Citizen groups, farmers and MPs to protest Alto high-speed rail project on Parliament Hill

OTTAWA — Conservative and Bloc Québécois MPs will be alongside agricultural producers and citizen groups from Quebec and Ontario to oppose Alto’s high-speed rail project. The demonstration is expected to rally hundreds of people on Parliament Hill around noon.

A press release from l’Union des producteurs agricoles, a trade union representing agricultural workers in Quebec, said the protest aims to raise awareness about the many impacts the project would have on local communities, including forced expropriations.

Concerns are particularly strong around Mirabel, north of Montreal, which saw thousands of citizens forced to relocate decades ago for an airport terminal that never really took off.

But other communities along the proposed route between Toronto and Quebec City are now growing increasingly uncomfortable with the expropriation powers the federal government is giving Alto, the Crown corporation behind the project, to build the rail.

North Belleville Against Alto, Save Stone Mills and Tyendinaga Township Landowners Coalition are among the citizen groups expected to be part of the protest on Wednesday.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has previously called on the government to cancel the project , which has been estimated to cost between $60 billion to $90 billion.

On Tuesday, Poilievre got up in the House of Commons to ask why the Liberal government will be sacrificing farmlands along the proposed route for “another boondoggle.”

“This will be the biggest infrastructure project in Canada’s history,” said Prime Minister Mark Carney, adding that a 60-metre wide corridor would be required for the future train track.

Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet has said his party supported the idea of high-speed rail even before the Liberals did. But the Bloc is now opposing the Alto project, arguing there is a lack of transparency on its real cost and the expropriation process.

The Bloc’s provincial cousin, the Parti Québécois, is now promising to axe the Quebec portion of the project should it form government in October.

Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon admitted that would effectively kill the project.

“Let’s be clear. There is no Alto project without Quebec,” he said on Tuesday.

National Post calevesque@postmedia.com

• Farmers, conservationists and rural communities are uniting to protest high-speed rail
• Champagne says he recused himself due to 'personal connection' to high-speed rail company

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