OTTAWA — Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is calling on the federal government to cancel a proposed high-speed rail line between Toronto and Quebec City.
Poilievre calls the project a “boondoggle” and said it would waste taxpayer dollars while confiscating farmland.
Alto, the Crown corporation overseeing the project, estimates the full project will cost between $60 billion and $90 billion.
Construction of the first phase of the 1,000-kilometre rail line, linking Montreal and Ottawa, is set to kick off in 2029 or 2030.
That will be a test case for what would be a massive infrastructure project intended to transform rail travel in Canada’s most densely populated region.
A grassroots coalition of farmers, small-town residents and municipal councillors have said the rail corridor would cleave their communities, prompt hundreds of land expropriations and offer locals few benefits while costing taxpayers billions of dollars.
©2026 The Canadian Press
