Andrea Glenn knew something was brewing in her small town when she spotted a stranger at a mixer meant for local business owners.
The gathering was casual. The stranger was not. He introduced himself as a representative of Alto, a company Glenn had never heard of, and said he was there to talk about a high-speed rail line.
“That was the first clue we might lose our land,” Glenn said.
In the three months that followed, Glenn and her husband Russell Gibbs have been thrust into a pivotal fight against a proposed high-speed train that Prime Minister Mark Carney says could be crucial for Canada’s growth and that dozens of farming communities fear could cost them their home, business and community.
The federally backed project — a roughly 1,000-kilometre corridor linking Toronto and Quebec City with trains travelling more than 300 km/h and carrying an estimated $90-billion price tag — has been enthusiastically supported by Canadians who want faster travel between seven urban centres. But the rail line would also cut through a region home to nearly half of Canada’s population, and opponents warn the dedicated track would permanently reshape rural towns and trigger the most expropriations for a single project in Canadian history.
The struggle pits national transit ambitions against the land, livelihoods and futures of families who live along the proposed route — families like Glenn and Gibbs’.
The couple runs a 110-acre, third-generation apiary on the outskirts of Vankleek Hill, Ont., a one-Tim-Hortons-town of about 1,800 residents between Ottawa and Montreal. Their bees produce up to 30,000 pounds of honey a year, which is sold to a variety of restaurants and shops across southern Ontario and Quebec. Glenn and Gibbs are worried if the train comes to town, it could physically divide their community, interfere with their sensitive bee colonies and cost them their farm.
“My seven-year-old son is asking if there is going to be a train coming through our house,” Glenn said, tearful. “We don’t have answers.”
Ramping up to the project’s launch, Alto has been paying for advertorials that present the line as an opportunity to take a culinary tour. Glenn says she is incredulous at the irony that her apiary, which could be impacted by the new line, supplies some of the restaurants featured in the Alto ads.
“The public is being sold a vision of culinary tourism that ignores the fact that the Alto project puts our farm and many other local food producers in jeopardy,” Glenn said.
“This route threatens to destroy the small businesses and ecosystems that make the ‘culinary tour’ possible in the first place.”
High speed rail has unique engineering requirements that its slower cousins do not. The trains would require new tracks because existing rails have curves, road crossings and freight traffic that would constantly force trains to slow down, Alto spokesperson Benoit Bourdeau said. He added there cannot be any level crossings and the track must be fenced off along its entire length — precautions that Glenn fears could bisect towns and crucial roads.
Alto is in the process of conducting community consultations and finalizing a route for the train, which is expected to be announced in the autumn.
The Crown corporation doesn’t have a public schedule for expropriation yet, but when the time comes, owners will be compensated at market value for the property being acquired, as well as for potential losses and reasonable third-party fees incurred, Bourdeau said. Negotiations and compensation would be determined under the Expropriation Act.
Glenn and her neighbours say they’re distrustful any land acquisitions will follow the act because of proposed changes to Bill C-15 that would allow expropriation without a public hearing.
The changes are currently before the Senate and were introduced specifically for the Alto line, according to Ajay Gajaria, an expropriation lawyer and partner at Toronto law firm Aird & Berlis.
“A significant change allows the federal government to take properties more quickly for the high speed railway line, by eliminating the ability to have a hearing as to whether or not the taking of a given property is truly necessary for the infrastructure project,” he explained, adding that other notable changes include a right to prohibit any work on a property and to impose a right of first refusal.
“Both in dollar value terms and the number of properties, I think this project will be the largest number and the largest value of expropriations in modern Canadian history.”
To raise awareness and try to halt the line, Glenn and Gibbs have launched Facebook groups and online petitions, and are working with Conservative MP Scott Reid to table a parliamentary petition on behalf of residents along the corridor.
In a video message posted online, Reid said he opposed the Alto line and wanted to kill the “terrible” project.
“Ninety billion dollars to reduce travel times for people living in Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal by about 90 minutes. A billion dollars a minute seems pretty expensive,” Reid said.
“That’s $9,000 for every family across the country. Look, I wouldn’t pay that much money to get Alto if I lived right next to the Ottawa train station.”
The office of Steve MacKinnon, federal minister of transport, said the government understands the concerns raised by communities and local landowners.
“That is why we expect early transparent dialogue with landowners. Our government remains committed to ensuring that the consultation process led by Alto is credible and accessible, and that local parties are treated equitably and consistently throughout the process. Any final routing decisions will reflect consultations with landowners,” MacKinnon’s office wrote in an email to the Star.
Glenn said the information sessions with Alto have only deepened their unease, leaving key questions unanswered — especially about what the future holds for their young son, who spends his days roaming the forests and wildflower fields of the farm he could one day inherit.
“This is a huge infrastructure expenditure that’s being pushed through without being able to present all the information and that adds more insult to the people in rural areas who are expected to bear the costs,” she said.
Bordeau emphasized that it is crucial to move ahead with the high-speed rail as a “nation-building project” that is projected to uplift Canada’s GDP by $24.5 billion.
“This will support local businesses, boost tourism, and contribute to the overall economic development of the regions and Indigenous communities,” he said.
Glenn is skeptical. She believes the most beneficial path is to improve existing tracks that make more stops, helping both urban and rural residents, rather than those in seven key cities.
“There’s an opportunity here to serve this corridor really well — all the residents within it — and bolster the economies of the entire rail line rather than just a few points along the way,” she said.
“This has been billed as something that’s supposed to be uniting Canada, but all I can see is division.”
