Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, witnesses, for being here today.
Mr. Côté, a couple of things you said today really resonated with me. First of all, your analogy of the backbone is something that I think we Canadians need to hear, because all of us can relate to the benefits of having a backbone that holds us up. I think we need to see this in the context of the bigger vision of what it means to our country in high-speed rail, not just in single access routes like Edmonton to Calgary or Toronto to Montreal. We need to envision this from the much larger perspective.
To carry on that analogy, the backbone is only beneficial, really, when the appendages are all there to work. You spoke to Ms. Chow about the integrated networks that we would need to see. What we didn't touch on was short rail and some of the light rail, such as, for instance, in Toronto, the Scarborough rail that we have there. The integration of those projects would be absolutely critical to how all of this would work. I think that analogy is something that could be fleshed out, if we want to use that term.
One of the things that you also said, though, was that public interest in these issues is high. Could you speak about that? Have you spoken to your clients? How have they reacted to this whole endeavour on high-speed rail? Many of us have had the experience of travelling in Europe; I, for one, have had the experience both in Europe and in Japan and have seen the benefits of high-speed rail in those communities. We are neither of those communities, with our population densities spread out so far, but I wonder if could you speak a little bit about that?
Perhaps, Ms. Watts, you could talk about corridors and this whole idea of the spine. Have there been corridors identified that would, across the country, make a spine that would give us a national vision?
Mr. Côté.