Poilievre calls for cancellation of multibillion-dollar high-speed rail project
By Canadian Press on March 31, 2026.
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
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This is a luxury . . . an overpriced mood of transportation which will see cost over-runs in the tens of billions, when you consider other projects in Quebec that often see ‘massive’ cost over-runs!
The Trudeau Liberals bankrupt our country, doubling our national debt in just a few years . . . this project is far from needed, and would reflect very poor fiscal management by allowing it to proceed!
Quebec and Ontario helped kill the golden goose that was employing Canadians from across Canada, coast to coast, when it decided to shutdown many of the oil and gas projects . . . they wanted to live the life of luxury, but fail to understand that revenue is required to pay for their luxurious projects which only benefit the two provinces!
Have they calculated the high costs of maintaining high speed rail in our Canadian winter season??? I doubt it . . . they are like little kids in a candy store! they expect the rest of us to pay for their luxury!
Someone please try to explain them basic finance principles . . . not that “we will just get the rest of Canada to pay for it”!