Canadians hoping plans for high-frequency rail between Toronto and Quebec Metropolis would transfer ahead this 12 months will as a substitute see additional delays — and the prospect of a federal election makes the timeline extra unsure than ever.
Late final 12 months, the federal authorities requested an extension on bids to construct the rail hall in a transfer that might push again number of a non-public companion by a number of months past the preliminary deadline close to the top of 2024.
The holdup marks a minor setback to a mission slated to span greater than a decade. However whereas some observers fear the postponed proposal bodes ailing for the expensive enterprise, others fret the entire enterprise may very well be thrown into limbo with a possible change in authorities across the nook following the prime minister’s deliberate resignation.
Choosing a consortium to shepherd the mission by way of its planning and development phases — and to run and keep it afterward — is a key step within the course of. The Transport Division had mentioned the profitable contractor, which might design, construct and function the tracks, was slated to be introduced by late fall of 2024.
“Everybody I know who’s involved in the rail industry is kind of waiting with bated breath because they expected this announcement to happen in early December,” mentioned Terry Johnson, president of passenger advocacy group Transport Motion Canada.
In 2021, the federal Liberals laid out plans for a brand new rail hall with stops in Toronto, Peterborough, Ottawa, Montreal, Laval, Trois-Rivières and Quebec Metropolis. On the time, Ottawa pegged the price at between $6 billion and $12 billion.
The purpose was to move extra passengers faster and extra typically than the delay-plagued trains at Through Rail, whose growing old fleet runs on tracks owned largely by Canadian Nationwide Railway Co., which supplies precedence to freight trains.
Johnson can be fearful the pushed-back timeline may make it simpler for brand new management in Ottawa to scrap the mission altogether. Final Monday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau introduced he would step down after a Liberal management race, with Parliament prorogued till March 24. His substitute would face a probable confidence vote that might deliver down the federal government, set off an election and end in a Conservative sweep, given current polling.
“Any change of government will almost certainly lead to a process of reconsideration of everything the previous government has done before, either confirming it or changing it in some way,” Johnson mentioned.
Conservative Chief Pierre Poilievre’s workplace didn’t instantly reply to questions on whether or not he helps the mission.
“After practically a decade of the Trudeau Liberal authorities, there isn’t any high-frequency rail mission to talk of, it doesn’t exist,” mentioned Conservative transport critic Philip Lawrence in an emailed assertion, referring to the governing social gathering as “all discuss.”
Pierre Barrieau, who teaches transportation and concrete planning on the College of Montreal, says the competing proposals lay out complicated plans that demand thorough evaluation and that months-long delays for the megaproject ought to come as no shock.
“The three bids are not bidding on the same thing, basically. One might have said, ‘I’m building a tunnel here,’ another one is doing a bypass there,” Barrieau mentioned. “One might be saying 250 kilometres per hour, another one might be saying 375.”
The three consortia chosen to submit proposals are: Cadence, which incorporates AtkinsRéalis (previously SNC-Lavalin) and Air Canada; Intercity Rail Builders, which incorporates Montreal billionaire André Desmarais’s DF Canada Infrastructure Group Inc.; and QConnexiON Rail Companions, which incorporates WSP Canada.
The request for proposals requested every of the three teams for a pair of bids: one for a traditional rail community the place trains would high out at 200 km/h (the present restrict is about 160 km/h) and one for a high-speed rail hall.
“It’s really hard to compare a Hyundai Tucson with a Porsche,” mentioned Barrieau, including these sorts of delays, whereas unwelcome, are par for the course with this scale of mission.
“All megaprojects are at all times late. All megaprojects virtually at all times have value overruns,” he mentioned.
Nonetheless, the turmoil in senior Liberal ranks as cupboard ministers gear up for doable management runs underneath the attention of a lame duck Prime Minister may knock the bidder choice timeline off-kilter.
“This has to go to cabinet,” Barrieau mentioned. “There’s lots of people that must log out.”
The workplace of Transport Minister Anita Anand — among the many potential contenders for the highest Liberal spot — mentioned extensions are “commonplace,” with the likelihood included within the request for proposals.
“No contract has been awarded to a consortium for the rail mission on the Quebec-Toronto hall. I look ahead to sharing extra when the time comes,” Anand mentioned in an emailed assertion.
The postponed announcement comes on the heels of earlier delays in addition to a number of failed high-speed rail plans over the previous half-century.
The federal authorities slowed the timeline on the quick passenger railway in July 2023, when then-transport minister Omar Alghabra mentioned he hoped the road can be working by the mid-2030s quite than the start of the last decade, which he’d beforehand projected.
In the meantime, the transport minister’s workplace has hosted three ministers within the span of 14 months — Anand took the helm in September. That lack of continuity may cramp the tempo of the mission, consultants say.
The halls of presidency are plagued by the bones of high-speed rail plans gone awry — pre-feasibility research, market assessments, particular studies, process drive papers. Two dozen such analyses have been carried out since 1984, in line with the Excessive Pace Rail Canada platform, a web-based useful resource on the topic.
In 2018, Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s Conservatives scrapped preliminary plans for a high-speed rail hall in southwestern Ontario introduced by his Liberal predecessor, Kathleen Wynne.
Research printed in 1995 and 2011 — the latter launched collectively by Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty and Quebec premier Jean Charest — additionally got here to naught.
The hall between Toronto and Quebec Metropolis would run alongside principally model new monitor on land owned largely by Canada’s two rail giants, CN and Canadian Pacific Kansas Metropolis Ltd.
It may require a whole bunch of tens of millions of {dollars} on development of underpasses alone, for the reason that strains couldn’t host street crossings, in line with Transport Canada. Different infrastructure similar to uninterrupted fencing would even be crucial, on high of buy-in from a bevy of native and provincial governments.
Martin Imbleau, who heads the mission — a subsidiary of the federally owned Through Rail — has forecast that the hall would host 17 million riders per 12 months by mid-century, far outstripping the 4.1 million of 2023.
This report by The Canadian Press was first printed Jan. 12, 2025.
