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Watersheds Canada statement on ALTO High-Speed Rail Proposal

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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

 

  • Laura boyle |

    I live on the Oakridges Moraine and as a farm that we steward in one of the connecting wildlife corridors, I am very concerned about this project going forward. We sit on some of the best clean drinking water in the world…for now. But each construction project, each new open pit mine for aggregates ..in reality this is what they are…plus the removal of powers to prot3ct the sensitive ecosystems that make up the moraine are all putting pressure on this beautiful resource. It took millions of years to happen. It is taking mere decades to impact and destroy it.
    Reply
  • Lillian Robinson |

    There is a viable and safer, less destructive and less expensive solution :
    See the amazing work done by these citizen experts associated with Queens University

    BeyondAlto .ca …. With much more in-depth research @
    Altohsrcitizenresearch .ca
    Reply
  • Laurie Woltz |

    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.
    Reply
  • Gay Henniger |

    I am a member of the Chaffey’s Area Lakes Association (CALA). We have members on Newboro, Clear, Benson, Indian, Opinicon, Sand and Whitefish Lakes (all in the purple swath). We work closely with our partners. Through the “Love Your Lake” program of shoreline assessments, we have partnered with Watersheds Canada, to assess all of the shorelines of five of the above lakes to date. The the assessments are completed by students trained by Watershed Canada and billeted in homes/cottages on the lake being. The data collected is used to prepare a personalized report for each each property that was assessed and sent to the owner. Many of these property owners follow up with a “Natural Edge” program and work with Watersheds Canada to improve their shorelines by planting bushes, trees and plants. Much of the work that volunteers and owners did to improve shorelines could be wiped our with ALTO construction. Owners develop a close relation to preserving their environments. Please understand that this is just one example of why we love our life here and the environments that we help to preserve. A train running through this environment on land or suspended in the air, is not what we wish to see, hear or house in the Township of ‘Rideau Lakes’ or South Frontenac. Both of these Townships have voted NO to Alto!
    Many alternatives are out there that are not nearly as invasive or costly. I am disappointed that no one had asked our communities if we would favour such a train or route before putting so many persons, families and communities under such stress of possible expropriation and the upheaval that this has cost. This is coming from my heart!
    Reply
  • Joanne Hutchinson |

    I would also like to mention that this project will not reduce CO2 emissions.
    Please read the excellent work regarding this issue in altocitizenresearch.ca
    and you will see what I mean.
    Thank you
    Reply
  • Steve McGovern |

    Very well articulated . Hopefully they will take your
    concerns seriously towards sound mitigation measures
    or even better, toss the project.
    Reply
  • C Vetter |

    I appreciate you taking this on. Best solution is total rejection of the idea. I am very disappointed in Ontario Nature, Ducks Unlimited, and Nature Conservancy of Canada.
    Reply
  • David Praskey |

    excellent!
    Reply
  • Irene Courage |

    I think the only way a train can go through Eastern Ontario, especially the Frontenac Arch and the Canadian Shield, if the tracks are raised and the train is suspended. This avoids fencing and blocking watersheds. If the tracks are covered with a roof, it avoids using chemicals to de-ice the tracks in winter. There are suspended train systems in Europe. It may go slower, but the environmental impact is so much smaller. I wish someone would research this.
    Reply
  • Joanne Hutchinson |

    Thank you so much for your statement. We are all worried that the 2 proposed routes will ruin our pristine Eastern Ontario. We have marsh lands, environmentally protected areas on our land and my home in Toronto and my cottage is near Havelock Ontario are both in the proposed corridors. I could lose both.
    Reply
  • Sharon Patton |

    Sharon Patton
    Reply

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