Quebec would withdraw from high

Quebec would withdraw from high-speed rail project if PQ forms next government, party leader says

1st phase of construction, linking Montreal to Ottawa, scheduled for 2029

The leader of the Parti Québécois Paul St-Pierre Plamondon 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.

In a post on X, the party leader said 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.

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's share of the project could be $40 billion, St-Pierre Plamondon said. It's unclear how the Parti Québécois arrived at that sum, and the party did not immediately return a request for comment.

CBC News also 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."

Roads, local transit should be priorities, PQ says

The PQ leader 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."

A PQ 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.

Eastern Ontario farmers react to Alto's use of dronesMay 29|Duration 1:22Reports of drones over farms in eastern Ontario are worrying skeptics of Canada's high-speed rail project. Matthew Kupfer reports.

Benjamin Shingler is a reporter based in Montreal covering social issues and Quebec politics. He previously worked at The Canadian Press and the New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal, and is an alumnus of the Oxford Climate Journalism Network. He can be reached at benjamin.shingler@cbc.ca.