Mr. Chairman, I must compliment you and all the rest of the committee members for having made the decision yesterday to invite the gentlemen before us today to come on such short notice. The reason I say that is not so much to applaud you and us but to thank them for having come and for having provided us with a perspective that has been so completely different from all the others that we have received. We have been missing on this committee a public polling perspective on where high-speed rail would go.
I'm tempted to ask Mr. Graves a whole series of questions, but I think I would be committing an injustice, because there are people around the table who aren't already as convinced as I am that his studies are reflective of the public mood. So I'll leave some of the more skeptical questions to members who represent that 6% that you identified in your poll.
I'm intrigued as well, Mr. Cruickshank and Mr. Chaput, by what you said, because I had this perception that the Government of Alberta, as you very politely put it, expressed a political will that was contrary to the proposal that you are advancing.
I have done a quick analysis here, and I hope my mathematics are right. I'm not an engineer, but I think your cost is about $10 million per kilometre for the project. It seems to be not an insignificant amount, but it's in the ballpark for highway construction in and around the Toronto area.