For him and concerned landowners, the economics don’t add up: an estimated $8,000 per Canadian household, with most taxpayers (outside of the 1,000 km corridor between Toronto and Quebec City) unlikely to ever use the service.

“It’s my property. I should be able to do what I want with it,” one farmer stated plainly. “We don’t need it, we can’t afford it, and it’s just a bad idea,” said another.

Others pointed out practical inconveniences, such as disrupted local travel patterns that could force longer drives for basic needs like groceries.

Concerns extend beyond cost and disruption, with speakers highlighting potential conflicts of interest, noting involvement of firms like SNC-Lavalin (now rebranded Atkins Realis), compounded by the fact that Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne’s partner is vice-president of Alto’s environmental division.

Questions also arose about the project’s alignment with broader global agendas under Prime Minister Mark Carney, with former MP Jack MacLaren saying, “I hope the train goes where the new world order goes, and that's nowhere.”

Nowhere — that’s exactly where a 2018 Ontario government proposal for a high-speed rail line ended up, despite plans to have it running by 2025 and an $11 billion ‘commitment’ to the failed project.

Ironically, a copy of that year’s OLA magazine was shared with attendees, showing just how relevant those same concerns persist nearly a decade later.

The OLA meeting also addressed the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and its implications for land titles.

Vice President and researcher Donna Burns warned that reinterpretations of treaties and “unsurrendered” land claims could undermine Crown patents — the foundational documents granting property rights to settlers — and erode the legal basis of private ownership across Ontario.

“These treaties were created, there was an agreement,” Burns said, stressing “it wasn’t stolen land.”

Chapter leader Deidter Stadnyk noted that if the “authority of the Crown and our constitutional framework” is disregarded, “everything crumbles.”

Landowners were urged to review their Crown Land Patent Grants and title searches, get involved locally, and push back collectively.

With municipal elections approaching in October, the message was clear: engage now, support candidates who defend property rights, and reject politicians unwilling to oppose the Alto project.

Property rights are not negotiable. Ontarians, and Canadians more broadly, deserve transparency, not top-down mega-projects that expropriate first and justify later.

For more on these issues, visit the Ontario Landowners Association.

Sign the petition to stop the Alto rail line!

9,905 signatures

Goal: 10,000 signatures

Ottawa is advancing ALTO — a proposed 300 km/h rail line from Toronto to Quebec City — with a projected cost of $90 billion and no guarantee that'll be the end of it.

The plan would carve a 1,000-kilometre corridor up to 60 metres wide through productive farmland and private property, dividing communities and affecting families who receive little to no benefit. In many stretches, there are no rural stations planned at all.

Other megaprojects have spiralled in cost and delay. Meanwhile, consultations are closing quickly, and concerns remain about expropriation, oversight, and accountability.

Before billions more are committed and land is permanently disrupted, Canadians deserve transparency and a full public debate.

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