community member’s correspondence. ALTO had not offered it. What the meeting recorded — in public, on transcript — was the moment a community forum began, unprompted, to shift from “should this happen” to “what can we get.” The same meeting heard its CAO report that ALTO’s process was explicitly framed as asking “how, not if” — confirming that ALTO itself had no mandate to decide whether to build, only how. That framing, delivered to a credible civic officer in a formal stakeholder meeting, is precisely what creates the psychological conditions in which trails begin to seem worth discussing.

    Notably, that same council session saw near-unanimous opposition from every councillor present, including one who explicitly said he would sign a joint letter opposing ALTO in its entirety. Opposition and rationalization were occurring simultaneously, in the same room. That is the dynamic communities need to understand and name.

    The Psychology

    The rationalization trap

    There is a moment — and it happens in every community that faces a project like this — when people who know something is wrong begin to construct reasons why accepting it is, in fact, reasonable. The harm is real, but perhaps unavoidable. The payment is small, but it is something. And if it is happening regardless, shouldn’t we at least secure what we can?

    You may have already heard this reasoning in your own council chamber, at your kitchen table, or in a conversation after a community meeting. It is not dishonest. It is genuinely human. But it is also exactly what it feels like when a community begins to accept the unacceptable — not with enthusiasm, but through the slow substitution of negotiated scraps for principled resistance.

    The insight at the heart of the Judas archetype — explored with uncomfortable precision in the dramatic tradition — is that the act of rationalizing a betrayal does not change what the betrayal is. Reframing a transaction as something other than what it is does not alter its moral weight. A community that accepts a trail, a land access agreement, and a conservation grant while staying quiet about road severance, watershed contamination, karst subsidence risk, and permanent agricultural land loss has made a transaction. The only question is whether it understood the exchange rate going in.

    The Exchange

    The asymmetry of the exchange

    The offers being made to corridor communities deserve to be evaluated against what is actually at stake. The following comparison is necessarily incomplete — the full scope of ALTO’s impacts remains undisclosed — but even a partial accounting reveals the starkness of the exchange being proposed.

    What is being offeredWhat is at stake
    A recreational trail adjacent to the corridor (informal, unreported)Severance of road access to farms, properties, and communities; permanent fragmentation of the rural landscape
    Conservation land or habitat offsets transferred to environmental organizations as project mitigationPermanent loss of agricultural land; destruction and fragmentation of the Frontenac Arch Biosphere Reserve; elimination of habitat for SARA-listed species
    Community partnership grants up to $50,000 — one year only, no renewalContamination risk to rural water infrastructure; karst and aquifer vulnerability; de-icing chemical runoff into the Napanee and Salmon River watersheds; 2,196 km of OFSC snowmobile trails at risk of severance
    A future Kingston station — perhaps, eventuallyA benefit-cost ratio of approximately 0.4 against an HM Treasury minimum of 1.5; a project that cannot be financially self-sustaining and will require perpetual public subsidy across generations
    ALTO’s “corporate engagement” and “activation” in corridor communitiesExpropriation powers under Bill C-15 that override normal property rights protections; an engagement process that was run to a prescribed deadline regardless of the objections it recorded
    The Stakes

    Why tacit acceptance is dangerous — for everyone

    To be clear: this is not an accusation. If your organization has engaged with ALTO thoughtfully, or if your council has tried to extract whatever benefit it can from a project it cannot stop, that is not bad faith. That is people doing their jobs under difficult circumstances.

    But there is a real and important difference between fighting the project while negotiating its impacts and going quiet because of a small offer. One protects your community. The other protects ALTO. And ALTO’s own policy documents make clear that producing exactly that outcome — your silence in exchange for its “activation” in your community — is precisely what the programme is designed to achieve.

    Five things that happen when communities accept small offers

    It fractures community solidarity. When some organizations receive funding and others do not — a consequence built into ALTO’s own competitive assessment process — communities are divided. Those who have accepted something feel awkward opposing a project that has “done something” for them. Those who have not feel isolated. Opposition becomes fragmented and less effective.

    It manufactures consent that was never given. ALTO will report publicly that it engaged with communities. Organizations that received grants or attended “activation” events will appear in that record as participants. Whether they actually supported the project, were paid to show up, or simply had no good alternative will not appear. Your community’s name becomes evidence of buy-in that does not exist.

    It creates obligations that don’t legally exist. Informal undertakings — a trail alongside the tracks, a future station, a promise made across a meeting table — have no enforceable legal status. Even the formal partnership grants specify no multi-year commitment. Once a project achieves regulatory approval, the inducements offered during the engagement phase carry no binding force. They are not conditions of approval. They are not contractual commitments to corridor communities. They are remembered differently by different parties — and ALTO holds all the institutional memory.

    It normalizes the project in public discourse. When community organizations — councils, conservation groups, sporting and cultural associations — are seen to be engaged in “partnership” and “benefit discussions” rather than opposition, the public perception shifts. The project begins to seem inevitable. Resistance that was once principled begins to look like haggling.

    The published policy itself creates ongoing leverage. ALTO retains “the discretion to award less than the requested sum” and reserves the right to distribute funds in multiple installments. An organization that has accepted partial funding and is dependent on the remainder is not in a neutral position relative to the project it has benefited from.

    What To Do

    What communities can do

    Engagement is not the problem — silence is. There are principled, effective ways to participate in this process without letting a grant or a promise shift where you stand.

    01Oppose the project and engage with the process — both at once

    Participating in the process does not mean accepting the project. Your community can engage fully — attending meetings, asking hard questions, making demands — while making it absolutely clear, in public and on the record, that engagement is not consent. Say it out loud. Say it in writing. Say it every time.

    02If you have accepted ALTO funding, say so publicly

    There is no shame in having applied for or received a community grant. But your neighbours, your council, and the public deserve to know about it when you speak about this project. Transparency is the only thing that preserves your credibility — and it is the one thing ALTO’s programme is not designed to encourage.

    03Get every promise in writing — or treat it as no promise at all

    Trails. Land access. Future stations. If ALTO or its representatives cannot commit to it in a signed, dated document with a delivery timeline and an accountability mechanism, it does not exist. Verbal assurances made in stakeholder meetings have no legal force after project approval. None. Treat them accordingly.

    04Do the full accounting before you assess any offer

    A $30,000 conservation grant looks different alongside a benefit-cost ratio of 0.4, $60–90 billion in projected public costs, permanent agricultural land loss, and aquifer risk that no impact assessment has yet resolved. You are entitled to that full picture. Demand it. Do not evaluate small offers in isolation from large harms.

    05Know that there is a better option

    The choice is not between ALTO and nothing. High Performance Rail on the existing CN Kingston Subdivision — combined with a new freight displacement corridor along Highway 401 — delivers comparable journey times at a fraction of the cost, with dramatically lower community and environmental disruption. That alternative deserves a real assessment. Demand one.

    06Stand with other corridor communities

    The inducement strategy only works if communities act alone. Your grant, your trail, your land access promise — each one is calibrated to make your situation feel unique and your interests separable from your neighbours’. They are not. A divided corridor is ALTO’s best asset. A united one is its biggest problem.

    The Ask

    What we are asking you to do

    If your organization has been offered ALTO community partnership funding, land access, trail commitments, or any other concession — formal or informal — document it. Write down the date, the name of the person who made the offer, and exactly what was said. Then tell people about it.

    Not because you did anything wrong. Because the public deserves to know what ALTO is offering corridor communities, and why, and when. Because the difference between a project that received genuine community support and one that managed dissent with targeted grants should be visible — to your neighbours, to your elected representatives, and to anyone who asks whether eastern Ontario communities were truly consulted or simply handled.

    A trail alongside the tracks is not evidence that ALTO has taken your community seriously. A one-year grant awarded partly for “corporate visibility” is not evidence of environmental commitment. The only thing that cannot be managed, bought, or quietly withdrawn after approval is a community that spoke clearly, stayed together, and refused to let small offers substitute for large answers.

    In Closing

    What lasts is the record

    The festival sponsorship is a reminder of how quickly a partnership can be celebrated in public and then, when it draws scrutiny, quietly removed from view. What endures is not the announcement or its deletion — it is the documented record of what was offered, by whom, and when. That record is the most durable contribution any community can make.

    The ALTO HSR Citizen Research Initiative maintains a full suite of research briefs, technical analyses, and community resources at citizenresearch.ca. If your organization or institution has been offered ALTO support — a grant, a sponsorship, land access, a future station — the most useful thing you can do is document it and make it visible: to your neighbours, your council, and the public.

    ALTO HSR Citizen Research Initiative  ·  citizenresearch.ca  ·  Community Advocacy  ·  Updated June 2026
    Independent, non-partisan research on the proposed Toronto–Quebec City high-speed rail corridor.

  • Transport Action Canada

    The Voice ALTO Has Already Heard From

    Transport Action Canada and Transport Action Ontario — the country’s principal pro-rail civil-society voice — have made detailed substantive recommendations about ALTO. What they asked for. What the record shows ALTO has so far addressed. What their voice contributes that nothing else in the public record does.

    ALTO HSR Citizen Research Initiative · Stakeholder Brief · Published May 2026
    ⚠ Documents Under Analysis

    On March 16, 2026, Transport Action Canada and Transport Action Ontario submitted an 18-recommendation written response to ALTO at the close of the January–March 2026 consultation period. The organizations also published an open letter setting out what they believe the substantive questions about the project are, and what credible alternatives have been studied previously.

    They are explicitly pro-rail. They are not opposed to high-speed rail in principle. Their concerns are technical, financial, and service-continuity concerns, and they are asking for the same documents and analyses that Parliament’s own Transport Committee asked for in September 2024 — and that have not been produced.

    Critical Finding

    The questions about ALTO’s cost, ridership, document release, and VIA-service impact are not coming only from project-affected landowners, from anti-rail critics, or from research initiatives. They are coming from the country’s principal pro-rail civil-society voice, in March 2026, on the public record, having formally engaged with ALTO through ALTO’s own consultation process.

    The brief sets out what Transport Action asked for, what the record shows ALTO has addressed, and what credible alternatives they have publicly identified.

    Download
    The Voice ALTO Has Already Heard From — Full Brief (PDF)
    What Transport Action Canada and Transport Action Ontario asked of ALTO, what ALTO has addressed, and what their voice contributes to the public record
    Download PDF
    The Witness

    Who Transport Action is

    Transport Action Canada describes itself as “Canada’s citizen advocacy organization for public transportation,” with members who have “discussed and debated the subject over the past five decades, including of course High Speed Rail and possible alternatives.” It and its provincial affiliates — including Transport Action Ontario, jointly authoring the consultation letter analysed here — are the principal national civil-society voice on Canadian intercity rail policy.

    Their position on ALTO is unambiguous. The open letter opens by welcoming “serious discussion of all options to improve passenger rail.” The consultation letter opens by describing the organizations as “a knowledgeable, passenger-focussed NGO that is very supportive of intercity passenger rail.” They explicitly recognize the underlying problem ALTO is intended to address — that VIA Rail’s constrained access to CN’s Kingston Subdivision “has long been recognized as untenable, which prompted the development and launch of VIA’s High Frequency Rail proposal in 2015.”

    They acknowledge the limits of incremental improvement: “just improving the CN route in isolation while continuing to operate alongside freight would not come close to the quintupling of capacity and slashing of travel times possible with some kind of dedicated track.” They are, in plain terms, an organization that wants more passenger rail in Canada and is substantively critical of how this particular HSR project is being delivered.

    What They Asked For

    The March 2026 consultation response

    Transport Action’s March 16, 2026 letter to ALTO’s Government and Stakeholder Relations office contains eighteen specific recommendations across seven sections. The four recommendations that most directly overlap with the existing CRI evidence base are set out below.

    Recommendation 1
    On the business case and cost
    What Transport Action asked

    “There is considerable skepticism from the public and stakeholders about the business case for HSR… It is urgent that a detailed Business Case be completed as soon as possible, including preferred corridor, capital cost, detailed ridership, fares, revenue and methods of calculation.”

    Mapped onto the parliamentary record

    This is, in substance, the same request as Recommendation 4 of TRAN Report 18 (September 2024), which asked the Minister to require an HFR-versus-HSR cost analysis within six months. As CRI’s brief The Report That Vanished documents, that analysis was never produced. Transport Action is asking, eighteen months later, for the same kind of cost-and-business-case work.

    Recommendation 2
    On ridership transparency
    What Transport Action asked

    “No details are provided on the ridership model, population assumptions, network assumptions, demand per segment, fares, cost of gasoline etc. Although the ridership assumption may be reasonable when lifted from European ridership, there is skepticism that this would be replicated in central Canada, due to lower fuel prices, absence of road tolls etc.”

    Mapped onto the parliamentary record

    This maps directly onto Claim 3 in Reading the Answer — the government’s 43-million-by-2084 ridership figure in Q-923. Transport Action specifically raises the central-Canadian fuel-price and road-toll conditions that distinguish the corridor from the European benchmarks, and quantifies the Ontario provincial subsidy to personal car use at $2.5 billion per year as a “politically tilted playing field” that any credible ridership model must account for.

    Recommendation 3
    On document release
    What Transport Action asked

    “We urge you to release a full unredacted version of the JPO report, plus any other reports that were in the ‘data room’ made available to the three bidders. At this time, with the tender process completed, there should be nothing in these reports that is business-confidential.”

    Mapped onto the parliamentary record

    This is — almost word for word — the same request as Recommendation 6 of TRAN Report 18. Transport Action makes an additional point that the procurement-completion rationale for non-disclosure no longer applies: with the bidder data-room phase concluded, there is no remaining commercial confidentiality argument. The reports have still not been released.

    Recommendation 6
    On the future of VIA service
    What Transport Action asked

    “Recent media reports from Kingston regarding possible diminution of current VIA Rail services when ALTO is operational must be heeded… It is important that ALTO and VIA Rail jointly issue a statement promptly about plans for services at these cities. Otherwise, local elected officials and residents will continue to impede ALTO’s progress.”

    Mapped onto the parliamentary record

    This maps directly onto Recommendations 8 and 10 of TRAN Report 18 — the VIA-impact analysis and the no-service-reduction commitment, both unanswered since September 2024. The Senate TRCM raised the same concern in February 2026. The question has now been asked across two parliamentary chambers and one substantial stakeholder consultation submission; it has not been substantively answered.

    Transport Action’s remaining fourteen recommendations cover downtown and shoulder station design, affordable fares, intercommunity bus access for towns currently outside the rail network, emergency-management cooperation with rural fire and EMS, wildlife crossings, sufficient road and trail bridges, recognition of Ontario’s 1834 Drainage Act, First Nations contingency planning for archaeological discovery, sensitive-agricultural-use mapping (sugar bushes, vineyards, certified organic land), and compensation frameworks for intensive agricultural operations that would need to be relocated. Several bear directly on issues documented in CRI’s Five Hundred Farms brief.

    Three Alternatives They Identified

    What pro-rail technical analysis says is possible

    A question CRI has not previously had answered by a technically literate pro-rail body: were credible alternatives to ALTO actually studied, and what did the studies show? Transport Action’s open letter identifies three.

    01

    Targeted CN-route improvements

    “Further investments to improve passenger and freight fluidity, like the third track between Belleville and Napanee and station improvements… would make a big difference to reliability at modest cost.”

    Transport Action concedes this alone is insufficient to deliver the “quintupling of capacity and slashing of travel times” possible with a dedicated track — but lays out a complementary package of known modest cost.

    02

    The freight grand bargain

    “Moves most CN freight over to the CPKC route through Perth… The existing CN route could then be upgraded to support more passenger services at up to 170 km/h, with travel times of around 4 hours between Toronto and Montreal or Ottawa.”

    This is the High Performance Rail framework substantially as CRI has documented it, here independently advocated by Transport Action as a technically credible option.

    03

    HFR on the original Havelock alignment

    “A dedicated track that takes a more direct route between Toronto and Ottawa, with the advantage of reconnecting Peterborough to the railway network, was VIA Rail’s preferred option, while also preserving service on the existing route through Kingston.”

    This is the project the Joint Project Office was funded in 2017 to study, the project the Transport Committee studied in 2023–24, and the project the federal government redesignated in late 2024.

    Why earlier HSR-along-the-lakeshore studies did not proceed

    Of independent technical interest is Transport Action’s observation about why HSR following the Lake Ontario lakeshore has been studied multiple times without proceeding:

    “

    High Speed Rail following a lakeshore from Toronto through Kingston has also been studied before, more than once, by both the federal and provincial governments, without proceeding. For safety reasons, and to achieve 7 km+ minimum radii for higher speeds, such a dedicated track could not be placed too close to the existing alignment nor right alongside Highway 401. It would thus require significant expropriation, and the number of homes and businesses close to CN’s tracks and the 401 has only grown since the last such study in 2011. The chances are that communities like Port Hope and Trenton would be bypassed entirely, and route from Kingston to Ottawa would also then also go through the same sensitive Frontenac Arch region and many of the communities expressing most concern about Alto’s southern study corridor.

    Transport Action Canada, open letter on ALTO HSR route options in eastern Ontario. read the letter

    This is the route-geometry argument set out by a pro-rail body with the technical standing to make it — the same observation about HSR’s 7-km curve-radius requirement that CRI’s engineering research has documented, here presented as a published critique by an established advocacy organization.

    What Their Voice Contributes

    A fifth source category, otherwise absent

    The Citizen Research Initiative’s briefs to date have drawn on four categories of source. Each has its own evidentiary weight; each has its own limitations. Transport Action contributes a fifth that has been substantively absent until now.

    Parliamentary record

    Order Paper questions, Transport Committee reports, Senate committee testimony, the High-Speed Rail Network Act. Authoritative but procedurally bounded.

    Academic studies

    The McGill Transportation Research and Munk School Global Economic Policy Lab analyses. Methodologically rigorous but bounded by funding and study scope.

    Journalism

    The Canadian Press and Globe and Mail reporting; CBC News; Globe coverage of the NFU response. Documentary but episodic.

    Affected stakeholders

    OFA, UPA, CFA, BFO, NFU. Authentic to affected communities but advocating for their members’ specific interests.

    Pro-rail advocacy

    Transport Action Canada and Transport Action Ontario. A credible, technically literate, pro-rail civil-society voice with no opposition to the project in principle, no economic interest in its outcome, and a fifty-year record of engagement with Canadian intercity passenger rail policy.

    This matters in two specific ways. First, it forecloses the response that the questions about ALTO’s cost, ridership, document release, and VIA-service impact are coming only from project-affected landowners or from anti-rail critics. They are coming from the country’s principal pro-rail civil-society voice, on the public record, having formally engaged with ALTO through ALTO’s own consultation process. Second, it puts the alternatives that have been considered — including the HPR framework the Initiative has been documenting — into the technical vocabulary of an organization that has the standing to describe them.

    Recommendations That Remain Live

    What still has not been produced

    As of May 2026, the public record shows that:

    The cost analysis Transport Action’s March 2026 letter asked for — and that TRAN Report 18 Recommendation 4 had asked for in September 2024 — has not been produced. The $60–90 billion AACE Class 5 figure in Q-923 stands without it.
    The Joint Project Office report Transport Action’s March 2026 letter asked to be released — and that TRAN Report 18 Recommendation 6 had asked to be released in September 2024 — has not been released. Transport Action’s additional point that the procurement-completion rationale for non-disclosure no longer applies has not been addressed.
    The VIA-impact analysis Transport Action’s March 2026 letter asked for, that the Senate TRCM raised concerns about in February 2026, and that TRAN Report 18 Recommendations 8 and 10 had asked for in September 2024, has not been produced. ALTO’s published material continues to refer to “optimization” of existing VIA services without a binding commitment.
    The ridership-model assumptions Transport Action’s March 2026 letter asked be made public have not been published. The government’s 43-million-by-2084 figure in Q-923 stands without disclosed methodology behind it.

    None of these are partisan demands. None of them is hostile to the project. All of them are recommendations from an established pro-rail advocacy organization, made through ALTO’s own consultation process, asking the same things that Parliament’s own committee was asking. Their continued non-fulfilment is procedural, not substantive — and procedurally, as The Report That Vanished sets out in detail, the questions remain available to be revived by parliamentary or stakeholder action.

    Download Full Brief
    The Voice ALTO Has Already Heard From (PDF)
    Reference document for federal decision-makers, parliamentarians, journalists, and constituents tracking the file
    Download PDF
    Sources

    Primary documents and references

    1.
    Transport Action Canada and Transport Action Ontario, Comments arising from ALTO HSR Stakeholder Roundtable and Public Consultation Sessions (letter to Peter Paz, Government and Stakeholder Relations, ALTO), March 16, 2026. Signed by Terry Johnson (President, Transport Action Canada) and Peter Miasek (President, Transport Action Ontario). ontario.transportaction.ca
    2.
    Transport Action Canada, Why did the government chose Alto? (open letter on ALTO HSR route options in eastern Ontario), 2026. ontario.transportaction.ca
    3.
    House of Commons Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, Issues and Opportunities: High Frequency Rail in the Toronto to Quebec City Corridor. 18th Report, 44th Parliament, 1st Session. Tabled September 2024. ourcommons.ca
    4.
    Order Paper Question Q-923, 45th Parliament, 1st session. Asked by Philip Lawrence (MP for Northumberland–Clarke), March 5, 2026; answered April 22, 2026.
    5.
    ALTO HSR Citizen Research Initiative companion briefs: Reading the Answer (May 2026); Reading the Footnote (May 2026); The Report That Vanished (May 2026); What We Know About ALTO’s Reporting and Accountability (May 2026); Five Hundred Farms (May 2026).
    ALTO HSR Citizen Research Initiative  ·  citizenresearch.ca  ·  Stakeholder Brief  ·  May 2026
    Independent, non-partisan research on the proposed Toronto–Quebec City high-speed rail corridor.

  • Two stories about the same consultation

    Two Stories About the Same Consultation

    A travel-industry article and a survey of consultation participants describe what is supposedly the same process. They do not match.

    ALTO HSR Citizen Research Initiative · Consultation Brief · Published May 6, 2026 · Public consultation closed April 24, 2026
    Two pictures, both circulating in May 2026

    On May 6, 2026, Travel and Tour World published a piece describing ALTO as “a bold vision for Canadian tourism” — a project the public is welcoming, with $800 million per year in tourism benefits, 50,000 construction jobs, a 1.1% GDP boost, and a “massive wave of feedback” now being analyzed. travelandtourworld.com

    An independent Participant Experience Survey conducted during the same consultation period drew 354 responses from residents along the proposed corridor. 87.8% rated ALTO’s information as Inadequate or Very Inadequate. 85.7% do not believe the consultation was designed to genuinely register community input. citizenresearch.ca

    Summary

    Two characterizations of the ALTO public consultation are now in active circulation. One, in the travel and tourism press, describes a project the public is enthusiastic about, with confident economic figures and a comprehensive June 2026 report poised to “summarize what the public wants.” The other, drawn from 354 residents who actually engaged with the consultation, describes a process that failed across every dimension assessed — notification, information, sessions, and responsiveness.

    This brief sets the two pictures alongside each other, point by point. The economic figures cited in the article appear nowhere in any released business case. The “massive wave of feedback” was, by the testimony of those generating it, neither welcomed nor genuinely heard. The article describes a consultation the public is welcoming. The survey describes one the public has rejected.

    Both pictures cannot be accurate at the same time.

    The Setting

    What is being compared, and why it matters

    The ALTO consultation closed on April 24, 2026. In the weeks since, two narratives about that consultation have begun to circulate publicly.

    The first, exemplified by the May 6 Travel and Tour World article, presents ALTO as a tourism and economic development opportunity that Canadians are embracing. It cites specific figures — $800 million per year in tourism, 50,000 jobs, 1.1% GDP — and quotes the Prime Minister and the ALTO CEO. It frames the consultation as a successful exercise in democratic engagement now poised for implementation.

    The second is the lived experience of residents who actually participated. The ALTO HSR Citizen Research Initiative ran a Participant Experience Survey from March 24 to April 17, 2026, drawing 354 responses (after data-integrity filtering), 85.7% of them from people living in or immediately adjacent to the proposed Eastern Ontario corridor. The full results are publicly available.

    This brief does not draw conclusions about ALTO’s ultimate merits as a project. Its purpose is narrower: to set the public-facing characterization of the consultation, as it appears in the travel-industry press, alongside the documented experience of the people the consultation was meant to engage.

    Side by Side

    The two accounts, point by point

    Each row pairs a claim or framing from the Travel and Tour World article with the corresponding finding from the Participant Experience Survey.

    Travel and Tour World · May 6, 2026Participant Experience Survey · n=354
    On feedback“A massive wave of feedback” now being analyzed for a June 2026 report that will “summarize what the public wants.” On feedback85.7% do not believe the consultation was designed to genuinely register community input. 45.4% take the stronger position: that the process was actively structured to suppress opposition.
    On informationConfident economic figures: $800 million per year in tourism, 50,000 jobs, 1.1% GDP boost, attributed loosely to Transport Canada. On information87.8% rated ALTO’s information as Inadequate or Very Inadequate. The most-cited missing items were environmental impact assessment (65.7%), precise route maps (45.6%), and the financial case — NPV, subsidy, ridership (35.4%).
    On tourism benefitsTreats the $800 million per year tourism benefit as flowing to the corridor regions broadly, including the rural communities the line would pass through. Tourism is the article’s central economic claim. On tourism benefitsInternational HSR research consistently finds tourism gains flow to station communities; communities the train passes through without stopping can lose tourism share as competing destinations become easier to reach. The southern corridor has no planned station between Ottawa and Peterborough. The Frontenac Arch alone supports a ~$1.8 billion regional tourism economy built on quiet, ecologically intact landscapes — assets fundamentally incompatible with a 300 km/h fenced corridor. citizenresearch.ca/tourism-economy
    On reachFrames ALTO as a national conversation, with the public widely engaged. On reachDirect notification from ALTO reached 2.0% of respondents. Awareness spread through neighbours, community Facebook groups, and citizen advocacy organizations. 28.5% learned of the consultation only in its final six weeks.
    On in-person sessionsTreats “over 10,000” in-person attendees as endorsement. On in-person sessionsOf survey respondents who attended an in-person session (n=161), 78.9% rated it Not Very Useful or Not Useful at All. Virtual sessions: 73.5%. Open-ended responses describe young staff with marketing scripts, contradictory answers between representatives, and absent executives.
    On responsivenessPresents ALTO as a project that engages and listens. On responsivenessOf 183 respondents who submitted questions during the consultation, 14 — 7.7% — received a specific, direct answer.
    On positive outcomesDescribes a future of shared sunsets and effortless family visits between Peterborough and Trois-Rivières. On positive outcomesAsked to name the most significant positive feature of the consultation itself, 48.0% identified none. The largest substantive positive theme, at 11.8%, was that the process had “galvanized community opposition.”
    From the Documentary Record

    Two observations, made directly from the two sources

    Without drawing inferences about motive or intent, two observations follow from setting the two accounts side by side.

    1. The figures the article presents as established are figures the public could not find

    The Travel and Tour World article cites $800M/year in tourism benefits, 50,000 jobs, and a 1.1% GDP boost as if these are settled facts. 65.7% of survey respondents named environmental impact assessment as missing information; 35.4% named the financial case — NPV, subsidy, ridership methodology. The economic claims circulating in the travel-industry press are precisely the figures that the public, by their own account, was not given access to evaluate.

    2. The “massive wave of feedback” is not what the article implies

    The article uses the volume of consultation submissions as evidence of public buy-in. The survey shows that 85.7% of those participating do not believe the process was designed to register their input meaningfully, and that 7.7% of those who submitted questions received a specific, direct answer. Volume of submissions, on the testimony of the submitters themselves, does not represent assent. It represents an attempt to be heard within a process most participants regard as already decided.

    The travel-industry article and the participant survey describe what is, in principle, the same consultation. They cannot both be accurate. Readers are invited to compare them directly — the article and the full survey results are linked in the sources below.

    Sources

    The two accounts

    1.
    Travel and Tour World, “Experience Canada Future: Powerful New Alto High-Speed Rail to Boost Tourism,” published May 6, 2026. travelandtourworld.com
    2.
    ALTO HSR Citizen Research Initiative, Participant Experience Survey: ALTO Consultation — What Residents Actually Experienced, published April 17, 2026. Analysis of 354 responses (analytical sample after data-integrity filter) collected March 24 – April 17, 2026. citizenresearch.ca/submission-survey
    3.
    ALTO HSR Citizen Research Initiative, The Southern Corridor Isn’t Just an Environmental Question — It’s an Economic One (Tourism & Economy companion brief). Drawing on CPAWS (2026), Statistics Canada, and international HSR tourism research. citizenresearch.ca/tourism-economy
    ALTO HSR Citizen Research Initiative  ·  citizenresearch.ca  ·  Consultation Brief  ·  May 6, 2026
    Independent, non-partisan research on the proposed Toronto–Quebec City high-speed rail corridor.