CBC’s Vancouver anchor just said the quiet part out loud about Alto — and about his own CBC Ian Hanomansing, hosting from Vancouver, on the Toronto–Quebec City high-speed line: “For us sitting here in Vancouver, that proposed project seems awfully far away. And so should taxpayers who aren’t going to get sort of the daily or weekly or monthly benefit of that, should they be paying for it as well?” That is the whole case against Alto in one breath. A roughly 1,000 km corridor between Toronto and Quebec City. Official construction range: $60–90 billion. Parliamentary Budget Officer this week: $75–113 billion, and that is construction only. A Globe document put the 40-year all-in figure near $150 billion once operating and maintenance are counted. Design phase alone is already $3.9 billion. Rural eastern Ontario is fighting expropriation and farmland severance for a train many of them will never ride. British Columbia, the Prairies, and the Atlantic get the invoice Then the second slip, which is worse: “You talk to one expert and at the end of that interview you think to yourself, okay, that’s clearly the answer. They’re right on that. And then you go talk to somebody else. And they also sound really persuasive. And it’s almost like the last person you talk to is the one that carries the day… there’s no trick here. It’s not like they are somehow, you know, getting paid by the people who are sponsoring this rail line anyway… two very different points of view.” He is advertising a debate format as if it were a novelty. Two experts. Neither on the payroll of the Crown corporation building the line. Audence get both sides That is the minimum a public broadcaster is supposed to do on a nine-figure megaproject. The fact that a senior CBC host has to flag it — “no trick,” not bought, actually different views — is an admission that the default product is the last persuasive voice in the room, usually the one nearest Toronto and the cabinet that green-lit this under Trudeau in February 2025 Alto is not a national project. It is a corridor project priced like a national one, sold with nation-building language, and underwritten by people who will watch it on television from 4,000 kilometres away Hanomansing noticed. Most of the CBC coverage still hasn’t @brodiefenlon