Canada has been talking about a high-speed railway line for decades. You only have to visit Europe or Japan or China to experience the wonder of an ultra-high-speed train, but these things don't come cheap. And, in North America at least, they don't come quickly.
The current Alto plan for a high-speed rail link from Toronto to Ottawa to Montreal to Quebec City (possibly via Kingston) is about 1,000 kilometers in length, and is protected to cost between $60 and $90 billion. The fact that the estimated cost covers such a large range suggests that they actually have no clue how much it will cost. Alto, the Crown corporation tasked with developing the project, itself warns that these figures are "for planning purposes only and should not be considered as a project budget". As with every other large Canadian development project, cost-overruns are all but guaranteed.
As for how long it will take to build, well, that's anyone's guess. Not much of any size gets built in Canada in less than 15 or 20 years. The experience of California's foray into high-speed rail is salient here: a line from Los Angeles to San Franciso (just over 600km) was proposed in 2008 but, eighteen years later, just a tiny stretch of track has been laid, with nost of the rest still at the planning stage. Currently, projections are that a 260km stretch from Merced to Bakersfield is expected to be completed by 2032, but don't hold your breath.
The bottom line, though, is the bottom line: $90 billion is an awful lot of money for Canada. Think what just a part of that that kind of money could do for public transit in Toronto or Montreal. Think what it could do towards eliminating poverty or propping up ailing Trump-tariffed businesses.
Politicians seem excited by such a large-scale "nation-building project". It's often pointed out that Canada is the only G7 country without high-speed trains (although America's is marginal). But is it really the best use of taxpayers' money? Do we really want to spend $90 billion - and it would probably end up costing much more than that, it always does - to save a few wealthy businessmen an hour or two on their commute, or to cannibalize customers from domestic airlines.
Because, make no mistake, the cost of a ticket will probably put it outside the budget of the average Canadian (or the average tourist, for that matter), so it could end up as the biggest white elephant in Canada, the ultimate vanity project of the kind that we regularly mock other countries for undertaking. Canada's population is much less concentrated than France's or Japan's, and the distances are greater - what works over there won't necessarily work over here. Maintenance in the Canadian Shield terrain, and through those long hard winters, is also a differentiating issue.
I don't buy the argument that it is somehow miraculously going to fix traffic congestion and reduce our carbon footprint. It will not suddenly become the no-brainer option for travelling from Toronto to Montreal or Ottawa to Quebec City - it will be too expensive for that, for one thing, and will probably only appeal to people who currently take the train anyway. Neither will it instantaneously boost GDP and create national prosperity, let alone improve access to housing and jobs and - most improbably - advance reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, all of which Alto is promising.
Yes, high-speed rail is cool, and yes, it would be nice. But can we really justify jt? Call me small-minded and anti-development, but I think not.
And, just think, $90 billion!
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