Transport committee  I would agree with Mr. Paddon. I don't think I have anything to add to that.

Transport committee  We haven't done any work in that area. I personally come at the issue from a kind of commercial or economics angle, so I wouldn't be able to comment on the technical issues. My comment from a commercial angle is that the obstacles of making this big leap are enormous. I think they've just been summarized.

Transport committee  I have two comments on that. First of all, your point is excellent. That's why we believe that the vision's important but the evaluation of the option is critical, right? An evaluation takes account of what the alternatives are and what we expect the alternatives to be for passengers.

Transport committee  Thank you. I'm not sure we are in a situation where there isn't a vision. First of all, just factually, we have the continental gateway initiative, which is currently coming up to its results. This fall they will announce the results of this strategy that brings together Ontario, Quebec, and the federal government.

Transport committee  I can't say that we've studied the impact of any particular option on the airports or airlines. We haven't. But what I can say is that it is extremely important to ensure very good connectivity with the key hubs and the key modes. In fact, I think that probably the viability of a lot of the options that you may be considering eventually will depend on where we're able to get traffic.

Transport committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Tweed. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to address you today. We at the Conference Board believe the time is right to move forward on the development of high-speed rail in Canada on the different corridors that we've been talking about: Calgary-Edmonton, as well as Quebec City-Windsor.