At the Chute-à-Blondeau Community Centre, east of Hawkesbury, dozens of residents gathered to protest Alto, the high-speed train megaproject proposed by the Federal Government to connect Quebec City to Toronto. The project is in its early stages. The 1,000-kilometre high-speed rail line will also have stops in Ottawa, Laval, Peterborough, Trois- Rivières and Montreal. It is expected to carry a price tag of $60-90 billion. Residents who might be impacted by the route, like Ben Hammond, are pushing back, saying this project does nothing for them and may very well threaten their way of life. “I feel that there is a divide between the urban and the rural people now, the urban people just don’t understand. It’s nice to hop on a train and go to Toronto and be back at supper time but the environment, the ecosystems that they destroy, the communities they destroy, the family businesses — it’s not worth it,” Hammond said. “I don’t want to see it, quite honestly. I’ll fight tooth and nail to keep it off.” Organizers of the protest urged those attending to sign a petition headed to Parliament. They have vowed to keep up the pressure, planning more protests and a rally in Ottawa in the near future. Elisabeth Arbaud who helped organize the protest says this project is not worth the cost. “Saving a couple of hours at max by ruining people’s lives this is not progress,” Arbaud said. “It’s not just the people from here; we’ve had people from Quebec come here today so we are creating a community everybody is supporting each other.” Alto says the project would create 50,000 jobs during construction and add roughly $24.5 billion annually to Canada’s GDP, but those with property in the proposed path of the new rail line are worried they could see their way of life change forever. There are two more open houses for the public in the first round of consultations remaining: March 11 in Gatineau, Que. and March 25 in Stirling, Ont. The Alto high-speed rail project is not expected to be complete until at least 2040.
