Five general farm organizations are refusing to sign “collaborator” agreements with Alto, the organization planning to build a high-speed railway linking Toronto, Montreal, Quebec City and Ottawa.
“These Collaborator Agreements were the equivalent of non-disclosure agreements,” said Josh Suppan, president of National Farmers Union - Ontario. “Signing would have severely limited what we could share with our members, curtailing our ability to advocate in the best interest of food producers. Attempting to silence the voice of agriculture is not how consultations should be done.”
The five farm organizations said they are willing to talk, but it needs to be “meaningful consultation”.
The five are the NFU-O, Ontario Federation of Agriculture, Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario, L’Union des producteurs agricoles, and L’Union des Cultivateurs Franco-Ontarien.
“We view Alto as a net negative for farmers and for agricultural and environmentally-sensitive land throughout Ontario and Quebec,” said Suppan.
The estimated $90 billion budget for the Alto project will almost certainly ensure that over the next generation our public transit will become even more underfunded, said NFU-O.
Canadians cannot know the project’s true costs or financial implications, because Alto has not publicly released any verifiable cost estimates, feasibility studies, or calculations behind their much-publicized overall price tag, it said.
We have also received little evidence to support the expected ridership, or the supposed environmental and economic benefits, it said.
