Poilievre announces future Conservative government would cancel project that would cost $8,000 per family.
Peterborough, ON – Today, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre announced that Conservatives oppose the Liberals’ proposed Alto rail project, which is projected to cost up to $90 billion and would not begin “real construction” until 2030. Poilievre called on the Liberal government to cancel the project, and said that as Prime Minister, his government would do so.
The project’s total estimated cost is greater than the current federal deficit and would amount to nearly $8,000 for a family of four, for a service that two-thirds of surveyed Canadians said they would not use even once a year. The Liberal government has already spent over $700 million since 2022 without a single metre of track under construction.
“Canadians need transportation that works and taxpayer dollars that are respected; this project does neither,” said Poilievre. “Instead, the Liberals want to blow $90 billion on another Liberal illusion that will come late, go over budget and leave taxpayers stuck with the bill, if it even gets built at all.”
Last week, Alto’s CEO confirmed that “real construction” won’t start until 2030, a year later than the Liberals originally announced in December. He also confirmed that it would take seven years just to build the section between Ottawa and Montreal. By comparison, the entire Canadian Pacific Railway, which linked the country from coast to coast, was built in just four years.
The project is projected to cost up to $90 billion, while the deficit in the Liberals’ 2025 budget already stands at $78.3 billion. According to McGill’s Transport Research Lab, the initiative will require $2.54 billion in annual subsidies in its first year, more than double the total cost of VIA Rail this year.
Meanwhile, existing passenger rail service continues to fall short. The Auditor General found that VIA had an on-time performance of just 51 per cent in 2024, falling to as low as 30 per cent in the first quarter of 2025.
The proposed route would also likely require the expropriation of thousands of acres of private property across Ontario and Quebec. Canadians have seen the consequences of federal expropriation before.
In 1969, the federal government expropriated nearly 100,000 acres of farmland to build Mirabel airport, right in the Ottawa-Montreal corridor. After displacing roughly 12,000 people, the government used only 5,000 acres, and passenger flights stopped more than 20 years ago.
“Conservatives want projects that make money, by getting government out of the way, granting fast permits and low taxes to privately-funded construction. We support targeted improvements to existing transportation infrastructure that can move people and goods faster, at lower cost and with less risk to taxpayers,” Poilievre concluded. “That includes greenlighting extended runways at Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport to allow more competition, as well as proposed upgrades to existing roads, such as designating Ontario’s Highway 11 as a project of national importance under the Building Canada Act.”