With the initial public consultation on Canada’s proposed high-speed rail network now completed, the Crown corporation responsible for the project will be releasing a report on the consultation in June followed by the announcement of a “more precise corridor” by the fall.
In a media release issued on Monday (April 27), Alto reported it has “successfully completed one of the most extensive public consultation initiatives ever conducted in Canada,” with president and CEO Martin Imbleau stating that Alto “made a deliberate choice to engage early.”
“We used the past hundred days to listen to communities to better understand their realities,” Imbleau added. “We value the significant number of people who took the time to share their views and suggestions with us, as well as their criticisms and concerns.”
Those criticisms and concerns include the impact of building a 1,000-kilometre high-speed rail network between Toronto and Québec City through agricultural and environmentally sensitive lands, the federal expropriation of private property, the closure of rural roads severing communities, the selection of the seven station locations (which include Toronto, Peterborough, Ottawa, Montréal, Laval, Trois-Rivières, and Québec City), and more.
Over the past three months, Alto said it has hosted 26 in-person open houses, 10 virtual sessions, and 32 stakeholder roundtables, and spoken to more than 10,000 Canadians in rural and urban communities across Ontario and Quebec.
In addition, Alto’s online consultation portal recorded a total of 324,026 unique visits, with 24,142 questionnaires completed and 19,903 comments added to the interactive map, “highlighting concrete local realities that will need to be taken into account as the project moves forward.”
“All of this feedback will help us find the right balance to design a project that reduces impacts on communities while delivering lasting benefits across the entire corridor,” Imbleau said.
During the consultation process, Alto presented a potential 10-kilometre wide corridor for the high-speed rail line between Ottawa and Toronto where the 60-metre wide route for train would be located, with both a northern and southern option.
Both options resulted in pushback from many rural communities in eastern and central Ontario, with some municipal councils passing resolutions opposing the high-speed rail network in its current form and suggesting the rail network should instead run along the Highway 401 corridor.
While Alto notes that exit surveys from the open houses “show that 70 per cent of attendees were satisfied with the information they received about the project,” some people have also expressed concerns the consultation process was insufficient.
Alto says it will publish a report in June “detailing key findings and insights from the first phase of public consultation,” and will be announcing a “more precise corridor” by the fall.
Although the initial consultation phase is completed, Alto adds that “broader community engagement work with Indigenous communities, provinces, municipalities, and special interest groups is ongoing.”
