Event Date: September 30, 2026 - 1:00pm to 2:30pm
Location: online

Registration: Google Forms

Presented by CIPS, the International Political Economy Network (IPEN), and The Ecological Political Economy of High-Speed Rail in Canada Academic Study Group

Canada recently announced plans to build Alto, a high-speed rail line connecting Toronto to Quebec City, and cities in between. The project has been pitched as a nation-building infrastructure project that will link Canada’s largest metropolitan areas, contribute to economic growth, and bolster tourism, all while reducing congestion and bringing down transport greenhouse gas emissions. Yet recent polling suggests Canadians are divided on the idea: Some point to it as a costly endeavour that will primarily serve wealthier business travellers, and fail to effect much change with respect to the environment. Proponents, however, say it is high time Canada joined the rest of the G7 nations in having a high-speed rail line.

What does Canada have to learn from other national experience with high-speed rail abroad? What political economic conditions can help make high-speed rail a success? What factors may lead to cost overruns and project failure? This Zoom Webinar features experts on international high-speed rail cases – such as in Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Spain – all of which hold valuable lessons for Canada’s political leaders and informed citizens alike.

The event doubles as an informal launch event for the new book: The Political Economies of High-Speed Rail: A Global View (Taylor & Francis). 

Speakers include:

• Anthony Perl (Simon Fraser University); Moderator
• Andy Goetz (University of Denver): Lessons from the US HSR Case
• Geoffrey Dudley (University of Oxford): Lessons from the UK Case.
• Jessamyn Abel (Pennsylvania State University): Lessons from the Japanese HSR Case
• Natalia Buier (Complutense University of Madrid) – Lessons from the Spanish HSR Case

Please note that this event is online only.

Speakers:

Anthony Perl is a Professor of Urban Studies and Political Science at Simon Fraser University, holding degrees from Harvard University and the University of Toronto. An internationally recognized expert on transportation, urban planning, and environmental policy, he has authored or co-edited eleven books—including Transport Revolutions and Big Moves—and published extensively across leading scholarly journals. Alongside his academic research, Perl has advised governments across North America, Europe, and Australia, served on the board of VIA Rail Canada and the Vancouver City Planning Commission, and chaired key rail committees for the U.S. Transportation Research Board.

Geoffrey Dudley is an Honorary Research Associate in the Transport Studies Unit at the University of Oxford. He has a special interest in the governance of transport, and examining the dynamics of policy change.

Andrew R. Goetz is a Professor in the Department of Geography & the Environment at the University of Denver, USA. His research areas include transport geography, urban studies, planning, and sustainability with a focus on transport infrastructure investment in air transport, urban transport and high-speed rail.  

Jessamyn R. Abel is a professor of Asian Studies and History at Pennsylvania State University. She is a historian of modern Japan with interests in democratization, technology, infrastructure, sports, and international relations. Her most recent book, Dream Super-Express: A Cultural History of the World’s First Bullet Train, views the 1960s through the window of the Tōkaidō Shinkansen, showing how infrastructure operates beyond its intended use as a means of transportation to perform cultural and sociological functions. Her current research focuses on postwar Japan to examine the role of public institutions in democratization.

Natalia Buier is a Ramón y Cajal researcher at the Complutense University of Madrid, whose work focuses on the political economy of infrastructure, resources, and socio-ecological change. She is the author of Frontiers of Appropriation: Spanish High-Speed Rail and Capitalist Environment-Making and co-editor of Agricultural Extractivism in the Mediterranean Region: A Socioecological View (Palgrave Macmillan, 2026) alongside Susana Narotzky and Theodora Vetta. Her current research centers on a historical ethnography of groundwater depletion in Southwestern Spain.