Douro-Dummer Township council has unanimously passed a resolution from Mayor Heather Watson expressing significant concerns with the possibility that the proposed Alto high-speed rail network might pass through the municipality located in Peterborough County.
The resolution states the township will not support the high-speed rail network “unless and until” concerns raised by residents and council are addressed.
Those concerns include the severance of township roads, increased municipal infrastructure costs, impacts to farms and emergency response times, potential land expropriation, disruption to rural land use, and impacts on environmentally sensitive lands and wildlife.
Council considers Rideau Lakes letter highlighting concerns with Alto
The mayor’s Alto motion was not on the agenda for the council meeting on Tuesday (March 17), but the agenda did include a letter to federal senators from the Township of Rideau Lakes, which is located in the northwest corner of the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville in eastern Ontario.
That letter, which was also later referenced by a public delegate at the council meeting, describes similar concerns about the proposed high-speed rail network that would run between Toronto and Quebec City. Alto is currently conducting a public consultation on a 10-kilometre-wide corridor that includes a northern option and a southern option between Ottawa and Peterborough. Establishing the corridor is a preliminary step in determining the 60-metre right-of-way for Alto’s final alignment (route).
The northern option reduces travel distance and community impacts, but involves complex work in remote and sensitive areas. The southern option is less direct but simplifies construction and operations. Since Alto began its public consultation, which included an open house in Peterborough on February 26, rural communities in eastern Ontario have been expressing concerns about the corridor.
The letter from the Township of Rideau Lakes describes some of those concerns, including the impact on roadways for school buses, public transportation, and emergency vehicles when fences are erected along the route, the impact on Indigenous lands and wildlife corridors, the impact on tourism, and the impact of expropriation on land owners.
MPP says decision rests with federal government
At Tuesday’s council meeting, Peterborough-Kawartha MPP Dave Smith — who was giving council a presentation on the upcoming provincial budget — was asked a question by Dummer Ward councillor Shelagh Landsmann about Premier Doug Ford’s recent comment that the route for the high-speed rail network should be aligned along Highway 401.
After noting he hadn’t spoken to the premier about the comment and that it hadn’t been discussed in caucus, Smith said Alto is a federal program and the provincial government has no influence on the federal government.
“From my perspective on it, I am simply a constituent on the federal side and I’ve had my say with our federal representative on what I think we should be doing on it,” he said, before speaking on the importance of improving and maintaining existing freight rail lines for industry in Peterborough County.
“I know that you have had different groups who’ve reached out to council wanting you to weigh in on it, but I would remind everyone that you, as council, although you are elected, you’re elected to deal with municipal issues, and you have no sway over what the federal government does,” Smith told council.
“Reach out to the federal members, because it is the federal government and the federal members that will be the only ones who have any actual input in it … If you feel passionate about it, either way, you need to reach out to the federal member — you need to reach out to all of the federal members on the proposed rail line — and express your views that way. That’s the only way that your opinion is going to be taken into account.”
Delegate calls for better communication on Alto
Smith’s presentation was followed by a public delegation by Nadine Ellis-Maffei, who quoted extensively from the Township of Rideau Lakes letter before expressing her concerns about the lack of communication about the project from township council, as well as from MPP Dave Smith, Peterborough MP Emma Harrison, and Alto itself.
“Most people don’t even know about it,” Ellis-Maffei said. “Nothing has been sent out to our community.”
“I’d like to propose that our council does a better job of educating and informing the public in this municipality, as well as put forth some effort to find out how this is going to affect not only our roads department but our emergency department and their response times, if this rail (network) goes through our municipality.”
Mayor speaks to ‘absence of a voice’ for township
Later in the meeting, Mayor Watson introduced and read her resolution to council, a copy of which is provided at the end of the story, and then spoke to it.
“We first heard of this project in the fall,” she began. “I think Alto was at a conference and spoke about it, as it gained a little bit of momentum and traction at the time. Of course, we did have Alto come to county council and also come to this chamber’s committee of the whole meeting.”
“It did seem exciting in the early stages, but as time has gone on, and over the last six weeks — having attended various sessions, having heard from residents, in speaking with our colleagues, our neighbours within Peterborough County as well — it’s become less exciting and there are concerns that have been raised as it relates to the public consultation.”
The mayor said she had reached out to MP Harrison and invited her to hold a public meeting with residents, “but she chose not to do that.”
“In absence of that, I asked her ‘What am I supposed to say to our residents in the community?” Watson said, adding that she asked the MP to provide something in writing.
The mayor then read out a letter from Harrison addressed to all mayors in the county that noted the Alto website has up-to-date and accurate information about the project as well as frequently asked questions and answers. In her letter, Harrison also says she has requested that Alto consider hosting another in-person consultation event in Norwood, before suggesting constituents contact her office to share their thoughts directly.
“I’m bringing this motion forward today because, in absence of a voice and, as our MPP (Dave Smith) said, we don’t have a say but we do have a say,” Watson said. “It’s happening in our backyard and in absence of a voice in our backyard from our MP I feel that we have no choice but to talk about it. I’ve heard that there’s been concern, as was expressed by our delegate earlier today, that council isn’t doing enough and we aren’t talking about it.”
“We as a municipality don’t have the budget, the time, the staff resources, to knock on everybody’s door in the corridor in Douro-Dummer Township to make them aware of the project. We can’t send them mailers — I mean the cost and time to do that — and people have been asking us, asking me, why we’re not doing that.”
“This is not a project that we asked for. It’s not a project that we wanted to put on our workplans and in our budgets, so every moment of time that we spend talking about this important project — that we did not ask for — it’s taking away from the work that our staff are trying to do to take care of the roads, maintain the potholes, to work on all the other initiatives that we’ve directed them to do.”
After Watson’s comments, councillor Tom Watts said he supported the mayor’s motion and noted that, if Alto expropriates land from property owners, the township will lose tax revenues on that land. After councillor Landsmann also said she supported the motion, council voted unanimously 5-0 to support it.
Following Tuesday’s meeting, kawarthaNOW contacted Watson for comment on the resolution.
“Our resolution reflects what we’ve consistently heard from residents and ensures those concerns are clearly communicated as the consultation moves forward,” she replied.
Warden says county will ‘advocate in the best interests of our communities’
kawarthaNOW also contacted Peterborough County Warden Bonnie Clark for her comment on the township’s resolution. The warden said the county is “actively engaging” with Alto “to understand the impacts of both proposed routes to our residents and businesses.”
“We value and will advocate for our beautiful lands that hold deep agricultural and cultural roots and that are home to our rural and small urban communities that will be impacted by Alto,” Clark added.
“We urge our residents to share their questions and comments with Alto and their federal representatives throughout the engagement process. We look forward to getting more detailed information from Alto so that we can fully understand the project and its impacts and we will continue to advocate in the best interests of our communities.”
PDF: Douro-Dummer Township resolution on Alto high-speed rail
Douro-Dummer Township resolution on Alto high-speed rail
With files from Jeannine Taylor.
