Evidence of meeting #35 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was alberta.
A recording is available from Parliament.
7:25 p.m.
President, Alberta High-Speed Rail
You would have to go only two miles north or south to find an overpass. It would depend on the locale and the needs of the farmers.
One question that comes up has to do with farmers' access. It's the same thing on the Trans-Canada Highway west of Banff, where they have these two huge culverts above the road to allow wildlife to cross the highway. You can easily do the same thing or even put a concrete one up. I saw this in a picture at the conference today.
7:25 p.m.
President, Alberta High-Speed Rail
It would be a dedicated, closed strip of land.
7:25 p.m.
NDP
Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT
What is the freight movement like between Edmonton and Calgary?
7:25 p.m.
President, Alberta High-Speed Rail
It's somewhere around ten trains a day at present, but it was much higher than that when the economy was going good. With us running on our separate line and CP running on their freight line, we are not interfering with each other's train schedules.
7:25 p.m.
NDP
Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT
I see your plan, but I don't see you looking for any incremental measure. Your plan is to put in a completely dedicated line. You're not interested in ramping up the passenger service that could exist on present lines.
7:25 p.m.
President, Alberta High-Speed Rail
The Alberta government commissioned a market assessment study. Transport Economics & Management Systems, together with another company, did the study, and it confirmed that the ridership will support this line. In Alberta, there is a law that prevents any private company from getting a subsidy or a guarantee from the province of Alberta. We are going to be running this project as a profit venture.
We will succeed, and we'll run it as a profit venture. Many of the high-speed lines around the world are actually producing profits, but, because they are a part of national railway system, this point gets lost in the overall picture of rail service in the country. This is operating profit.
7:25 p.m.
NDP
7:25 p.m.
President, EKOS Research Associates Inc.
It was done for this conference in an effort to summarize what the public was thinking.
7:25 p.m.
NDP
Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT
We've heard high numbers with respect to a dedicated rail line through the Quebec City-Windsor corridor. It takes your breath away, when you look at it. We talked with Amtrak, and they told us about the huge costs involved in speeding up the times between Boston and New York by half an hour. They're investing tens of billions of dollars to accomplish this. Would you think that the larger numbers would have to be presented? Would that scare away some of the support that you've seen?
7:25 p.m.
President, EKOS Research Associates Inc.
That's a good question, and we did try to test that crudely. We asked the question up front without providing any information. Throughout the survey we would inform the people that there would be profound costs in the billions of dollars, and that these would be shouldered by taxpayers. We found that there was only a modest decline in the most-enthusiastic-support category. People who shifted made up 15% of the sample. This is out of the 65% who at the outset said that they strongly supported it. There were only 9% opposed, and only 2% were strongly opposed. That dropped down by about 12 points. We didn't find that there was any increase in opposition. Of course, people would always prefer it to be free, definitely.
7:30 p.m.
NDP
Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT
I think it might be a bit of Parkinson's law--you know, the guy who did the study that showed that most people only spend time on money within their own fiscal framework, and as the sums get larger they simply can't comprehend.
If you presented it to them in a different fashion, saying, “This is what you as a taxpayer are going to have to pay each year to cover the cost of this”, do you think that would have...?
7:30 p.m.
President, EKOS Research Associates Inc.
In this particular study, I haven't done it that way, but I have done that in many studies. We've looked at literally hundreds of public policy initiatives, and there's no question. You're right. The bigger the ticket, the more for me, the more resistance. But you start out with such an enormous amount of headroom in terms of public support for this.
I've also looked at how support sheds as a debate ensues about a real issue. It's so strong to begin with here that even allowing for the very predictable decline in support as these kinds of issues become more real, there would be an enormously strong constituency in support of this.
It was also notable that the support for this was strongest among the most educated and sophisticated portions of the public, and those were the travelling public. I wouldn't discount it as a Pollyanna-ish, “That would be great”. It was the things that people said they thought about. They understood that it would cost lots of dollars. In fact, they weren't nearly as sanguine about the fact that this would be run on a cost-recovery basis in the future. They still said they thought it would be a good idea.
That “yes” would go in a real public debate. That would continue to decline, but I still think you would find a solid majority of Canadians. Let me put it this way. I've come across very few examples of public initiatives that we haven't tried, that we've tested through time, and some that we have tried that scored this well with the public.
7:30 p.m.
Conservative
Lois Brown Conservative Newmarket—Aurora, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, gentlemen, for being here.
First of all, I want to tell you that I do take the train. I have ridden high-speed rail both in Europe and Japan and have had very favourable experiences on both.
I want to correct the record for something that was said earlier. It was said earlier in the discussion that this was the first time that we've been introduced to the Cascadia concept. I would just like to remind the committee that for those of us who did go to Washington and were participants in those discussions, we were introduced to the Cascadia train and the concept out there.
They told us down there that although high-speed rail was the verbiage that has been used by the Obama administration, the U.S. is talking about higher-speed rail, not high-speed rail. They said the cost of high-speed rail for the United States in the seven corridors that they were looking at would be about $50 billion. At this point in time the Obama administration is prepared to put in $8 billion.
This means we are talking about two very different animals. We're talking about high-speed rail in Canada, dedicated corridors, all of the attributes that high-speed rail has, which is not the animal that the United States is talking about. They are talking about increasing their margins to 123 miles per hour. In that discussion they very clearly told us that they would only be moving to six-car trains that they would then put on their track, and a shared track at that.
That's just to correct the record, first of all, because some members did not attend. I think they have some different concepts.
I have a couple of questions. First of all, this is not a new study for you, Mr. Cruickshank. You've been at this for a while, I'm sure.
7:30 p.m.
Conservative
Lois Brown Conservative Newmarket—Aurora, ON
Can you tell me how long you've been looking at this project between Edmonton and Calgary?
7:30 p.m.
President, Alberta High-Speed Rail
I've been working on this for ten years. Collectively, John, Ralph, and I have spent about 26 years looking at this study.
