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.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 31, 2026.
—With files from Christopher Reynolds in Montreal
Catherine Morrison, The Canadian Press
