Report

Canada’s Eastern Corridor High-Speed Rail: A Cost Analysis using Global Data

Oct 1, 2026

This report responds to a request from the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance to provide an analysis of the Government’s proposed high-speed rail line between Toronto and Quebec City.

Highlights

PBO estimates place the construction costs for the baseline route for Alto’s Eastern Corridor high-speed rail (HSR) project, excluding a potential Kingston amendment, to be between $75 billion and $113 billion.
PBO baseline estimates further assume that planning and regulatory approvals for the Alto HSR route follow past European project experience. In contrast, HSR projects in the U.K. and U.S. displayed significantly higher construction costs – likely reflecting difficulties with land acquisition, permitting, litigation, design changes and project-management weaknesses. Recent federal legislation has been adopted to mitigate these risks in Canada. The robustness of these provisions before Canadian courts, as well as their inherent effectiveness in targeting sources of cost escalation, will be a key success factor in mitigating significant project risks of the baseline estimate.
PBO further estimates that construction would provide a modest economic stimulus; for the initial Ottawa–Montréal segment, construction is estimated to increase real GDP annually by about $1.8 billion in 2029 and $2.0 billion by 2033, with employment gains rising from approximately 4,300 to 9,000 jobs during the construction period.