Alto is extending its initial online public consultation period on the proposed high-speed rail network between Québec City and Toronto by almost another month, and offering two additional virtual consultation sessions.

On Wednesday (March 11), the Crown corporation announced the online consultation period — originally set from January 15 to March 29 — is being extended until Monday, April 24. The decision was made “due to a high level of participation and sustained public interest,” according to a media release from Alto.

There will also be two additional virtual sessions held from 7 to 8:45 p.m. on March 23 (in English) and March 26 (in French), following what was originally to be the final virtual session on March 17 (in French).

“Public consultation is a valuable opportunity for dialogue with the population, grounded in transparency and active listening,” states Pierre Yves Boivin, Alto’s chief officer of communications and public affairs, in the release.

“The success of the current process demonstrates how important the Alto project is to citizens. Every question and every comment help inform our analyses and better integrate the project into local communities. We encourage the public to continue making their voices heard by visiting our online consultation platform and taking part in our upcoming virtual sessions on March 17, 23, and 26.”

Alto’s online consultation platform at www.altotrain.ca/en/public-consultation allows the public to review all available information about the project, explore the study corridor map and submit comments, complete an online questionnaire, and submit a brief or written submission.

According to Alto, the online consultation platform has so far seen 184,339 unique visits, 14,774 completed questionnaires, and 10,420 comments submitted on the corridor map.

In addition to online consultation, Alto has held 26 in-person open houses across Québec and Ontario with a total attendance of 9,194 participants to date — including 815 people who attended the Peterborough open house on February 26 — and 10 bilingual virtual meetings in French and English with 1,299 participants to date.

Also has also held 35 roundtables with stakeholders and numerous meetings with elected officials along the corridor.

Alto says the feedback from public consultations will help “guide decisions and better illustrate the realities of the communities served, which all contributes to the goal of maximizing the project’s benefits.” Additional rounds of public consultation will be held in the coming months, particularly on the more detailed study corridor for the first segment planned between Montréal and Ottawa.

The largest public infrastructure project in Canada in recent history, Alto’s high-speed rail project will see trains reaching 300 km/h or more on an electrified rail network spanning around 1,000 kilometres between Toronto and Quebec City, with stops including Peterborough, Ottawa, Montréal, Laval, Trois-Rivières.

Despite its touted benefits of driving economic growth by slashing travel times (including to 40 minutes between Peterborough and Toronto), enhancing connectivity, and creating job opportunities for all communities along the corridor, the project has already faced pushback early in the consultation process.

Some of the concerns raised include the location of Alto stops and train stations, how potential routes could affect property owners, agricultural lands, rural communities, and the environment, land acquisition and expropriation, and the estimated project cost of between $60 billion and $90 billion.

Peterborough’s Dave Dame is no doubt breathing a huge sigh of relief after city council voted to authorize a temporary road closure permit for the St. Patrick’s Day 5k Run and Walk this Sunday (March 15) in the downtown core.

At the beginning of city council’s meeting on Monday night, councillor Alex Bierk put forward a motion to suspend council rules to allow Dame, owner of Runner’s Life in downtown Peterborough and the event organizer, to delegate to council for an item not on the meeting agenda.

“I got an email from a constituent at 5:15 on the way here with a very time-sensitive request that I’m going to move under new business, short and sweet,” Bierk said. “But the constituent Dave Dame is here tonight and he’s willing to come speak to us as a delegate. Because it wasn’t on the agenda, he didn’t get a chance to sign up.”

After council voted to suspend the rules, Mayor Jeff Leal advised Bierk that he would be having a meeting on the issue in his office on Tuesday morning.

As Dame explained to council during his delegation, the issue is that the city clerk’s office emailed him last Friday to advise that a city permit was denied for the St. Patrick’s Day 5k Run and Walk, where participants run or walk up and down George Street between Lansdowne and McDonnell streets before the St. Patrick’s Day parade. The decision was made despite the event having been held over the previous 12 years and only days before the event is scheduled to take place.

According to Dame, city clerk John Kennedy’s email raised four safety-related issues with the event: that full road closures would be required for the event instead of rolling road closures as requested, that the lead police cruiser could not safely do a U-turn on George Street, that using the parking lot at the Spaghetti House at the corner of George and Lansdowne as a gathering place for runners at the start of the race would be unsafe, and that running events should only be held on trails or parks instead of roads.

Dame noted he had a February 3 meeting about the event with city staff — which included the clerk’s office, parade officials, traffic staff, public works, and the police — “and no problems were cited.”

On the basis of the meeting, Dame said he proceeded to organize the event, investing thousands of dollars of his own money and hundreds of hours of his time and his staff’s time, “only to be told last minute it wouldn’t be permitted.”

“I wasn’t consulted, I wasn’t given a phone call, I wasn’t having a meeting to address any of the concerns — just cancelled,” Dame said.

In addressing the safety concerns, Dame pointed out that rolling road closures — where police officers control the east-west flow of traffic at intersections on George Street — are the standard for running events around the world, including marathons in Toronto, New York, and Boston.

Dame said he didn’t understand the concern about the police cruiser being unable to do a U-turn as plenty of space would be available, and he said he was willing to forgo the use of the Spaghetti House parking lot as a gathering place for runners. As for the idea of not having running events on city roads, Dame named a number of “world-class cities” that use city roads for marathons.

On the urgency of dealing with the issue at city council, Dame said it “wasn’t created by me.”

“I did everything I was supposed to do in a timely manner,” he said. “I got my permit (application) in on time. I attended the meeting. No problems were levied at that time, and now I’m being threatened with cancelling of my event one week from the event. You can imagine how awful this would be for my finances, my reputation, not to mention just to have a city that has these kind of events.”

Noting that George Street would be closed to traffic for the subsequent parade, Dame said it would be “the safest place in Peterborough to run and walk” and that “risk is infinitesimally small” for an event that has been run for 12 years.

“If this event gets cancelled, I don’t know what that says to anyone else trying to organize an event. Do business with the City of Peterborough, and they could pull the plug.”

After Dame’s delegation, Mayor Leal told Dame there would be a “full examination and discussion” about the issues.

In response to a question from councillor Matt Crowley about whether city staff advised Dame during his February 3 meeting that things would have to be done differently this year, Dame said “Everyone walked out of that meeting pretty jovial, pretty excited about the event, no concerns whatsoever,” adding that the safety issues were discussed at the meeting and “no one had a problem with it,” including the police.

Councillor Keith Riel asked city clerk John Kennedy why the decision to deny the permit was made. Kennedy said that, following the February 3 meeting, “technical staff did do a deeper review of that matter and they had cited the safety conditions that were addressed here,” leading to a decision not to approve the event.

In response to a comment from councillor Joy Lachica, Dame noted the event supports a different charity every year, with this year’s event supporting Right to Heal Peterborough.

At the end of the meeting, councillor Bierk put forward a motion for council to override the city clerk’s decision. Because the motion did not first go through general committee due to urgency, a two-thirds vote would be required for it to pass.

During a debate on the motion, councillor Gary Baldwin questioned the need to pass such a motion in advance of Mayor Leal’s meeting on the issue, and also later expressed concerns about overriding the delegated authority of city staff without councillors being privy to the details behind the decision.

The city’s commissioner of legislative services David Potts told council that, if they wish to override the city staff recommendation and issue a temporary road closure permit, the motion should have specific wording including the details of the event and the name of the permittee.

After further debate and consultation with the city clerk, council decided on the following wording for the motion:

“That Council hereby authorizes a temporary road closure permit to be issued to Dave Dame of Runners Life for the purpose of a 5K run and walk event on March 15, 2026, on George Street between Lansdowne Street and McDonnel Street to be held immediately prior to the start of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade.”

Council approved the motion 9-1, with only councillor Baldwin voting against it. Councillor Lesley Parnell was absent from the meeting.

For more information about the St. Patrick’s Day 5k Run and Walk, visit stpatricksdayrunandwalk.itsyourrace.com.