Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good afternoon, gentlemen. Thank you for joining us. My only regret this morning is that there are so many of you and I only have five minutes.
My first observation has to do with the fact that Canada has fallen behind in the development of passenger transit, in particular. I am not going to ask you to comment on that, but I have come to the conclusion that strong political leadership could be a considerable change. In addition, it seems that we have all the resources we need.
When I was in my third year of high school, at the age of 14 or 15, my geography teacher talked about the possibility of a high-speed train between Quebec City and Windsor. As a teacher, 15 years later, I also talked about it. Now that I am an MP, 25 or 35 years later, there is still no high-speed train allowing me to travel between Trois-Rivières and Ottawa. It is not expected in the short term and it might not even happen during my career.
Can we soon foresee a high-speed train technology that would enable us to use the existing rights-of-way in the Quebec-Windsor corridor, without having to spend huge amounts of money? So without spending the amounts required for high-speed rail technology, for instance, can we still have an effective and profitable technology?