Open Statement to the Senators of Canada
Re: Safeguarding Freshwater and Natural Heritage in the Context of the ALTO High-Speed Rail Proposal
Honourable Senators,
Watersheds Canada expresses our growing concern regarding the proposed ALTO high-speed rail project connecting Toronto to Quebec, and its potential implications for Canada’s freshwater resources and natural heritage systems.
Across eastern Ontario and beyond, Watersheds Canada works alongside municipalities, conservation authorities, Indigenous partners, landowners, volunteers, and corporate supporters to deliver community-based stewardship programs that protect and restore lakes, rivers, wetlands, and shorelines. These efforts are not theoretical; they are tangible, place-based projects. Hundreds of shoreline naturalizations, erosion control and climate change resilience projects (nature-based solutions), fish habitat restorations, and environmental education initiatives have been funded through a blend of federal, provincial, and municipal investment, alongside private donations, family foundations, and corporate partnerships.
This collective investment has built more than ecological resilience. It has fostered a powerful and growing culture of conservation volunteerism. Individuals and families are actively engaged in safeguarding the health of the very waters that define their communities, economies, and quality of life.
It is within this context that we urge careful scrutiny of the ALTO high-speed rail proposal.
Linear infrastructure of this scale—cutting across watersheds, wetlands, and river systems—poses inherent and significant risks to freshwater health. These risks include, but are not limited to:
- Disruption of hydrological connectivity across watersheds and sub-watersheds
- Increased sedimentation and runoff during construction and operation
- Fragmentation of wetlands and riparian corridors critical for biodiversity
- Long-term impacts on groundwater recharge and surface water quality
- Cumulative stress on already vulnerable aquatic ecosystems
These impacts do not occur in isolation. They directly intersect with, and may undermine, decades of publicly and privately funded stewardship work. The very sites where governments and communities have invested in restoration and protection may be placed at risk by corridor routing decisions, construction practices, or insufficient mitigation measures.
Equally concerning is the potential erosion of public trust and volunteer momentum. When community members see the landscapes they have worked to restore placed in jeopardy, it can diminish confidence in conservation outcomes and weaken the spirit of community engagement that has been so critical to success.
We recognize the importance of modern, efficient transportation infrastructure and the role it can play in economic development and emissions reduction. However such progress must not come at the expense of Canada’s freshwater legacy, particularly in a region as hydrologically complex and ecologically significant as the Great Lakes–St. Lawrence basin.
We respectfully call upon the Senate to:
- Ensure rigorous, transparent, and science-based environmental assessments that fully account for watershed-scale impacts
- Prioritize avoidance of sensitive freshwater systems, wetlands, and previously restored sites in route planning
- Require meaningful consultation with community-based conservation organizations, including Watersheds Canada
- Recognize and account for the cumulative value of stewardship investments already made by governments, donors, and volunteers
- Uphold Canada’s commitments to biodiversity conservation, freshwater protection, and climate resilience
Canada’s freshwater is one of our most defining and vulnerable natural assets. The success of grassroots stewardship efforts demonstrates what is possible when governments, organizations, and community members work together. It is essential that national infrastructure planning reinforces—not reverses—this progress.
We stand ready to collaborate constructively to ensure that both environmental protection and infrastructure advancement can be achieved responsibly.
Respectfully submitted,
Watersheds Canada
Ford repealed the Species at Risk Act so he can put his rail through without consequences. Same with the old Ontario Place property that he is destroying! Our watershed’s and species at risk need to be protected.
“The Ontario government’s repeal of its Endangered Species Act poses an imminent threat to the survival of federally threatened and endangered fish and birds. Those species can’t wait years – or even months – for a federal protection replacement. Canada’s Species at Risk Act gives Minister Dabrusin, Minister Thompson and the federal Cabinet all the tools they need to reinstate lost species and habitat protections with a few penstrokes – as federal orders. There can be no excuse for refusing to do that,” said Phil Pothen, Counsel and Ontario Environment Program Manager with Environmental Defence.
The official removal of all 42 aquatic species and all 18 migratory birds from Ontario’s list of endangered and threatened species is one of the most serious consequences of the repeal of Ontario’s Endangered Species Act, once celebrated as a gold standard in species protection. It is being replaced with the far weaker Species Conservation Act.