Eastern Ontario farmers 'wary' as Alto seeks access to their land
Some landowners concerned studies are first step toward expropriation
Farmers facing land access requests from Alto train proponentFarmers and rural landowners in eastern Ontario have started receiving land access requests from Alto, the Crown corporation behind Canada’s proposed high-speed rail line, and that has some on guard.
Marcus Haefele, who farms more than 1,000 hectares of land near Vankleek Hill, said he received three letters from Alto on the same day. They want to conduct field studies on different parts of his family’s land, including a field where he recently built a $7 million chicken barn.
He said they're looking for access over the next three years, "from 8 a.m. to midnight."
The letters say Alto would provide 48 hours' notice of its arrival, but Haefele said the details are still murky.
“They're not really indicating exactly what kind of studies they want to do,” he said.
Haefele says he's received three letters from Alto asking permission to access parts of his family's land. (Cameron Mahler/CBC)The letters outline a range of possible activities, from soil and vegetation sampling to drone filming and installing temporary monitoring equipment, Haefele said.
Timing is also an issue for Haefele — planting season is just weeks away. “That can potentially be very dangerous to have someone running around in there,” he said.
Haefele said he’s worried the land surveys might be signaling something bigger, including the potential expropriation of his land.
“Receiving a notice makes me very wary,” he said, adding that it “gives me the feeling that it will be installed in my backyard.”
‘Impacts are significant’
Jean Saint-Pierre is president of the Boisés Est, a woodlot owners association in eastern Ontario. His members have started receiving letters from Alto too and "some people are very distressed,” he said.
Saint-Pierre said his members have environmental and economic concerns, mainly the effects of clearing large corridors of forest and farmland.
“The [potential] impacts are significant,” he said. “And we have not really seen any feedback from Alto as to how they’re going to compensate this.”
Saint-Pierre said members don’t feel like there’s anything for them to gain, particularly for rural members that likely won’t use the service.
They are also worried land survey requests are a first step toward land acquisition.
“There is a significant distress of people who are being told, 'We may need your land,'” he said.
Martin
Imbleau is the president and CEO of Alto. He says the Crown corporation
would rather purchase land but has the option to expropriate if
landowners are reluctant to part with their properties. (CBC)However, in an interview with CBC’s Ottawa Morning last month, Alto’s CEO Martin Imbleau said expropriation would be a last resort and “the intent is to have willing-seller, willing-buyer agreements.”
“We will need to buy significant pieces of land. We’re talking about thousands of properties,” he said.
But if landowners are reluctant to sell, “there [is], of course, some recourse with the expropriation process.”
In a Wednesday statement to CBC, Alto said the surveys are part of early planning work needed to assess environmental, economic and health impacts of the rail line’s potential route.
The Crown corporation said the field studies are entirely voluntary, meaning no surveys will be done without permission.
Alto said that receiving a land entry request does not necessarily mean the property will need to be acquired for the project.
For now, Haefele said he doesn’t plan to allow access.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
With files from CBC's Ottawa Morning
Eastern Ontario farmers worry for their future as high-speed rail plan plows ahead
Alto holding public consultations as studies to refine rail corridor begin
For over three decades, Marcus Haefele’s family has run Agri-Caledonia Inc., a broiler chicken and cash crop farm between Alfred and Vankleek Hill, Ont., east of Ottawa.
They farm about 1,090 hectares of land and have two broiler barns, one of which they built two years ago with an investment of $7 million.
Haefele says he’s worried the Alto high-speed rail project, which will traverse this part of eastern Ontario, will disrupt their land and destroy their business.
The exact route for the high-speed rail project, which will connect Quebec City and Toronto, has not been set. Alto has said it plans to decide by the end of 2026.
In the meantime, Alto has been conducting field studies on fish and wildlife habitats, soil and waterways along a broad corridor that includes the United Counties of Prescott-Russell and communities such as Alfred, Bourget, Hawkesbury and Vankleek Hill.
It also includes Haefele's family farm.
Haefele
fears the rail project could disrupt his family's business by cutting
them off from a newly built barn, as well as their water source.
(Mélina Lévesque/CBC )'No idea what my future has in store'
This week, Alto said it would start contacting selected property owners between Ottawa and Montreal to ask permission to enter their property.
That has Haefele worried about the future of his family's farm.
"They would cut us off from roughly [405] hectares of farmland and would very likely cut us off from access to the newly built chicken barn, as well as our water source for both barns that we have, and for the farm," he said.
Haefele says he attended a public consultation session on the high-speed rail project in Vankleek Hill in January, but left with more questions than answers.
No matter what, this is going to affect us.
- Andrea Glenn, Gibbs Honey
"Everybody that was at the consultation from Alto was not able to answer any of the hard-hitting questions that we have for them," he said, adding his family has not yet received a request from Alto to access their farm.
"I have no idea what my future has in store. Am I able to continue another 30 years like my parents did before me? I just simply don’t know," Haefele said.
Gibbs Honey, the third-generation apiary Andrea Glenn runs with her husband in Vankleek Hill, is also within the study corridor.
"No matter what, this is going to affect us," Glenn told CBC’s Ottawa Morning.
"What we’ve built here is not easily replicable. We’re in one of the least expensive parts of eastern Ontario, so if we were expropriated we would not be able to afford to buy anything similar anywhere nearby."
Glenn, who also attended the January session in Vankleek Hill, also said she left with more questions than answers about the future of her 45-hectare heritage farm.
Alto pledges ‘no-surprise environment’
Marc-Olivier Ranger, Alto's chief of strategic policy, environment and partnerships, says that's the kind of feedback the Crown corporation is seeking.
"They’re actually telling us, 'Don’t go close to fragile ecosystems or habitats, don’t cut our farmlands in two," he said Tuesday during a public consultation in Gatineau, Que.
Marc-Olivier
Ranger, chief of strategic policy, environment and partnerships with
Alto, attends a public consultation session in Gatineau, Que., on
Tuesday. (Mélina Lévesque/CBC)Ranger said Alto is committed to creating a "no-surprise environment" in which residents are both kept informed and heard.
"The idea here is to listen to those concerns, take that back [to] the designers, and at some point we'll come back with more details and a more refined corridor," he said.
Ranger said most of the public feedback has been positive, and excitement over the project is growing.
"People are starting to believe that it will change the way they live, work and connect along the corridor," he said.
People in Gatineau excited about the possibility of high-speed railGlenn is not among them.
"There’s a lot of other opportunities that we should be looking at prior to committing to this, prior to expropriating people from their land," she said.
Haefele agreed.
"Rural Canada is not here to be sacrificed for city-goers to have easier transportation," he said.
The final in-person public consultation takes place March 25 in Stirling, Ont., but people have until April 24 to share their feedback.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
This farmer is worried high-speed rail could split his land and destroy his business
- March 24
- News
- Duration 2:18
As Alto’s in-person consultations wrap up, opposition to the project has been ramping up including concerns in rural communities. CBC’s Mélina Lévesque spoke with one farmer whose land could be affected. UPDATE MARCH 24, 2026 | In a previous version of this story, we said the farmer attended an Alto public consultation in Vankleek Hill in February 2026. But in fact, the public consultation actually happened in January 2026.
Callers and experts discuss Alto on CBC Radio’s Cross Country Checkup
Posted by James Morgan | Apr 12, 2026
The federal government’s proposed Alto high-speed rail project was the final topic of the Sunday, April 12 episode of Cross-Country Checkup on CBC Radio.
Host Ian Hanomansing was joined by guests Michael Schabas, a rail transportation consultant, and University of Toronto Professor of Geography and Planning Matti Siemiatycki, who is also Director of the Infrastructure Institute at the university. They discussed the estimated $60 to $90 billion project, its risks, and benefits.
Siemiatycki emphasized that no route has yet been selected, but that a more northerly route is likely.
Chavez said it is possible for Alto to find creative solutions to problems by looking at lessons learned from high-speed rail projects in other countries.
“They just have to come around to discover it,” he said.
Chavez said the entire line connecting Toronto to Ottawa, Montréal, and Québec City is unlikely to be completed for 20 years. He said much of the construction will be easy because tunnels will not be required, except for entry and exit from Montréal because the city is located on an island.
Hanomansing said federal Minister of Transport Steven MacKinnon had been invited to appear on the program but was not available. Instead, audio from a recent interview MacKinnon gave to CTV saying the Conservative Party previously supported high-speed rail was played for listeners.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is opposed to Alto and has said he would cancel the Liberal government’s project if he were Prime Minister.
Schabas said high-speed rail is financially viable.
“The secret about high-speed rail is it actually makes money,” he remarked, and even projected an operating surplus for the service.
“I think we’re being over-ambitious,” said Siemiatycki. He referred to a McGill University Study which alleges it would take 40 to 50 years before any profit is realized.
“There’s still big questions about how many riders are actually going to use this system,” Siemiatycki said.
Chavez said that contrary to some opinions, high-speed rail is not meant only for rich people and that it would also have significant environmental benefits.
Siemiatycki said issues like health and defence are more important to Canadians at this time.
Among the callers to the program was Marcus Haefele, a farmer whose property is located between Vankleek Hill and Alfred.
“For the farm as a business, it could have a very detrimental impact,” Haefele said.
On high-speed rail lines, there are no level railroad crossings. Roads and lanes either go over or under the tracks or are blocked off.
“We don’t know where any sort of crossings are going to be built,” Haefele said.
He said it is not as efficient to work small sections of field that become disconnected after being bisected by a rail line. Haefele said he is not looking to gain financially from the project but does not want to see his land severed.
Haefele said he was disappointed with the Alto open house in Vankleek Hill on January 29.
“There was nobody there who was able to answer any questions,” he said.
“I haven’t had anybody get back to me,” Haefele added.
Schabas said Alto’s map has created unnecessary anxiety among property owners. He does not understand why Alto began with an area that includes most of southeastern Ontario.
He noted wider corridors were needed for some major highway projects than what is needed for high-speed rail, and that the number of properties which will be ultimately affected is much smaller than on the current map.
“These types of concerns are really typical of high-speed rail lines,” Siemiatycki said. He added that the concerns are also what can increase the project cost. He said that in Britain, tunnels have had to be built to accommodate bats and farm equipment.
Hanomansing said a survey done by Alto of 3,000 people indicated 69 per cent support for the project.
Siemiatycki said concerns over land expropriation and land can ultimately derail a project or at least delay it. He said the government and Alto need to be much more specific about a plan, which would also reduce some of the concern.
Siemiatycki said existing rail or highway corridors are not straight enough for high-speed lines but would like to see that possibility reexamined or for the focus to instead be on better passenger rail service in existing VIA Rail corridors. He added that originally, the government was proposing to instead make improvements to existing rail service but found it was not ambitious enough.
“I would like to see that reexamined,” Siemiatycki said. He noted the cost of that alternative was projected at just $8 to $12 billion.
Chavez said such a plan is not feasible.
“The high-frequency rail plan VIA came up with, did not work,” said Schabas. He said that in its development, there was no cooperation with either CN or CP for entry into cities and coordination with their freight traffic.
To listen to the complete segment on Alto which aired on the Sunday, April 12 edition of Cross Country Checkup, go to https://www.cbc.ca/radio/checkup.
Matti Siemiatycki
Campus
- Downtown Toronto (St. George)
Fields of Study
- Urban
Areas of Interest
Infrastructure, Transportation, Housing, Planning
Biography
Matti Siemiatycki is Professor of Geography and Planning and Director of the Infrastructure Institute at the University of Toronto. His work focuses on delivering large-scale infrastructure projects, evidence based infrastructure investment decisions, and the effective integration of infrastructure into the fabric of cities. His recent studies explore transit policy decisions, the value for money of public-private partnerships, the development of innovative mixed-use buildings as a form of place based infrastructure policy, and the diversity gap in the infrastructure industry workforce. Matti consults widely on infrastructure policy and is a frequent media commentator on infrastructure and city planning.
Publications
Siemiatycki, M., Enright, T. and Valverde, M. (2019). The Gendered Production of Infrastructure. Progress in Human Geography. First View Online.
Van den Hurk, M. and Siemiatycki, M. (2018). Public–Private Partnerships and the Design Process: Consequences for Architects and City Building. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. 42(4), 704-722.
Siemiatycki, M. (2015). Reflections on Twenty Years of Public-Private Partnerships in Canada. Canadian Public Administration. 58(3). 343-362.
Siemiatycki, M. (2015). Mixing Public and Private Uses in the Same Building: Opportunities and Barriers. Journal of Urban Design. 20(2), 230-250.
Education
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MONTRÉAL, Feb. 27, 2026 - Following the resolution adopted by the Union des producteurs agricoles (UPA) and the Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA), Alto reiterates its commitment to working constructively with farmers in Québec and Ontario, so that the project reflects agricultural realities and delivers regional benefits.
Alto is currently in its development and preconstruction phase, allowing the project to continue the rigorous social, environmental, and technical analyses required to assess potential impacts and refine the alignment. This stage is designed to ensure that decisions are made with care, transparency, and a clear understanding of community concerns. Alignment decisions will follow the completion of this work.
A broad and extensive consultation process is already underway. To date, more than 140,000 participations have been recorded across Alto's engagement activities – including 135,804 visits to the online platform and 7,250 in-person participants at Alto's open houses and roundtables. Additionally, 13,344 surveys have been submitted and over 8,000 comments have been provided on Alto's interactive map, offering valuable insights that guide route optimization, environmental assessments, and mitigation planning. Alto is committed to concretely addressing the comments raised during this first wave of consultations.
Alto has been clear in its engagement to limit impacts on farmland, maple groves, and woodlands through an optimized alignment and tailored mitigation measures. Engagement with the UPA and OFA began early in the process and continues on a regular basis to identify practical access solutions and ensure continuity of agricultural operations.
Over the past year, this engagement has been maintained continuously as part of the project's development. Discussions have taken place at both leadership and working levels, ensuring that agricultural considerations are addressed as planning evolves.
Alto has also offered agricultural organizations the opportunity to contribute directly to identifying sensitive areas, mitigation measures, and conditions required for day-to-day agricultural operations to continue. This conversation between Alto, agricultural and forestry producers is essential to developing solutions rooted in their realities.
Alto strives to approach discussions with landowners in a transparent and respectful manner, always seeking negotiated agreements. Once the alignment is known, discussions with landowners, including agricultural producers, will take place openly, with compensation supported by independent professional valuations to ensure fairness.
Alto remains committed to working collaboratively with all stakeholders as the project evolves, building a path forward that reflects both community needs and Canada's long‑term mobility ambitions.
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