Federal government to present Montreal-Ottawa high-speed rail route this fall amid opposition

The federal government will present the Montreal-Ottawa route for its high-speed rail project this fall, Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon announced Friday during a federal cabinet retreat in Banff, Alberta.

The 200-kilometre Montreal-Ottawa segment is the first phase of the planned Quebec City to Toronto corridor. According to 2025 forecasts, construction of this opening section could begin in 2029. Alto, the Crown corporation promoting the project, estimates the total cost between $60 and $90 billion, with planned stops in Toronto, Peterborough, Ottawa, Montréal, Laval, Trois-Rivières and Quebec City across the full 1,000-kilometre corridor.

Opposition to the project is growing. The agricultural community is mobilizing against the plan, and the issue has entered the Quebec election campaign. Paul St-Pierre-Plamondon, leader of the Parti Québécois, and Éric Duhaime, leader of the Conservative Party of Quebec, have both publicly opposed the project.

Memories of the Mirabel International Airport expropriations loom over the debate. On February 9 this year, all 330 federal MPs present in the House of Commons unanimously supported a motion demanding the government apologize to those residents and promise not to repeat such expropriations "without public consultation, social acceptability and appropriate compensation."

MacKinnon said he expects debate over the project. "It is certain that access to certain properties will be required and we will proceed with the utmost sensitivity," he said. He dismissed what he called inaccurate arguments, a reference to Bloc Québécois comparisons to the Mirabel failures. In 2019, then-Transport Minister Marc Garneau acknowledged Ottawa had "made a big mistake 50 years ago" and offered a personal apology to those affected.