Via’s Alto subsidiary has finalized terms with a consortium to “co-develop” plans for a dedicated passenger rail line between Toronto and Quebec City, it announced. The Cadence group, which also includes CDPQ, Air Canada and affiliates of the French national railway, was revealed as the favoured bidder in February. (The Logic)

Talking point: Cutting pollution and travel times were selling points in the rail revamp’s earlier stages. Now, as Canada fights a trade war with the U.S., Alto CEO Martin Imbleau adds that construction would use vast quantities of Canadian steel, aluminum, copper and concrete, in an effort whose cost he now estimates at $60 billion to $90 billion. “It’s a project for us, by us,” he said in an interview. The contract is not timed to an expected election call this weekend, Imbleau said, but in any event a future government, at the end of a design process that might take five years, could decide not to proceed with construction.