The first stretch of Canada’s proposed high-speed rail network, from Montreal to Ottawa, is expected to cross approximately 1,700 properties, including at least 500 agricultural lands, the Crown corporation behind the project has told Radio-Canada.

That will require what Martin Imbleau, the president and CEO of Alto, described to Radio-Canada Québec’s Première Heure as partial acquisition of lands.

“In there, there are about 30 to 40 per cent farmers — that’s roughly 500 farmers, something like that,” Imbleau said in French last week.

The day after Imbleau’s comments, Alto spokesperson Philippe Archambault said those figures are an estimate and that the targeted properties “could be” located within the network’s future 60-metre right-of-way.

Public consultations on the high-speed rail network wrapped up late in April. Alto plans to unveil its final, more precise corridor between Ottawa and Montreal by this autumn.

When asked whether Alto had a preferred route already in mind regardless of the public consultations, a spokesperson told CBC News that Alto “deliberately asked for feedback early.”

“We are now analyzing the feedback collected in order to narrow the corridor down to a preferred alignment,” according to the statement to CBC.

‘If it turns out to be true, it’s a lot’

Michel Dignard, the vice-president of the Union des cultivateurs franco-ontariens (UCFO), said he was surprised by the figures cited by Imbleau, especially since he had the opportunity to speak with him early last week.

“This is the first time I’ve heard this. We talked at the beginning of the week and he didn’t mention this at all,” Dignard said in French.

“If it turns out to be true, it’s a lot.”

Dignard, a farmer, is worried for himself and his colleagues who have just begun the seeding season under a cloud of uncertainty.

“This is not the time to be stressing farmers about this,” he said.

Alto announced at the end of March that it would request access to private land to conduct environmental tests. The Crown corporation clarified that this does not necessarily mean the tracks will pass through the visited lands.

UCFO members are nevertheless anxious, according to Dignard.

“The calls are coming in pretty steady.… One [person] had four requests for different plots of land he owned. It’s scary.”

Another meeting scheduled

Alto is planning a 1,000-kilometre electric rail line between Toronto and Quebec City, with a price tag of between $60 and $90 billion.

The complete system is expected have a final right-of-way measuring about 60 metres in width, which Dignard said isn’t wide.

“But it depends on where they pass through a farmer’s land,” he said.

“They could go through a 100-acre field, and then there’s a 10-15 acre section that you can never use again because the other side belongs to your neighbors. That farmer is going to be penalized by losing 15 acres out of 100.”

Dignard said UCFO is scheduled to meet with Imbleau again within the next two weeks.

In its latest online updates, Alto committed to prioritizing negotiated agreements over expropriation, and said it would offer fair, long-term compensation covering land’s market value.

It also promised to preserve road access for affected farms.