Transport Committee on Sept. 20th, 2023

[Martin Imbleau]

The intent is not to add any new services on the existing freight lines to deteriorate the system. The current system might remain a bit the same, which has concerns, but the incremental services or the incremental passengers would be on dedicated tracks not affecting the freight trains.

We all went through a crisis over the last two years on the supply side in terms of shipping and the train industry. We know how sensitive it is. Keeping the reliability of freight trains is important. We don't want to increase the burden on CN, CP and other operators.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

You're saying that the levels of service to the communities along the route right now will not deteriorate and will not be diminished because the HFR is running. They will continue to have access to the current level of Via services that they enjoy today when this is built.

[Martin Imbleau]

I think what I said was that it's not the intent to reduce the services. Will there be a shift of passengers between the communities because the services are different? That remains to be seen and evaluated, but the intent is not to affect those services.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Strahl.

Thank you very much, Mr. Imbleau.

Next we have Mr. Chahal.

Mr. Chahal, the floor is yours. You have five minutes.

[George Chahal, Liberal, Calgary Skyview, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for presenting today.

Mr. Imbleau, I want to start on some comments made earlier by the Trois-Rivières chamber of commerce. I want to dig a little bit deeper into—and my colleague Mr. Barsalou-Duval also touched on it—the process to look at stations or opportunities for stations. Do you have specific criteria and a weighting associated with those criteria so communities know if they potentially would get a station close to their community?

[Martin Imbleau]

There are stations that are in our mandate, clearly written in the minister's mandate. Those are known.

If there were to be other stations, then, yes, we would develop a matrix that takes into consideration environment, economics, passengers and feasibility.

We'll have a matrix, but I think it's fair to say that the intent is probably not to have too many stations, because we won't have fast, frequent, reliable service. The corridor already has a different number of predefined stations.

[George Chahal, Liberal, Calgary Skyview, AB]

If there were more stations to be added, would you be providing communities disclosure on what they would need to meet those criteria to potentially get another station?

[Martin Imbleau]

It is part of the discussion and optimization process that we will do with the private partner to see where it is more economic and feasible to have or not have stations down the road. We'll make that public when it's done. The intent is, as I said, not necessarily to add a lot of stations, in order to keep the service as fast as possible.

[George Chahal, Liberal, Calgary Skyview, AB]

Thank you.

We talked about diesel, but we've talked about electrification as well. Can you elaborate on your proposal for electrification and the costs and benefits of shifting over?

I also have a follow-up question to that on hydrogen. Why not look at hydrogen as an option? Once again, the chamber talked about green hydrogen. Why aren't we looking at hydrogen as an option?

You have two questions there.

[Martin Imbleau]

It's funny, because hydrogen electricity is my background, so I'll come back to that second topic.

The intent is to have fully electric trains. I say “the intent” because there may be some portions where it's constrained, where we'll have to rely on biodiesel or diesel-electric trains, for instance in seriously congested communities.

We'll try our best to have everything electric, but we may have to rely on other technology.

[George Chahal, Liberal, Calgary Skyview, AB]

Why can't you make it all electric?

[Martin Imbleau]

It will depend on the efficiency of batteries. There may be some points where we cannot have catenary.... In this case, typically you run your train on different supplies, so we'll see what is available in terms of technology with the private partners.

For the hydrogen, it's an interesting debate. You may have seen that one of the first significant hydrogen trains developed in Germany has actually abandoned the technology because full electric was just more efficient and cheaper to operate. I think that's a lesson learned from a larger operator. We just took notice of it.

[George Chahal, Liberal, Calgary Skyview, AB]

There are other countries looking at hydrogen as the way to move forward. While that one proponent may have failed, there may be others who are using a different technology. Is that still off the table completely, or is that something you're exploring?

I'm asking because I'm from Alberta—I should have told you that to begin with—and we're looking at a few projects. One part of the study involves Calgary to Edmonton and Calgary to Banff. If we look at full electrification, I'm not sure where we'll get the power from. Currently our provincial Conservative government has put a moratorium on renewable energy in particular.

When we think about energy production and the supply of electricity to power trains, when we have to power our homes and our vehicles moving forward, I'm just wondering whether we'll have enough electrification to meet all our demands and needs or whether we should be looking at hydrogen.

We'll start with you, Mr. Imbleau, and then we'll jump over to Mr. Johnson to finish.

[Martin Imbleau]

Energy is always very local. In Quebec, we benefit from green electricity. To a certain extent, it's the same thing in Ontario. I think it makes sense to look at the electrification.

Would we consider other options? I think one of the intents is to be influenced by the best technology that is economical and that can be deployed economically for Canadians. Therefore, if there's a better solution, we'll consider it for sure.

[George Chahal, Liberal, Calgary Skyview, AB]

I'm sorry, Mr. Johnson, but I think I'm out of time. I'm not sure if the chair...?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

It depends if Mr. Bachrach would like to give you 10 seconds of his time.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

It's a very important answer.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I'll cede 10 seconds of my time to Mr. Chahal with the hope of some forbearance from the chair at the end of my remarks.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[George Chahal, Liberal, Calgary Skyview, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Bachrach.

Mr. Johnson.

[Terence Johnson]

I'm just very glad you mentioned Alberta, because in the case of a service that is less than hourly, hydrogen might economically stack up quite well. For an hourly service, especially at higher speed and higher energy intensity, the ability to feed braking energy back into the catenary, etc., is absolutely vital. It really is a “horses for courses” situation, but for high frequency or high speed, you're going to go full electric every time if you're really just looking for the most efficient system.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Johnson.

Mr. Barsalou‑Duval, the floor is yours for two and a half minutes.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Imbleau, at the end of our exchange earlier, you seemed to say that the train would be faster than cars in all the scenarios considered.

However, based on the figures currently circulating, a high-frequency train trip between Montreal and Quebec City would take three hours, compared to only two and a half by car. So I'd like to know what convinces you that the train would be faster. Do you have any information indicating that anyone has found ways to shorten the trip as part of the project that will be carried out by the potential partners?

[Martin Imbleau]

As I mentioned, we requested two options. I assume you're referring to the Montreal-Quebec City route, which is popular. The first scenario concerns a trip of approximately 2 hours and 50 minutes from downtown to downtown. That's faster than by car because I definitely can't make it from downtown Montreal to downtown Quebec City in 2 hours and 50 minutes without exceeding the speed limits. The second scenario involves a trip of approximately 2 hours and 15 minutes, which would be considerably faster.