For several decades, VIA Rail Canada Inc. (VIA Rail), a Crown corporation created in 1977, has had limited ability to improve service because most of its trains operate on tracks shared with freight trains. VIA Rail relies heavily on funding from the Government of Canada to finance its operations. Since its creation, it has never achieved financial independence or profitability.
On 19 February 2025, the federal government announced the launch of a high-speed rail (HSR) project between Québec City and Toronto, with planned stops in Québec City, Trois-Rivières, Laval, Montréal, Ottawa, Peterborough and Toronto. The HSR project will run on approximately 1,000 kilometres of electrified track dedicated primarily to passenger service. The project will also have to meet various regulatory requirements relating to the environment, safety and accessibility, among other matters, and will be developed in consultation with communities and Indigenous peoples.
The HSR project will be built as a public–private partnership between Alto, a Crown corporation initially created under the name VIA HFR – VIA TGF Inc. in 2022, and the Cadence consortium, which was selected as the private partner in February 2025. The project is currently in the development phase, although several aspects of the project, such as the final alignment, departure frequency, cost and timeframe for entry into service, should be known by the end of this phase. That said, in December 2025, the federal government announced that construction of the Montréal–Ottawa segment is expected to begin in 2029.
Canada does not currently have any HSR lines, but they have grown in popularity in recent decades, particularly in Europe and Asia. HSR is more expensive to build than conventional rail since this type of railway requires additional infrastructure designed to support high peak speeds of around 300 kilometres per hour. Alto has indicated that “preliminary working assumptions” suggest construction costs of between $60 billion and $90 billion. The cost estimate will be refined gradually as expenditures for land acquisition, support infrastructure and rail structure become more specific.
For the HSR project between Québec City and Toronto to be financially self‑sustaining, travellers in the corridor will need to adopt HSR for their intercity travel. Alto argues that with the HSR, annual travel demand could reach 24 million intercity trips in the corridor by 2055 and up to 43 million by 2084, significantly more than the annual average of 4.5 million for the entire VIA Rail network in its 48 years of operation.
Read the full text of the HillStudy: VIA Rail: Its Past, Its Present and the High-Speed Rail Project
By Geneviève Gosselin, Sarah Houle and Dillan Theckedath, Library of Parliament