NO ONE ASKED US !
The approval of Alto's high-speed rail project CAME OUT OF THE BLUE. There was no consultation with Parliament. There were no public hearings. The project had not even been discussed in the media.
The go-ahead was announced by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, in February 2025. Apparently prime ministers can decide to spend $80 billion of tax money without asking anyone if it is OK.
The Alto high-speed rail plan was never discussed or approved by Parliament or the Senate. They were allowed to ask questions about it later, but it was already a done deal.
A previous plan, called high-frequency rail (HFR), had been approved by the government – again without Parliamentary approval – in 2022. It was just "announced" by the federal government. There was no intention to have trains going at 300 km per hour.
It was only in 2023 that committees of the House of Commons and of the Senate got a look at it. But even then, there was never a vote in Parliament to approve the high-frequency project.
Mr. Martin Imbleau, was appointed to be CEO of the high-frequency Project in 2023. Mr. Imbleau is not an expert on trains. He was trained as a lawyer, and then became an executive of the Montreal Port Authority. From there, he was hired to lead the High-Frequency Train project.
(He gets paid more than $1 million per year - including salary and various bonuses. We can say that he has a huge personal reason to keep Alto going.)
The high-frequency train idea was slowly changed, behind the scenes, to the high-speed train project of Alto. No one was asked if they wanted it – not Parliament and not the public.
Trudeau and Imbleau appeared in public together in February 2025 to announce that Alto was approved for $80 billion of taxpayers' money.
We may assume that Imbleau was the person who convinced Trudeau that Alto was necessary.
If so, the big selling point was probably Imbleau's claim that the project would cause Canada's economy (GDP) to grow by 1.1% ($35 billion) PER YEAR.
That would have made it a no-brainer.
However, we now know that the benefit is only about $25 to $27 billion as a one-time amount. Imbleau has not denied this. Economic studies back this up. (see C.D.Howe report below.)
(See what he said to parliamentary hearings in 2025, in the transcript below.)
We can say that Trudeau's decision to approve Alto was based on false information. It was an enormous fib by Alto. Alto is absolutely not a "no-brainer" now. Trudeau was bamboozled.
What to do now? At any time, the government can cut off Alto's funding, in its yearly budget.
That's what we should do.