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Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says the Liberal government should cancel the high-speed rail project planned to link Toronto and Quebec City.
“The project is another example of a ridiculous pie-in-the-sky Liberal spending initiative,” he said Tuesday during a news conference near Peterborough, Ont.
“This $90-billion Liberal boondoggle doesn’t make sense.”
The project is estimated to cost between $60 and $90 billion, with construction slated to start between Ottawa and Montreal around the end of this decade.
The exact route has not been set. Alto, the Crown corporation heading the construction of the railway, has said it plans to decide by the end this year.
The rail network is expected to take passengers from Montreal to Toronto in three hours — about half the time it takes to drive and at double the speed of Via Rail’s current trains.
Stops are also planned in Peterborough, Ottawa, Laval and Trois-Rivières.
Alto said last week that it would start contacting selected property owners between Ottawa and Montreal to ask permission to enter their property to conduct assessments.
Residents in those areas have been raising concerns about what the project would mean for their land — and pushing back against the idea that property could be expropriated.
Alto’s CEO Martin Imbleau told CBC Radio’s Ottawa Morning last week that he would prefer to reach a fair settlement with landowners, but he said expropriation is a possibility.
Prime Minister Mark Carney has floated the possibility that the high-speed rail line could be designated a “national interest” project. The government’s budget implementation bill included changes to the Expropriation Act and other laws that make it quicker and easier for the federal government to acquire land for the new railway.
Poilievre panned the idea of expropriating land for the project, calling it a “Liberal land grab.”
Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon rejected Poilievre’s claim in a statement on Tuesday evening, arguing that the project would generate economic growth and jobs.
“The Conservatives, as usual, think small. Turning away from nation-building investments is the wrong choice, and one Canadians reject at a time when we need to build and grow,” MacKinnon said in a post on X.
Other politicians have come out in support of the project.
Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre announced on Tuesday that his Conservatives oppose the federal government’s multibillion-dollar project to build high-speed rail between Toronto and Quebec City. ‘A future Conservative government will cancel this $90-billion boondoggle altogether,’ Poilievre said.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford said he’d like to see the Toronto and Ottawa leg follow the Highway 401 corridor.
Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe has called for a high-speed rail station in downtown Ottawa and Peterborough city council recently voted to support the project.
Trevor Stewart, a local councillor in the eastern Ontario municipality of Clarence-Rockland, said members of his community have concerns about the project that he wants heard in Parliament.
“We haven’t seen any leaders in Ottawa really speak out, so it’s definitely nice to see some of our concerns be voiced,” Stewart told Radio-Canada.
But he added that he didn’t want his community used as a “political pawn.”
“A lot of my residents know that this is coming,” he said. “They want a say … in where this goes.”
