The leader of the Parti Québécois says, if elected, his government would prevent the province from being involved in the high-speed rail train, which would link Quebec City to Toronto.
Paul St-Pierre Plamondon said Tuesday the project does not address the needs of Quebecers.
“The real problem with transit is not that Quebecers can’t efficiently commute to Toronto, but that they’re unable to effectively commute within their own city,” the party leader wrote in French on X.
The first phase of construction for this project, linking Montreal to Ottawa, is scheduled to begin in 2029.
In all, Alto, the Crown corporation behind the project, is planning a 1,000-kilometre electric rail line between Toronto and Quebec City, with an estimated price tag of between $60 and $90 billion.
The rail network is expected to take passengers from Montreal to Toronto in three hours — about half the time it takes to drive and at double the speed of Via Rail’s current trains. Stops are also planned in Peterborough, Ottawa, Laval and Trois-Rivières.
In a news release Tuesday, St-Pierre Plamondon said he’s concerned the project could cost far more than that, pointing to a Bloc Québécois estimate of $200 billion for the project.
If that ends up being accurate, Quebec could end up paying $40 billion — roughly the province’s contribution to federal revenues, the party said.
CBC News reached out to the Bloc Québécois for an explanation on how the party arrived at its estimate. A spokesperson for the Bloc pointed only to a Journal de Montréal article from May, where a Bloc MP pegged the cost at $200 billion, saying that megaprojects around the world tend to go over budget.
Speaking to reporters in Ottawa Tuesday morning, Canada’s Minister of Industry Mélanie Joly said Quebec isn’t even pitching into the project financially.
“It’s the federal government that’s doing it,” she said.
Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon said the project connects the province’s four largest cities, making it the “backbone of mobility in Quebec.”
Municipal leaders in Quebec were also quick to denounce St-Pierre Plamondon’s position.
Montreal Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada said the project “should not be a partisan issue,” while Stéphane Boyer, the mayor of Laval, said high-speed rail “will have a positive impact on the economy, the environment and mobility.”
Quebec City Mayor Bruno Marchand said it would bring his city “closer to the continent’s major economic and political centres,” adding that the country was “already behind enough as it is.”
St-Pierre Plamondon said in the release that the rail line would have little impact on our road traffic and carries a high risk of being a “massive financial fiasco.”
If election, his government would “demand that these funds be transferred to the province unconditionally so that they can be invested in priority infrastructure for Quebecers: roads, hospitals, schools and urban public transit.”
The statement also denounced the federal government’s approach to the planned route, saying that consultations have been “opaque” and residents and farmers are worried about being expropriated.
Farmers from the Outaouais and Laurentides regions are planning to protest the project outside Parliament on Wednesday.
On its website, Alto committed to prioritizing negotiated agreements over expropriation, and said it would offer fair, long-term compensation covering the land’s market value.
It also promised to preserve road access for affected farms. The Parti Québécois is currently leading in the polls ahead of Quebec’s next provincial election, scheduled for Oct. 5.
Reports of drones over farms in eastern Ontario are worrying skeptics of Canada’s high-speed rail project. Matthew Kupfer reports.
Eastern Ontario farmers react to Alto’s use of drones
