Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our witnesses.
That is the direction I was going to go in: the consequences for the other modes of travel. The airline industry, many will suggest, is having a difficult go of it. I think one of the effects of moving in this direction would be the change in preference between modes.
I want to make sure we're comparing apples to apples when we consider feasibility. I'm just thinking of some rough numbers. The population of Europe is estimated this year to be 830 million. We're about 35 million. Greater London is 7.5 million, and England is 51 million. Greater Paris is 11.2 million and France 62 million. Madrid is 5.2 million, Spain 40 million. It almost seems like a no-brainer that there would be a strong case not only for the constructability of rail, but for the ongoing operational cost of passenger rail.
If we were to be honest around the table, I don't think there's a lack of desire on the constructability side of it. The question, I think, for feasibility is on the operational side, particularly down in the city of Windsor. Greater Windsor is 350,000 people. I can't even get an on-demand stop from VIA in Belle River, and I've been trying for years for it.
If we're looking at constructing a high-speed rail corridor, are we not, at least essentially in the early stages, talking about the area between Toronto and Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal—somewhere in that triangle? I say that also to suggest, in terms of our latest budgetary moves with respect to trying to bring down the time travel in that particular corridor, that there's probably some sensibility about why we're doing that. There is a case to be made for it there, at least initially.
Do you have any comments on that?