Alto Route

For a decade, the plan was not high speed but high frequency. That meant a regular rail line with regular setbacks on a route that largely worked on the original footprint for the old rail lines that travelled along the corridor for decades. It had the support of local municipalities, it had opportunities for economic development with the positioning of VIA stations, and discussions with Indigenous leaders had been progressing well. Further to that, engineers and surveyors had already done much work along a prospective route over the years.

All of that work and consultation was binned with the decision to go with high speed. No local stops, an easily quadrupled cost, and all of the expropriations and upheavals across wide swaths of southern Ontario.

Let’s be clear about the situation. If you are a property owner along the proposed southern route, your home is in jeopardy because the federal government wants to shorten travel time between Ottawa and Toronto by 90 minutes and Kingston MP Mark Gerretsen wants a stop in proximity to his riding.

The truth is that as far as travel time is concerned, a conventional train on the old plan was already going to shorten travel time. VIA would have owned the track and not been required to delay regular service to accommodate freight trains that exercised their right of way.

The federal government and Mr. Gerretsen could achieve their goals without spending nearly 100 billion dollars to bury hundreds of square kilometers of rural eastern and central Ontario under countless tons of concrete bordered by fencing as high as one would see at the Napanee Detention Centre. The fact that neither seems particularly predisposed to such a compromise is a problem.

With respect to the novelist Thomas Wolfe, this situation can only be described as a “Bonfire of the Vanities” where the vanities of certain politicians provide the spark, and people’s homes and deeds provide the kindling.

- Brent Cameron