Expropriation again? Mirabel farmers fear they may be forced out by high-speed rail project
His grandparents on both sides were displaced by the Mirabel airport construction, and now Christian Cardinal fears history is about to be repeated with the proposed Alto high-speed rail project.
Cardinal, a third-generation farmer, is among hundreds who find themselves on a list of land that could be expropriated to make way for the $90-billion high-speed rail project that will eventually link Quebec City to Toronto.
His grandfather’s farm was expropriated in 1969 to make way for the Mirabel airport project. His father, Marcel, bought back that land in 1987 after leasing it for nearly two decades. The farm passed on to Christian Cardinal and his brother Sylvain in 2020 and grows corn, soya and other grains.
Cardinal’s maternal grandparents’ property was also expropriated, but they never got their land back and had to move out because their land was located where the runways of the airport now stand.
Planned to be among the largest airports in the world, 40,000 hectares of prime farmland were purchased as part of the Mirabel airport project. However, the airport never lived up to its potential and as a result much of the land was sold back to farmers in the 1980s by the Mulroney government.
That expropriation was a sore point for local farmers, who protested for years about the lack of consultation. About 10,000 people were displaced by the mass expropriation, making it the largest migration of people in the country’s history after the Acadian expulsion of the 1700s.
“To have a white elephant like the Mirabel airport scares us again,” Cardinal said.
Cardinal is facing the possibility of having a rail corridor bordered by fences passing through his farm in the not-to-distant future. That would put a damper on his plans to leave a heritage to the future generation.
“I was lucky enough to have had my parents and grandparents allow us to continue this job, so I’d like to be able to do it for my kids as well,” Cardinal said.
The rail project was given a conditional green light late last year for the Montreal-Ottawa portion. Alto, a wholly owned subsidiary of Via Rail, is now in the process of conducting consultations and examining the corridor with a goal to begin construction on the first phase in 2029. The final route is expected to be determined by the end of this year.
Although the company will only need a 60-metre-wide corridor, its potential route has identified areas of up to 10 kilometres of width. That means hundreds of farms are facing the potential of having to sell part or all of their land.
“The impacts of this will be huge,” said Martin Caron, the president of Union des producteurs agricoles UPA. “Farmers will be cut off from their lands by a 60-metre corridor that will be fenced in. Other train projects allow farmers to cross over and get to the rest of their land. That’s the biggest difference here.
“Our people in Mirabel have already lived through this, so, naturally, there is a lot of anxiety around this project.”
Adding to the anxiety, Caron said, the federal government recently enacted a law that would make it far easier for Alto to expropriate landowners without having to follow the traditional legal recourse.
Cardinal explained that being cut off from part of his farm will make his work unmanageable.
“If they just take 60 metres, this means we would have to drive around the fence to get to an access point and get to the other side of our farm,” he said. “And it’s not just once or twice per day that we would have to access that part of the land, it could be 40 to 50 times.”
Earlier this year, Mirabel Mayor Roxanne Therrien tabled a brief with the federal government urging it to insist on Alto using land slightly farther north that is already owned by the federal government.
“We’re urging the federal government to use the federal land that’s already part of the Mirabel airport zone,” Therrien said in a statement. “The city is convinced that this option would minimize the impact on citizens and growers.”
She’s also urging Alto to build a station in Mirabel, which would serve as an intermodal station linking with the St-Jérôme commuter train line.
For its part, the UPA is joining forces with its counterpart in Ontario, urging the federal government to cancel the project outright.
“It brings (no benefit) to the agricultural domain, and it’s doubtful that it will be economically viable,” he said. “We don’t know the price of the ticket and how many people would take it. There are a lot of questions, and we’re wondering why other options weren’t explored like a high-frequency rail project that would be a bit slower but wouldn’t have fences on either side.”
The opposition Conservatives in Ottawa are also calling on the federal government to cancel the project. They say the government has given Alto extraordinary powers to purchase land without allowing those targeted to have recourse to a fair third party that would adjudicate disputes. More than that, they say this is a project that Canadians can’t afford.
“We feel the government hasn’t done a cost-benefit analysis on this project; this is $90 billion we don’t have,” said Dan Albus, the shadow minister for transport for the Conservatives. “We think if the government wants to get people out of their cars, there are other ways to do it. We believe this project is ill-conceived and ill-designed.”
Cardinal agrees that the project should be axed.
“I don’t see the need to spend so many billions of dollars on such a project,” Cardinal said. “I feel like this will be leaving a large debt to our children and grandchildren.”
He added that instead of leaving a bill to future generations, he prefers to be able to keep his land and pass that on to his children and grandchildren.
Speaking for Alto, Crystal Jongeward said the company is committed to coming up with fair agreements for landowners.
“Where property rights are required for the project, owners will be compensated at market value for the property being acquired, as well as for potential losses and reasonable third-party fees incurred,” Jongeward wrote in an emailed statement. “As part of a fair and equitable acquisition process, Alto will conduct formal appraisals and consider a range of factors when determining a final settlement offer, including the physical condition of the property and any renovations or improvements that have been made. Each property and its circumstances will be assessed on a case-by-case basis.”
A spokesperson for Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon did not return a request for comment.
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