US President Donald Trump took economic shots at Canada yesterday and we keep wasting billions of dollars on the Alto High-Speed Rail project set to negatively impact rural communities. What does Alto have to do with US trade? Canadian steel producers don’t make rail tracks. Alto needs 300,000 tonnes of rail steel total. We make 12 million tonnes of different steel annually. Retooling isn’t a great business case and so we would presumably import Alto rail steel from the US.
It’s time we stop this Alto vanity project from the Justin Trudeau era and start working on sensible, less destructive transportation projects. Alto puts unnecessary pressure on rural communities and businesses when we cannot afford it. These communities are good in a crisis, but the crisis we are currently fighting is one caused by our own federal government, not any caused by the US President.
The below article and podcast highlights the actions of just one family in rural Ottawa who have repeatedly helped others in times of crisis and, in the words of Wyatt McWilliams, can “make a positive out of a negative.” They could use the help of all Canadians today as they wish to stop this Alto project from destroying their communities. Please listen and share this with your friends, family and colleagues.
The ATIP documents are slow to be released, impacting my research and writing efforts. Until I have something to read, I’ll be recording podcast episodes. In addition to the video available here, you can find the podcast on Apple Podcast by searching Canadian High Speed Rail Podcast. It might take a day or so to show up on that platform.
My first interview is with Wyatt and John McWilliams. It was conducted at Navandale Farm which Wyatt owns with his wife Cheryl and his three daughters. His granddaughters are the sixth generation of McWilliamses on their farm. Their story is remarkable and illustrates just one example of how healthy rural communities can help this country thrive and practically solve real problems.
My second interview featuring another community leader located between Ottawa and Peterborough will be released shortly.
I first met Cheryl McWilliams when I needed an external DVD drive to read documents from the Privy Council’s office. I thanked her for her offer to help, we talked a bit about Alto and our mutual concerns but she did not mention much about her family. On my drive home I visited another family, also to discuss Alto. When I told them I had just come from Navandale Farm, they told me about Hay West.
Hay West Farmers Throughout the Danger Zone
On the morning of July 17, 2002 Wilfred McWilliams and his son Wyatt kicked off a quest to collect the hay available in eastern Canada and somehow get it to the Prairies to help livestock from starving during a severe drought. They did so after seeing a story on Canada AM about the drought. They worked the telephones for support. John McWilliams, other family members and community members from eastern Ontario, western Quebec and beyond quickly joined in.
In just days they rallied 1,800+ producers from eastern Canada to donate excess hay to those in need in the prairies. Many of those same farms will surely be included in the 500+ farms impacted by Alto’s land needs just between Ottawa and Montreal. The McWilliams family got support from railways, federal and provincial governments, Canadians and businesses to help. Two days after they first learned about the problem, the McWilliams family was on Parliament Hill. The Liberal Government under Jean Chretien came through and on July 19 (Wyatt’s birthday) a commitment of 20 rail cars was made to help with the mission. Thanks to the McWilliams’ quick action, compassion and determination, some 110,000 tons of the much-needed hay, as well as equipment, food and money, were shipped to farmers in Alberta and Saskatchewan. Years later, when there was a drought in the East, the prairies returned the favour.
Most of the content from that last paragraph was written by the office of the Governor General. Wyatt and his dad Wilfred both received the Governor General’s Meritorious Service Medal for their efforts in 2003. Next year is the 25th anniversary of Hay West.
Now the McWilliamses worry about their family’s future due to the Alto project. I’m grateful that they agreed to a podcast interview.
Farmers Feed Families
Ever hear the phrase “farmers feed families”? Wyatt takes that quite literally. Wyatt established the Food Aid program in partnership with the Ottawa Food Bank, which uses financial donations to purchase fresh beef for those in need. He also founded the Food Bank’s annual Food Aid Day, a major source of funding that has enabled the group to distribute more than 800,000 pounds of locally raised beef to members of the community. When I asked Wyatt about that initiative, he advised that the distribution is now nearly 2 million pounds of beef. Wyatt received the Governor General’s Meritorious Service Medal for that as well. The office of the Governor General also wrote most of this paragraph.
For all of that and much, much more, the Mayor of Ottawa Mark Sutcliffe awarded Wyatt McWilliams the Order of Ottawa just last December.
Wyatt does all this, plus runs a successful farm operation with his wife Cheryl and his daughters and granddaughters (the 6th generation of McWilliams farmers).
Oh. And I nearly forgot.
Wyatt is legally blind.
Leaders Lead
Wyatt McWilliams, and probably others in the family, should be invested into the Order of Canada for all of the people they have helped across this country. Instead they are fearful for the future of their community.
I was honoured to spend time at his farm to see the history of Hay West and learn about how farmers help their communities, often quietly and without much fanfare. Below are some of the photographs from my visit, including maps that highlight the areas in Alberta and Saskatchewan where hay was sent. If you know anyone in these communities, I’m sure they’d like to read this article and listen to this podcast.
How Alto and the Government Has Treated These Communities
Instead of respect, open communication and the sharing of information by Alto, the community of farmers that, quite literally, feed the hungry are facing the prospect of expropriation, disruption to their businesses and concern for their family’s future. Expropriations can start as soon as Alto files its initial paperwork with the Impact Assessment office - which they say will be late this year or early in 2027. They haven’t even released a business case or any of the studies they’ve already spent taxpayer money on. Land will be taken years before the government even decides if it will make the final investment in the project. Have we as a country learned absolutely nothing from the Mirabel and Pickering Airport nightmares?
This is estimated to cost between $60 and $90 billion, when far less disruptive options are available to improve transportation that have less severe impacts on infrastructure and daily mobility in rural communities. Taking these actions while showing so little care, compassion and respect to the impacted individuals, businesses and communities is completely unacceptable for a project that is supposed to be in the public interest. Alto and the Government need to re-familiarize themselves with the Public Inquiry Report for the Ottawa LRT project that tried to hammer that point home. It obviously hasn’t landed despite some companies being involved in both projects.
Leaders have a tendency to step forward in a crisis. The McWilliamses have done so again and again across decades. They will simply not let this project ruin their community. I’m grateful for people like Wyatt, John, Cheryl and many others who have the local network capable of organizing a meeting of 500 people in less than a week simply through word of mouth and paper fliers. As someone relatively new to the area, I don’t have that ability. We all contribute in our own way.
The Alto resistance movement has some parallels to Hay West. It continues to grow because various individuals across eastern Ontario and western Quebec, with different skills and networks, came together in a crisis to help in their own way. Some do research and write. Others have made songs and theatre productions. A documentary is in production. There are protests every weekend in some areas. Community discussions about Alto take place in restaurants, corner stores, community centres, churches, hockey ricks, soccer fields, rural fairs, along roadsides and at farms across these communities. That kind of grassroots organizing is hard to silence and impossible to defeat. I am thrilled that we have Wyatt, John, Cheryl and the entire McWilliams family with us on this mission.
Listen to what Wyatt and John McWilliams have to say about the Alto project. They explain just some of impacts on farm operations caused by no at-grade crossings and even offer up some ideas of better ways to spend $90 billion (healthcare, new hospitals, doctors, wild fire management, infrastructure that serves everyone, to name just a few).
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