Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities. Thank you for inviting the Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan Montreal to testify today.
First of all, I would say that the planned rail link between Quebec City and Windsor has been supported by the business community for at least 15 years. Business interests wanted to bring about a policy decision. The chamber of commerce is certain, and this has been corroborated by its analyses, that some of its clients would like to see the project go ahead and that they would use the train.
It is still being called an HFR, or “high-frequency rail” project. But the first thing I would like to tell you is that in the business community, there was a lot of wavering over whether to support a high-frequency or a high-speed rail project, and it has still not settled.
When we ask our clients, they tell us that the first factor that would determine the extent to which they would travel by train would be how fast they can get between Montreal and Quebec City, Montreal and Ottawa, and Montreal and Toronto. Schedule reliability and frequency of service come next. My view is that the committee should always keep these three variables in mind, and I would encourage you to think of them in that order.
From the business standpoint, this means that the first consideration in calls for proposals has to be how many of the segments would be high-speed. That should be the determining factor in project acceptability, because the cost is likely to be high.
Another factor that has become very important—it wasn't only 10 years ago—is the environmental impact of the project. It has been known for a long time that electric rail transport is an environmentally sound solution, but with the rapid transition, and the goals being pursued by governments and the population, electric high-frequency and high-speed rail is considered an essential part of the strategy for the greening of our economy.
Given this context, there has been strong support for downtown‑to‑downtown links. If you have to take other forms of transportation to get to the station, that weakens part of what we want to do, which is to generalize the use of trains to and from city centres to avoid the use of additional means of transportation.
Another issue has gained in importance over the past few years and that's the workforce shortage. Business people have understood that high-speed rail would extend city recruitment pools, not only for big cities, but also other towns and cities in between. That's considered a major advantage. The possibility of having employees who live in Trois-Rivières and work in Montreal, or vice versa, is considered by the business community to be a good solution for making the labour market more fluid. That's an additional argument in favour of rail links. However, once again, speed of travel is a key factor.
I would add that business people who travel a lot are very much aware of the fact that Canada, for at least 15 years, has a reputation of having neither high-speed nor high-frequency trains, whereas there are links of that kind elsewhere around the world. Business people have told me that Canada needs a high-speed train to demonstrate that it is a competitive economy with efficient transportation infrastructures, if only to counter the impression that Canada doesn't have the means or the vision necessary to do so. Some people point out that there was a time when it was generally felt that only two or three airports would be needed in Canada, while everywhere else in the world there was an airport in every major city. Today, rail links are considered an indicator of a green society that has adopted the proper tools.
Something else came up in our consultations, and that was the major economic benefits. Investing in infrastructures of this kind is so important because of the benefits for Canadian businesses and suppliers. We have to ensure that these economic benefits occur in high value-added business sectors. Simply pointing out that economic benefits are generated because the trains are maintained in Canada is not enough. Much more than that is required.
We can look at the United States and how it is deploying the Inflation Reduction Act as a regulatory and legal tool to strengthen the American economy. Similarly, high-frequency rail should strengthen Canada's economy; we need to forge ahead.
I'll conclude by saying that the business community is very skeptical when there is public debate without any transparent discussion of costs. No faith whatever is placed in numbers like $10 billion for high-frequency rail, or $65 billion for high-speed rail, both of which are figures that have been mentioned. The business community believes that unless actual costs are identified from the very outset, that there will be problems later on in terms of social acceptability and credibility.
As for tender calls, message number one is that accurate costs need to be spelled out.