I think it really is the case that the right and left hands can do two different things at the same time here. We can.... This is one of the problems with having separated Via Rail and Via HFR. Via Rail is in somewhat lame duck mode and doesn't know what it's supposed to do for the next 10 years to tackle the challenges we have right now, whereas they could be doing all of the things at once, because these things are synergistic. They all feed each other.
In talking about freight, though, we really need to ask why we let the freight railroads abandon so much of their infrastructure and then tell us how they don't have any capacity left for passenger trains. There was a perfectly good double-track line going from Essex to St. Thomas 10 years ago, and it's all gone.