It’s a common refrain that travelling within Canada is costly and cumbersome compared to other countries — and, largely, it relies on emissions-heavy airplanes. The federal government is looking to change that over the next decade by developing a high-frequency rail line between Quebec City and Toronto — Canada’s busiest corridor.
Under the current proposal, the majority of the line would be electrified and dedicated to this passenger route only, meaning it won’t be competing with freight trains, causing congestion along the route in a region where more than half of Canada’s population lives.
The dedicated line would allow trains to reach higher speeds than the current services offered by Via Rail, a government-owned corporation. The government estimates only two per cent of travel in this region is done by train, while cars account for 94 per cent of travel.
There are major environmental benefits to getting more cars off the road and connecting more communities by rail. But much work needs to be done to change that and, so far, this rail project has seen its share of delays.
Called the high-frequency rail line (HFR) in English, and le projet de train à grande fréquence (TGF) in French — but more often referred to by acronyms in both cases — it involves building more than 1,000 kilometres of new rail along the cross-border route.
With Quebec City and Toronto as the terminus, the train would stop in Trois-Rivieres, Que., Montreal, Ottawa and Peterborough, Ont., along the way.
While the rail project is not currently proposing to use high-speed trains, which typically go faster than 250 kilometres per hour, it would allow for trains to reach 200 kilometres per hour because of its dedicated tracks. On Via’s current route in the area, trains can go up to 160 kilometres per hour, but generally range between 60 and 120 kilometres per hour depending on the stretch of rail line.
The government has proposed to electrify about 90 per cent of the route. The remaining portions fall within urban areas where railways are privately owned, and the trains will run on diesel.
This project, which the government is calling “one of the largest infrastructure projects in Canadian history,” and the largest currently on the books, will pull several federal departments and Crown corporations together to work with private sector partners. Overall responsibility falls to Transport Canada, while Public Services and Procurement Canada is the department leading the procurement process for the project. Infrastructure Canada is also consulting, and the Canada Infrastructure Bank is advising on financial aspects of the project. The Department of Justice is the government’s legal adviser.
Via Rail, the Crown corporation that currently operates in this most populous region in the country (at a loss), is also advising on operations of the rail project. A new subsidiary of Via, created by the government in 2022 to advance the project, called Via HFR, is helping find a private partner and will work with them to design and develop the project.
The Impact Assessment Agency of Canada would eventually undertake a federal environmental assessment.
Via Rail first proposed the project in 2016. A few years later, the federal government provided funding to start the planning process, which was done by a joint venture between Via and the Canada Infrastructure Bank, until the end of 2021. Federal officials need to proceed with consultations with affected Indigenous communities as well as engage in discussions with private rail operators about detailed routes. The federal government put out its call for private sector partners interested in contributing to the project in 2022, the same year it created Via HFR.
By the summer of 2023, the federal government announced it was selecting three teams of private consortiums to submit bids on the project.
Those teams are:
And these selections aren’t without criticism. The first team includes scandal-plagued engineering firm SNC Lavalin, as well as CDPQ Infra, the Quebec pension fund company developing Montreal’s new light-rail system, which is preventing the high-frequency rail project from using the Mount Royal tunnel, the most efficient route for accessing Central Station. The other two involve major foreign developers — sorry Canadian firms, you’re out of luck.
It’s tough to say — on both accounts.
At one time, the ETA for the project was the early 2030s but, as of July 2023, then transport minister Omar Alghabra said it would be more like the mid-2030s. Alghabra has since resigned from cabinet after announcing he would not seek re-election and has been replaced as transport minister by Montreal MP Pablo Rodriguez.
Either way, the project could take years and it won’t be cheap.
The government has given an estimate of $6 to $12 billion for building the new line, but also said that could increase due to inflation and other factors. Some say it could be tens of billions more.
In California, a high-speed rail project linking Los Angeles to San Francisco was initially supposed to cost about $33 billion when it was approved in 2008. Fifteen years later, none of the project segments are complete and costs have ballooned to over $100 billion.
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