Ontario Premier Doug Ford was busy this week selling his version of free trade in the U.S., but he has some salesmanship to do back in Ontario, where a couple of transportation megaprojects face increasing public opposition.
In one case, Ford needs to convince the public that his ambitious plan to expand Toronto’s Billy Bishop airport makes sense.
In the other, he should urge Prime Minister Mark Carney to listen to the concerns of rural Ontarians who fear that Carney’s Alto high-speed rail project will cut a swathe of destruction through their communities.
In Toronto, a coalition of 28 civic and business leaders are urging a “reality check” on the impacts of Ford’s airport plan.
And on Wednesday, nearly 1,000 people, including farmers, citizens’ groups, and rural and federal politicians, demonstrated on Parliament Hill, expressing their concerns about expropriation of land in their regions to build the Alto project.
Opponents of the Alto high-speed rail project march through Ottawa toward Parliament Hill on Wednesday, June 10, 2026.
When it comes to major infrastructure projects, Ford and Carney share the same approach: build big, build fast, and don’t slow down for anyone. Both projects feel like the thinking behind them was “Sounds great. Let’s do it.”
In their haste, the two leaders have largely skipped the part where they explain why the project makes sense, after weighing the drawbacks against the advantages.
Ford has said he backs high-speed rail, but would prefer it used existing transportation routes; Carney has said he hasn’t decided whether to back Ford’s airport plan, yet. But neither project has anything resembling a feasibility study or a business case, at least one released to the public. Lacking those basic elements, how could anyone determine whether the ideas are good or not?
Even allowing for a degree of NIMBYism, the prominent Torontonians questioning the airport plan make a perfectly reasonable point, saying the expansion shouldn’t go ahead until the public has been consulted on a detailed plan.
It’s easy to see why people would support easier air access into downtown Toronto, but more difficult to imagine how the Billy Bishop expansion would work. The government envisions an airport capable of serving 10 million passengers a year, five times what it handles now. The Billy Bishop site is only 200 acres. By contrast, Pearson International handles 47 million passengers annually on a 4,613-acre site.
Put in context, expanding Billy Bishop makes less sense than it might seem. Pearson is expanding to handle 65 million passengers a year. The provincial government spent $456 million to create a direct rail link from Pearson to Union Station downtown. One of the selling points of Alto is that it will reduce demand for air travel.
How many solutions do we need for the same problem?
All that said, the Billy Bishop expansion plan makes more sense than Carney’s rail plan — admittedly a low bar. At least the anticipated $5 billion cost of the enlarged airport will be covered by passengers, not taxpayers.
Billy Bishop Airport in Toronto.
By contrast, Alto is a potential money pit. With an estimated cost of between $60 billion and $90 billion, it would be the most expensive infrastructure project in Canadian history. It’s difficult to see a benefit commensurate with the cost of a rail line that will run from Quebec City to Toronto, serving only five cities.
How big is the demand? In 2024, Via Rail carried 44,500 passengers a week in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor that will make up the bulk of the new Alto service. Naturally, the service lost money, with taxpayers subsidizing each ride by $54.
No doubt the new Alto service will charge more per passenger than the slower Via service. Passengers will weigh the cost of Alto against the time saved, even if government does not.
The rail line is seen as a real problem in rural eastern Ontario. Farmers, local politicians and community groups have protested the expropriation of land that will slice some rural properties into two, dividing them with a 60-metre corridor surrounded by a high fence.
Someone needs to stand up for the people who will be affected by Alto. Logically, it should be Ford, whose party counts on rural and small-town support.
The premier had the right idea back in March, when he said the new train should run alongside Highway 401 and make a stop in Kingston, Ont. The federal plan calls for the rail line to either go north along Highway 7 or south through a swathe of agricultural land near the Rideau Lakes, but with no stop in Kingston.
It could be an awkward time to put pressure on Carney, from Ford’s perspective. The federal government has the final say over Ford’s Toronto airport expansion. If so, what a quid pro quo: You back my bad idea and I’ll back yours.
Both the airport and the high-speed rail plan might have merit, but neither government has gone to the trouble of producing the numbers to prove it. In the real world, anyone touting multi-billion-dollar projects without having the basic numbers to support them would be laughed out of the room. It shouldn’t be any different in government.
National Post
randalldenley1@gmail.com