Liberals propose bill to streamline, pre-approve Toronto-Quebec City high-speed rail line
OTTAWA — The Carney government is proposing to grant the Crown corporation behind the high-speed railway between Toronto and Quebec City sweeping new powers to accelerate the acquisition or expropriation of land for the project.
A new High-Speed Rail Network Act also proposes to exclude the massive railway project from review by the Canadian Transportation Agency by deeming it de facto approved and barring the agency from rescinding the approval.
The proposed act is tucked away in the hundreds of pages of the Liberals’ bill to implement the 2025 budget tabled Tuesday.
The legislation offers a first glance at how Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government intends to deliver on its commitment to reduce red tape and speed up the building of major projects.
The new act contains sweeping changes to how the railway project — estimated to cost between $60 and $90 billion — will be reviewed all the while boosting the government’s land acquisition and expropriation powers required for construction.
The project promises to develop roughly 1,000 kilometres of fully electric rail dedicated to high-speed commuter trains that will run between Toronto and Quebec City. This summer, the Carney government designated the high-speed railway as a “transformative project” under its new Major Projects Office and promised to cut the time before construction from eight to five years.
Alto, the Crown corporation behind the project, says the trains will hit speeds of up to 300 km/h and will cut travel between certain cities by half compared to existing Via Rail service.
Normally, major transportation infrastructure projects would be subject to two key reviews agencies: the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada (IAAC) and the Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA).
But with the bill proposing that the high-speed rail be automatically deemed approved by the CTA, the project would only be subjected to an environmental assessment by the Impact Assessment Agency.
Legislating approval of a project speeds up the process significantly but has been historically received with much hostility by opposition Parliamentarians.
Lavagnon Ika, a professor of project management at the University of Ottawa, said that the legislation brings the government into “uncharted territory.”
“These are sweeping and unprecedented powers being given to the cabinet to kind of… pre-approve any mega project without much scrutiny from independent regulators,” said Lavagnon Ika, who is also the director of the Major Projects Observatory.
Under the proposed bill, the IAAC process would also be modified for the railway project if the legislation passes untouched. Instead of the IAAC reviewing and conducting consultations on the project as a whole, the bill proposes to cut it into segments of up to 50 kilometres which would each be reviewed and approved individually.
The bill also appears to suggest the review will be led by the IAAC itself instead of an independent review panel. The latter can be set up when a minister believes it to be “in the public interest,” though the time for a final decision doubles to 600 days on average, according to the agency’s website .
In a statement, Transport Minister Steven McKinnon’s spokesperson Marie-Justine Torres, said the goal of the proposed law is to “reduce duplication, streamline government processes and ensure that each segment of the project is subject to the Impact Assessment Process while fully respecting Indigenous rights.”
Her statement did not explain why the government decided to break up the project’s environmental assessment into segments or why it was bypassing review by the CTA.
If the bill passes as such, Alto will also be able to purchase or expropriate land necessary for the project faster. The bill proposes to allow Alto to request the minister of public services expropriate land without first trying to negotiate the purchase with the owner.
It also proposes to remove the duty for the minister to hold public hearings if someone objects to a notice of expropriation.
Instead, the minister must decide within 30 days of the notice of expropriation if the government is maintaining or abandoning the claim. The minister must only state reasons for the decision if the objector requests them in writing.
The bill also proposes to streamline Alto’s ability to issue notices of right of first refusal of the sale of land that will be part of the rail network. It does the same for notices of prohibition of work, which prevent a landowner from making any changes to it other than to “maintain its normal functional state”.
“The expropriation measures have been put there so that basically government… stays in control,” Ika said. “’You may not like it, but we proceeded’ is basically what they mean.”
Ika, who has spent his career studying large-scale projects and their failings, said there is no doubt that Canada’s approval process for major projects is so cumbersome and time-consuming that it leads to long delays and inflated costs.
But that doesn’t mean the government can forego consultations and reviews completely, particularly with Indigenous communities, he cautioned. The Carney government is in a “delicate dance” to get the balance right.
“My advice to them is: wait a minute,” he said of the government. “If you use too much of your authority, then you control the project and that’s a win for you. But at the same time, it might backlash in terms of democratic accountability and that’s going to be a loss for you.”
National Post
cnardi@postmedia.com
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