‘We are looking for allies’: Rural voices of ‘No Alto’ movement make tracks into Kingston for support

There is mounting fear and frustration that Kingstonians aren’t getting enough information in advance of crucial decisions to potentially build a high-speed rail (HSR) line in the region.

Alto, the Crown Corporation overseeing the estimated $60 billion to $90 billion project linking Quebec City and Toronto, announced in late June that Kingston would be considered for a station along the dedicated 1,000-kilometre HSR line.

But since then, critics say local residents have been kept in the dark, partly because the City of Kingston has signed a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) to further its discussions with Alto.

The decision was made without any political debate or vote by City Council.

Critics argue that signing an NDA was a mistake as it erodes public transparency with the project.

“With Kingston, they are being very short-sighted in signing an NDA,” asserted Katie Koopman, Co-Committee Lead of Save South Frontenac (SSF), a grassroots ‘No Alto’ group that’s worried about the potential impact of a high-speed rail line cutting through South Frontenac Township.

While Koopman said she understands the need to conduct high-level business discussions between the City and Alto, she argued that residents may not know the full impact of those talks until it’s too late.

“Signing an NDA could very well bite the city in its arse and they’re not prepared for it,” she bluntly explained in an interview with Kingstonist on Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2026.

Koopman questioned, for example, whether the City and its taxpayers will have to assume any extra costs outside of the actual rail line build – such as providing new roads and extra transportation to a possible Kingston Alto station – and whether any rural lands within city limits will be impacted by a track corridor.

“The leadership needs to be extremely careful that they aren’t putting their own residents at risk of expropriation,” she said.

Koopman also warned that some of the amenities that draw city residents to the rural areas may be at risk, listing strawberry farms, corn mazes, and hiking trails as just a few of the services that could be impacted by the HSR’s future corridor.

Further north, Paula Banks, a local Councillor with the Township of Rideau Lakes, believes NDAs stifle community input.

“NDAs are a way to put a gag order and it is turning municipalities on each other and that is the purpose of these things,” Banks said.

She also urged Kingston residents to think about the 100-kilometre-long rural corridor to bring high-speed train service to eastern Ontario’s largest city, and the potential lasting impact a dedicated rail line with trains whizzing by at up to 300 km/h could have on farmland, small communities, and local roads.

“I think they have turned their back on their rural neighbours… and Kingston just basically said it’s okay to put a fence down the middle of Rideau Lakes,” Banks expressed in a September 8 interview with Kingstonist.

Alto has not formally announced where its HSR tracks will be located in eastern Ontario, but Banks said her township’s geographical location likely makes it a prime corridor.

She worries that building a 60-metre-wide fenced-off train corridor could also jeopardize the Rideau Canal’s designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which she described as the heart of Rideau Lakes with Newboro, Portland, Jones Falls, Chaffey’s Locks, and other villages that follow the historic canal.

Banks said it’s not too late for Kingston to change course.

“I am hoping that Kingston councillors look around at what the damage this is going to do to their neighbours,” she emphasized. “Just because you signed an NDA doesn’t mean you have to commit to Alto.”

Unlike Kingston’s relatively quiet decision to sign a non-disclosure agreement, Rideau Lakes councillors are scheduled to hold an open meeting and vote on Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026, to consider whether the township should sign a similar NDA with Alto, Banks added.

She was doubtful her council would allow an NDA to proceed, especially since Alto hasn’t responded to several questions that politicians first raised in March.

Among those questions was how many “connectors” – bridges, underpasses, or level crossings – would be needed or provided if a train line cuts through their sprawling rural township in order to avoid lengthy detours for farmers, school buses, and other local residents.

Even though Rideau Lakes is not angling for an HSR station like Kingston is, Alto indicated to the municipality in August that signing an NDA could mean “mitigation” benefits to the municipality, such as veering the train line away from a subdivision, said Banks, who is currently a Rideau Lakes mayoral candidate.

“If they’re not going to mitigate for Toronto – for this [HSR track] to go to downtown Toronto – do you really believe they’re going to mitigate for a little subdivision in Rideau Lakes? I don’t believe that for one minute.”

Kingston Mayor Bryan Paterson strongly defended the City’s decision to sign an NDA earlier this summer in order to advance discussions for a train station.

“Every city that has a station, or has been promised a station, has to have those technical high-level discussions between their city staff and Alto staff,” Paterson told Kingstonist in a recent interview.

Kingston lobbied hard to be included as a stop on the HSR line – touted as the largest infrastructure project in the nation’s history – after the City and its partners pressed the economic benefits to the region while allowing Alto to tap into a larger customer base of students and other regional travellers who would otherwise be bypassed.

“So, really, that NDA was just to allow for a Kingston station to become a reality. So, that’s the extent of it,” Paterson argued. “No decisions are being made behind closed doors.”

Paterson said he “fully supports transparency, 100 per cent,” and the NDA won’t change that.

“The NDA was only to allow some very technical discussions between some of our city planning and transportation staff and the Alto team about what a station in Kingston could look like. That’s it. That’s absolutely as far as that NDA goes,” the mayor maintained.

He added: “I made it very clear that there should be no decisions made, and certainly no further discussions on location without everything coming out publicly for full community input.”

Paterson also previously insisted Kingston would not abandon South Frontenac’s needs in its push to be added to Alto’s map.

But months after federal Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon promised to study a potential Kingston stop between Ottawa and Peterborough – the only two previously-listed cities for HSR stations in eastern Ontario – Koopman worries Kingstonians are still being kept in the dark.

At the very least, she said, Alto needs to hold its own public consultation in Kingston as it has in every other city that is getting an HSR stop.

So far, Kingston is the only city not to have that direction consultation with the train builders, she noted.

“How is it that Alto can potentially create a station in Kingston without Kingston residents having the same consultation that the other cities receiving a station would have?” Koopman posed.

She said it points to Alto’s ongoing lack of transparency: “At this point, we are nine months into a very long list of how not to engage communities.”

According to Alto’s project website, additional consultations are planned in the fall of 2026 and early 2027, but it’s unclear if a specific Kingston public meeting is on the list.

When asked about any progress in Kingston’s private discussions with Alto, Paterson indicated he’s heard no updates since the initial announcement in June.

“I have no further updates on that. I really don’t know,” he said. “At this point I’m sure that there are discussions that are happening.”

Opponents within the rural regions north of Kingston are hoping to persuade some city residents to join their movement. Members of SSF, Stone Mills Against Alto, Rideau Lakes Against Alto, and Tyendinaga Landowners Coalition invited Banks and others to speak at a Kingston event, billed as a ‘No Alto Kingston outreach’ community meeting, on Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026, at Royal Canadian Legion Branch 560 on 734 Montreal Street.

The multi-speaker event is slated to begin around 5 p.m. and will be followed by a question-and-answer session.

“We are looking for allies in Kingston… beyond our own township borders,” Koopman explained.

Alto is currently examining two northern alignments near Highway 7 and a southern corridor dipping close to Kingston and Belleville’s rural areas.

Koopman acknowledged that Kingston councillors have already endorsed a motion supporting a so-called fourth option – building an HSR line along the 401 corridor that’s tied to a Kingston station – in order to minimize disruption to their rural neighbours.

The 401-corridor option was proposed by Kingston and its partners, not Alto.

However, Koopman called it “the lessor of the four evils,” as the line would still have to veer south through farmlands, communities, and environmentally sensitive or culturally significant areas to reach Kingston.

Paterson said next steps as to exactly where the HSR corridor will track and whether Kingston will get a station are very much up to the Alto.

“It’s their project and they’re the ones in the driver’s seat… so we’ll have to wait and see what we hear next from them,” he said.