After almost five years, Joel Wiebe is leaving the Peterborough and Kawarthas Chamber of Commerce to take a senior position with the Alto high-speed rail project that will connect Toronto to Quebec City with a stop in Peterborough.
Chamber president and CEO Brenda Whitehead, who joined the chamber this past July, announced Wiebe’s imminent departure in an email to members on Wednesday (October 1). His last day in the office will be Friday.
“During his time at the Chamber, Joel has been a passionate advocate for local businesses at the municipal, provincial, and federal levels,” Whitehead writes. “He has worked tirelessly to ensure the voices of our members are heard on issues that matter deeply to our community. His efforts have strengthened the chamber’s role as a trusted voice of business throughout the region.”
Wiebe joined the chamber in 2021 as government relations coordinator and has been the chamber’s vice president of government relations and operations for the past three years. At the Ontario Chamber of Commerce’s annual general meeting and convention in April, he received the James Gordon Carnegie Memorial Award that recognizes individuals for their mentorship, integrity, leadership, and impact within the chamber and their local communities.
“It has been a true honour to serve the local business community through the chamber,” Wiebe said according to Whitehead. “Working alongside such engaged members, colleagues, and partners has been deeply rewarding. While I will miss my role here, I am excited to continue advocating for our region through a project that will strengthen our community and open new opportunities.”
Wiebe has accepted the position of senior advisor, community relations with Alto, Canada’s first high-speed railway, that will span around 1,000 km from Toronto to Québec City with stops in Peterborough, Ottawa, Montréal, Laval, and Trois-Rivières. Trains will reach speeds of up to 300 kilometres per hour to cut travel times in half and connect close to half of Canada’s population.
On September 11, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced five nation-building projects that he was referring to the new Major Projects Office (MPO), which will work to fast-track the projects by streamlining regulatory assessment and approvals and helping to structure financing, in close partnership with provinces, territories, Indigenous Peoples, and private investors. At the same time, he announced five early-stage projects that, with further development, could also be considered by the MPO — the Alto High-Speed Rail project among them.
“The MPO will work to accelerate engineering, regulatory, and permitting work to enable construction of the project to start in four years, cutting the original eight-year timeline in half,” stated a media release from the Prime Minister’s office.
In February, former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the consortium that had been selected to develop the project and confirmed $3.9 billion in federal funding for the project over six years. Called Cadence, the consortium is an alliance of Canadian and international private partners including CPDQ Infra, AtkinsRéalis, SYSTRA Canada, Keolis Canada, Air Canada, and SNCF Voyageurs.
Cadence will co-develop the project with Alto, formerly known as VIA HFR, which is a Crown corporation formed in 2022 to oversee the high-speed rail project. Alto, which means “high” in Italian, will also be the official name of the high-speed rail service.
In February, the Peterborough and Kawarthas Chamber of Commerce welcomed the announcement.
Former chamber president and CEO Stuart Harrison, a long-time advocate of bringing passenger rail service back to Peterborough, was involved in the non-profit Shining Waters Railway corporation, which produced a 2011 study that inspired VIA Rail’s initial plan to build a new high-frequency rail line from Quebec City to Toronto
Since then, the chamber has been working with VIA Rail, VIA HFR, and now Alto to develop the business case for the rail line.
“Having Peterborough as a major stop on this rail project is a win for the tireless advocacy work of the chamber,” Wiebe said in February.
As for Wiebe’s departure from the chamber to work with Alto, Whitehead said “we are fortunate to have him as a connection throughout the development of this project.”
“While we are sad to see him go, we are thrilled that he will continue to champion our region in this new role and know he will do well for all of us,” she added.
Before he joined the chamber, Wiebe was communications manager with the Peterborough Downtown Business Improvement Area. A Loyalist College journalism graduate, Wiebe was also previously a reporter with Peterborough This Week.
Whitehead is inviting chamber members to give Wiebe a send-off at the “Chamber AM” networking event from 8 to 9 a.m. on Tuesday, October 14 at Wild Rock Outfitters in downtown Peterborough.
