Building the Alto high-speed rail line between Toronto and Quebec City could cost between $75 billion and $113 billion, up to $23 billion more than the top of the federal government’s estimate, the Parliamentary Budget Officer said in a report released Thursday, Oct. 1, 2026. Alto, the Crown corporation leading the project, has regularly cited a range of $60 billion to $90 billion, according to The Canadian Press and The Globe and Mail.
The report, by Parliamentary Budget Officer Annette Ryan, was requested by the Senate’s national finance committee. The PBO based its figures on high-speed rail projects in Europe, the United Kingdom and the United States, CP reported. It noted that British and American projects cost far more to build, roughly 4.5 times European equivalents, likely because of land acquisition, permitting, litigation, design changes and weak project management, according to CBC News and the Canadian Taxpayers Federation’s summary of the report.
The watchdog’s bottom line is blunt. “We judge that the risk is more likely that the project will go over budget rather than under,” the PBO wrote, adding that rail projects worldwide run an average cost overrun of 39 per cent.
Two pieces of the route drive much of the risk. The first is a proposed 15-kilometre tunnel between Laval and Montreal, which the PBO estimates at about $169 million per kilometre, the Globe reported. By our arithmetic, that is roughly $2.5 billion for the tunnel alone, before any overruns. The second is the stretch between Peterborough and Ottawa. Ottawa has not decided whether the line will cut north through the Canadian Shield or swing south near Kingston, and the PBO said blasting through Shield rock is an engineering challenge that would cost more than other parts of the line. A Kingston stop would add an estimated $3.9 billion, according to the PBO figures cited by the taxpayers federation.
Time is also money. The Globe reported the PBO projects every year of delay would add roughly $1.5 billion to the price. Spread across a line of about 1,000 kilometres with seven planned stations (Toronto, Peterborough, Ottawa, Montreal, Laval, Trois-Rivières and Quebec City), the PBO’s range works out to roughly $75 million to $113 million per kilometre, our calculation shows.
Alto pushed back on the idea that the report is a surprise. A spokesperson said the PBO’s projections are “consistent with Alto’s working estimate,” even though the two used different costing approaches, CP reported. The office of the federal transport minister welcomed the report and said it would incorporate the findings, according to CP.
Critics seized on the numbers. Conservative MP Dan Albas called the project a “costly boondoggle” and urged the government to cancel it, CP reported, and the Canadian Taxpayers Federation made the same call. Bloc Québécois MPs raised concerns about the project being rushed. In Rigaud, Que., farmers and landowners rallied in September against the proposed route, which they fear will split farmland.
The PBO also counted benefits: 4,300 to 9,000 construction jobs and billions of dollars in economic activity during the build, according to CP. An initial business case is expected in the first half of 2027. Construction is currently projected to start around 2029-30, with the first segment, Ottawa to Montreal, opening sometime between 2035 and 2038 and the full network in the early 2040s, based on federal timelines.
Those dates explain why the debate matters to Canadians in their 20s and 30s. They are the riders who would use a three-hour Toronto-Montreal trip in middle age, and the taxpayers who would carry the debt and any overruns for decades. The PBO’s report does not settle whether Alto is worth building. It does make clear that the real price is likely higher than the number Ottawa has been using, and that the route decisions still to come, through the Shield or past Kingston, will shape the final bill.
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Sources: via The Canadian Press (insauga), CTV News, The Globe and Mail, CBC News and Todayville (Canadian Taxpayers Federation). Per-kilometre and tunnel figures are Canada News Media calculations. Photo: a VIA Rail Siemens Venture train at Fallowfield station in Ottawa (Keira Clarke, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons).
