Reject Bill C‑15 rail powers
Petitioners ask Parliament to reject Bill C‑15 powers that expedite rail corridor approvals, halt the Alto high‑speed rail project, and redirect funds to higher‑frequency passenger service in existing corridors. The government responds that Alto is engaging communities and will favour existing corridors.
Why we would sign this petition
- Maintains full environmental review and meaningful consultation, ensuring affected landowners and communities have input before corridor approvals.
- Prevents large federal expenditure on a project the petitioners argue would serve few users, improving cost‑effectiveness and fairness.
- Protects agricultural lands and rural communities by favouring upgrades to existing corridors, reducing permanent land fragmentation and local disruption.
Why we wouldn’t sign this petition
- High‑speed rail could deliver long‑term capacity, speed and national connectivity benefits that opposing the project might forgo.
- Expedited approvals and modernized expropriation rules may be necessary to deliver large, complex national infrastructure efficiently and on time.
- Upgrades within existing corridors may not achieve the high speeds or modal shift HSR can provide, so redirecting funds could yield lesser benefits.
The summary and both sets of reasons are AI-generated from the petition and given equal weight. Claims are the petitioners’ own; consult the official record for the full text.
Official petition
Petition to the House of Commons Bill C-15 includes provisions granting the federal government extraordinary powers to designate rail corridors and expedite approvals, potentially limiting full environmental review and meaningful consultation with affected landowners, municipalities, and communities; The Alto high-speed rail project is estimated to cost approximately $90 billion, which would equate to roughly $9,000 per Canadian family of four, yet the project would serve only a small fraction of Canadians compared with other public transit or infrastructure investments, raising concerns about cost-effectiveness, fairness, and the prioritization of federal spending; The proposed Alto high-speed rail project would require construction of new rail corridors through productive agricultural lands and rural communities, resulting in permanent land fragmentation, disruption of farm operations, and impacts on rural road access and emergency services; Construction of new high-speed rail infrastructure would generate substantial upfront greenhouse gas emissions from carbon-intensive materials such as concrete and steel, emissions that may take decades to offset as passenger vehicles increasingly electrify and reduce transportation-related emissions; The Ottawa–Montreal corridor is already served by multiple transportation options, raising questions about the relative public benefit of prioritizing this segment over improvements to existing rail infrastructure; and Upgrading existing rail corridors to provide higher-frequency passenger service could expand capacity and reliability while minimizing environmental disturbance and community disruption. We, the undersigned, Residents of Canada, call upon the House of Commons to decline to approve or advance provisions in Bill C-15 that grant extraordinary powers to expedite rail corridor approvals. 1. Cease further advancement of the Alto high-speed rail project; and 2. Redirect federal investment toward improving higher-frequency passenger rail service within existing corridors.
Government response
Response by the Minister of Transport and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons Signed by Mike Kelloway Alto has initiated a multi-phase, public engagement process aimed at refining the project and ensuring it reflects the priorities of the communities along the corridor. The study corridor is of an approximate width of 10 kilometers, while the width of the required right of way for the high-speed rail network will be approximately 60 meters. The corridor that is currently under study should not be interpreted as a representation of all the properties that will be required for the project. Whenever feasible, Alto will try to take advantage of the corridor of existing linear infrastructures, such as railways, highways, and public utility corridors, to reduce the needs for new properties and limit the impact on communities and agricultural lands. In many cases, Alto will acquire parts of parcels, as opposed to an entire property, and therefore avoid changing the current land use, when possible. The High-Speed Rail Network Act, which received Royal Assent on March 26, 2026, featured targeted legislative measures to enable the timely and effective delivery of Canada’s High-Speed Rail project. The High-Speed Rail Network Act modernized the framework of the current Expropriation Act to ensure procedural efficiency and legal certainty in a project of this magnitude.