CDPQ, Systra win bid to build high-speed rail project in Canada
P3 PUBLIC PENSION FUNDS PRIVATIZATION
February 19, 2025
Canada awarded a contract for a 1,000-kilometer (621-mile) high-speed passenger rail project between Toronto and Quebec City to a group led by the Caisse de Depot et Placement du Quebec.
Canada awarded a contract for a 1,000-kilometer (621-mile) high-speed passenger rail project between Toronto and Quebec City to a group led by the Caisse de Depot et Placement du Quebec.
QUEBEC CREDIT UNION FUNDED BY QUEBEC PENSION PLAN
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made the announcement Wednesday in Montreal. Overall costs were not disclosed, but high-level studies done by the transportation department said a high-speed rail project in the region would reach well over $65 billion (US$45.7 billion) — and it’s likely to be much higher.
The government chose a consortium named Cadence to develop, build and operate the project known as Alto. It includes CDPQ’s infrastructure unit along with engineering firms AtkinsRealis Group Inc. and Systra SA and transportation companies Groupe Keolis SAS, Air Canada and SNCF Voyageurs.
Canada has allocated $3.9 billion over the next several years to develop the project, but there’s no timeline for completion.
Proponents have been talking about high-speed rail for decades as a tool for economic development and reducing emissions. Canada is the world’s second-largest country in land area, but 60% of its 41 million people live in Ontario and Quebec and most of those are in a southern corridor — density that creates suitable conditions for rail.
But Trudeau is set to leave office next month and an election is near. A new government will be under pressure to make investments in military, security and energy infrastructure; it’s too early to say where a high-speed rail project would fit in with its priorities.
Trudeau and Transport Minister Anita Anand emphasized at a news conference that it would be hard for a future government to walk away from the contracts, or to pass up the productivity gains to the Canadian economy.
“Future governments will make their determinations about how they invest. But this investment in Canadians, which starts right now, is going to be very difficult to turn back on,” Trudeau said.
Currently, a passenger train trip between Toronto and Montreal takes about five and half hours, roughly the same time as by car. Train trips are often delayed because they use Canadian National Railway Co. tracks, on which freight has priority.
High-speed trains moving on dedicated tracks at a top speed of 185 miles per hour would cut times significantly. Toronto to Montreal would take about three hours, while Toronto to Ottawa would be a little more than two.
Stops are planned in Toronto, Peterborough, Ottawa, Montreal, Laval, Trois-Rivieres and Quebec City.
CDPQ has built an expertise with rail systems. The pension fund is currently building an $8 billion light rail system in Montreal, known as the Réseau Express Métropolitain. The pension fund undertook the 42-mile project in 2015 to link Montreal’s international airport to several suburbs. A first phase is operational, and the project is slated to finish in 2027, seven years behind schedule.
Two other groups made proposals, and the government now owns the right to use their ideas as well. The losing bidders included engineering firm Jacobs and Deutsche Bahn AG, the German rail company.
California debacle
Gilles Roucolle, author of Transformations in Mobility and Oliver Wyman’s co-head of Europe, said in an interview that the Toronto-Montreal corridor is already well-served by airlines and roads. The “stickiness effect of frequent flier programs” and the relatively low cost of road transportation must be considered before choosing the best project for this corridor, he said.
“It’s a market that is already quite well-covered competitively,” Roucolle explained. Key benefits will be the reduced door-to-door transit time and flexibility for business travelers. “If you don’t have frequency, you cannot catch the high-contribution travelers.”
A similar project under construction between San Francisco and Los Angeles is facing significant funding and political challenges.
The California High Speed Rail Authority was established in 1996, but voters took until 2008 to approve almost $10 billion of general obligation bonds for the project. Construction started seven years later. Costs have since soared to $128 billion, and about 6% of the project has not been cleared by environmental authorities.
Uncertainty remains over how the California project will be funded and whether a first 171-mile segment between Bakersfield and Merced will be commissioned between 2030 and 2033, as is the target.
The train “is the worst-managed project I think I’ve ever seen,” US President Donald Trump said last week, calling for an investigation into it.
Mathieu Dion, Bloomberg News
©2025 Bloomberg L.P.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made the announcement Wednesday in Montreal. Overall costs were not disclosed, but high-level studies done by the transportation department said a high-speed rail project in the region would reach well over $65 billion (US$45.7 billion) — and it’s likely to be much higher.
The government chose a consortium named Cadence to develop, build and operate the project known as Alto. It includes CDPQ’s infrastructure unit along with engineering firms AtkinsRealis Group Inc. and Systra SA and transportation companies Groupe Keolis SAS, Air Canada and SNCF Voyageurs.
Canada has allocated $3.9 billion over the next several years to develop the project, but there’s no timeline for completion.
Proponents have been talking about high-speed rail for decades as a tool for economic development and reducing emissions. Canada is the world’s second-largest country in land area, but 60% of its 41 million people live in Ontario and Quebec and most of those are in a southern corridor — density that creates suitable conditions for rail.
But Trudeau is set to leave office next month and an election is near. A new government will be under pressure to make investments in military, security and energy infrastructure; it’s too early to say where a high-speed rail project would fit in with its priorities.
Trudeau and Transport Minister Anita Anand emphasized at a news conference that it would be hard for a future government to walk away from the contracts, or to pass up the productivity gains to the Canadian economy.
“Future governments will make their determinations about how they invest. But this investment in Canadians, which starts right now, is going to be very difficult to turn back on,” Trudeau said.
Currently, a passenger train trip between Toronto and Montreal takes about five and half hours, roughly the same time as by car. Train trips are often delayed because they use Canadian National Railway Co. tracks, on which freight has priority.
High-speed trains moving on dedicated tracks at a top speed of 185 miles per hour would cut times significantly. Toronto to Montreal would take about three hours, while Toronto to Ottawa would be a little more than two.
Stops are planned in Toronto, Peterborough, Ottawa, Montreal, Laval, Trois-Rivieres and Quebec City.
CDPQ has built an expertise with rail systems. The pension fund is currently building an $8 billion light rail system in Montreal, known as the Réseau Express Métropolitain. The pension fund undertook the 42-mile project in 2015 to link Montreal’s international airport to several suburbs. A first phase is operational, and the project is slated to finish in 2027, seven years behind schedule.
Two other groups made proposals, and the government now owns the right to use their ideas as well. The losing bidders included engineering firm Jacobs and Deutsche Bahn AG, the German rail company.
California debacle
Gilles Roucolle, author of Transformations in Mobility and Oliver Wyman’s co-head of Europe, said in an interview that the Toronto-Montreal corridor is already well-served by airlines and roads. The “stickiness effect of frequent flier programs” and the relatively low cost of road transportation must be considered before choosing the best project for this corridor, he said.
“It’s a market that is already quite well-covered competitively,” Roucolle explained. Key benefits will be the reduced door-to-door transit time and flexibility for business travelers. “If you don’t have frequency, you cannot catch the high-contribution travelers.”
A similar project under construction between San Francisco and Los Angeles is facing significant funding and political challenges.
The California High Speed Rail Authority was established in 1996, but voters took until 2008 to approve almost $10 billion of general obligation bonds for the project. Construction started seven years later. Costs have since soared to $128 billion, and about 6% of the project has not been cleared by environmental authorities.
Uncertainty remains over how the California project will be funded and whether a first 171-mile segment between Bakersfield and Merced will be commissioned between 2030 and 2033, as is the target.
The train “is the worst-managed project I think I’ve ever seen,” US President Donald Trump said last week, calling for an investigation into it.
Mathieu Dion, Bloomberg News
©2025 Bloomberg L.P.
Train delayed: A timeline of high-speed rail projects in Canada
February 19, 2025
New passenger trains, left, sit on the tracks at the Via Rail Canada Maintenance Centre in Montreal, Thursday, Feb. 22, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christinne Muschi
MONTREAL — Bold plans and promises for high-speed rail lines in Canada stretch as far back as Pierre Trudeau’s government. So far, none have come to pass.
Some two dozen studies, market assessments, special reports and task force papers have been carried out since 1984, according to the High Speed Rail Canada platform, an online resource on the subject.
Now, the Liberal government’s announcement of a high-speed project set to connect Toronto and Quebec City — complete with $3.9 billion in fresh funding and selection of a consortium to design, build and run the route — go further than any previous attempt.
Here’s a look at some of the key dates in previous attempts for faster rail travel:
1971
A Canadian Transport Commission study in 1970 takes a hard look at high-speed rail between Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto. But it finds that “TurboTrains” offer the best way to improve passenger service, “maximizing the potential” of existing tracks rather than upgrading rail infrastructure at high cost.
Introduced a couple of years earlier, the gas turbine-powered Turbos were technically capable of 270 km/h speeds. They never broke 160 km/h on Canadian rail lines, however, meaning they fell short of what’s typically considered the high-speed threshold. The lower speed owed to tight turns, at-grade road crossings — where slowdowns are required — and the fact that the speedy coaches ran on the same tracks as lumbering freight trains, which had priority — and still do.
Via abandoned the Turbo in 1982 and replaced it with conventional, diesel-electric powered Bombardier trains that topped out at about 160 km/h.
1981
After pledging to create a nationwide carrier akin to Amtrak in the U.S. during the 1974 election campaign, then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau asks Via Rail to figure out if there is a future for high-speed rail in Canada. In 1984, the Crown corporation notes its “promise” for revenues and ridership, citing networks such as Japan’s bullet train to France’s Train à Grande Vitesse. (Canada remains the only Group of Seven country without a high-speed network.)
“There is little doubt that consideration of high-speed rail will be a key part of longer-range national plans for modernizing Canada‘s passenger railway system,” states the 1984 report. Longer-range indeed. Seven months later, the two-decade Liberal reign in Ottawa ends and more detailed plans fail to materialize under Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservatives.
1995
“There have been many studies of the potential application of high-speed rail to the Québec-Windsor Corridor,” reads an 89-page report from Transport Canada — from 1995. It concludes that a 300 km/h line is pricey but feasible, with Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto as the “best scenario.” It predicts revenues would hit $1.5 billion in 1993 dollars, or about $2.8 billion today, accounting for inflation.
Despite an endorsement from both prime minister Jean Chretien and Quebec premier Lucien Bouchard — bitter adversaries on Quebec sovereignty — the report goes on to gather dust on a shelf.
2002
Yet another Via report revives high-speed hopes. It lays out a federal project dubbed ViaFast to cut travel times — by half in some cases — along the Windsor-Quebec City corridor: to two hours and 15 minutes between Toronto and Ottawa; to one hour and 15 minutes from Ottawa to Montreal. But Paul Martin’s successor Liberal government scraps the undertaking.
2017
In Ontario, then-premier Kathleen Wynne announces plans for a high-speed line between Toronto and London, Ont., by 2025. The provincial Liberals commit $11 billion to the effort in their 2018 budget, less than three months before Doug Ford’s Conservatives sweep to power. The following year, his government’s first budget freezes capital funding and halts plans for the tracks.
2024
Discussion of a bullet train between Calgary and Edmonton has bubbled up periodically in Alberta since 2011. That line as well as commuter rails for both cities form part of the government’s goal of a provincewide passenger rail network, with spikes in the ground as early as 2027.
Premier Danielle Smith announces in April the government’s intention to hammer out a 15-year master plan by the summer of 2025. No routes have yet been announced.
2025
The federal government said on Feb. 19 it would move forward with the next phase of building a high-speed rail network between Quebec City and Toronto.
The Liberal government said the planned rail network — which is expected to take several years to design and build — will be 100 per cent electric, span approximately 1,000 kilometres, and reach speeds of up to 300 kilometres an hour. The route would include stations in Toronto, Peterborough, Ottawa, Montréal, Laval, Trois-Rivières and Quebec City.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 19, 2025.
Christopher Reynolds, The Canadian Press
MONTREAL — Bold plans and promises for high-speed rail lines in Canada stretch as far back as Pierre Trudeau’s government. So far, none have come to pass.
Some two dozen studies, market assessments, special reports and task force papers have been carried out since 1984, according to the High Speed Rail Canada platform, an online resource on the subject.
Now, the Liberal government’s announcement of a high-speed project set to connect Toronto and Quebec City — complete with $3.9 billion in fresh funding and selection of a consortium to design, build and run the route — go further than any previous attempt.
Here’s a look at some of the key dates in previous attempts for faster rail travel:
1971
A Canadian Transport Commission study in 1970 takes a hard look at high-speed rail between Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto. But it finds that “TurboTrains” offer the best way to improve passenger service, “maximizing the potential” of existing tracks rather than upgrading rail infrastructure at high cost.
Introduced a couple of years earlier, the gas turbine-powered Turbos were technically capable of 270 km/h speeds. They never broke 160 km/h on Canadian rail lines, however, meaning they fell short of what’s typically considered the high-speed threshold. The lower speed owed to tight turns, at-grade road crossings — where slowdowns are required — and the fact that the speedy coaches ran on the same tracks as lumbering freight trains, which had priority — and still do.
Via abandoned the Turbo in 1982 and replaced it with conventional, diesel-electric powered Bombardier trains that topped out at about 160 km/h.
1981
After pledging to create a nationwide carrier akin to Amtrak in the U.S. during the 1974 election campaign, then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau asks Via Rail to figure out if there is a future for high-speed rail in Canada. In 1984, the Crown corporation notes its “promise” for revenues and ridership, citing networks such as Japan’s bullet train to France’s Train à Grande Vitesse. (Canada remains the only Group of Seven country without a high-speed network.)
“There is little doubt that consideration of high-speed rail will be a key part of longer-range national plans for modernizing Canada‘s passenger railway system,” states the 1984 report. Longer-range indeed. Seven months later, the two-decade Liberal reign in Ottawa ends and more detailed plans fail to materialize under Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservatives.
1995
“There have been many studies of the potential application of high-speed rail to the Québec-Windsor Corridor,” reads an 89-page report from Transport Canada — from 1995. It concludes that a 300 km/h line is pricey but feasible, with Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto as the “best scenario.” It predicts revenues would hit $1.5 billion in 1993 dollars, or about $2.8 billion today, accounting for inflation.
Despite an endorsement from both prime minister Jean Chretien and Quebec premier Lucien Bouchard — bitter adversaries on Quebec sovereignty — the report goes on to gather dust on a shelf.
2002
Yet another Via report revives high-speed hopes. It lays out a federal project dubbed ViaFast to cut travel times — by half in some cases — along the Windsor-Quebec City corridor: to two hours and 15 minutes between Toronto and Ottawa; to one hour and 15 minutes from Ottawa to Montreal. But Paul Martin’s successor Liberal government scraps the undertaking.
2017
In Ontario, then-premier Kathleen Wynne announces plans for a high-speed line between Toronto and London, Ont., by 2025. The provincial Liberals commit $11 billion to the effort in their 2018 budget, less than three months before Doug Ford’s Conservatives sweep to power. The following year, his government’s first budget freezes capital funding and halts plans for the tracks.
2024
Discussion of a bullet train between Calgary and Edmonton has bubbled up periodically in Alberta since 2011. That line as well as commuter rails for both cities form part of the government’s goal of a provincewide passenger rail network, with spikes in the ground as early as 2027.
Premier Danielle Smith announces in April the government’s intention to hammer out a 15-year master plan by the summer of 2025. No routes have yet been announced.
2025
The federal government said on Feb. 19 it would move forward with the next phase of building a high-speed rail network between Quebec City and Toronto.
The Liberal government said the planned rail network — which is expected to take several years to design and build — will be 100 per cent electric, span approximately 1,000 kilometres, and reach speeds of up to 300 kilometres an hour. The route would include stations in Toronto, Peterborough, Ottawa, Montréal, Laval, Trois-Rivières and Quebec City.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 19, 2025.
Christopher Reynolds, The Canadian Press
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