—but here I am again.
My background involves many years of working with Metro Vancouver's transportation authority, TransLink, where we introduced commuter rail. As well, we built some very large capital projects, including the Canada Line, which is a subway, basically, that runs from the Vancouver airport to downtown Vancouver.
When I look at Mr. Barsalou-Duval's motion, I'm concerned that we're just going to be fixating on cost without really understanding what's behind the cost. I'm not sure how many consortia are bidding on this. You mentioned “design, build and operate”. I don't know if it's a full DBFO—design, build, finance and operate—because if that is the case, then you're dealing with the spreading of risk, especially to the private partner, which is one of the reasons why you go for a P3.
The number itself, the cost, doesn't necessarily reveal all that you need to know. If the proposal right now is for high-frequency rail and you're looking for a cost on high-speed rail, there will be some significant differences.
Mr. Robitaille, I believe you mentioned that the current design would have some sharing of rail line capacity with freight, and you're not going to operate high-speed rail on track that's been beaten to death by heavy-duty freight cars. That would mean, among other things, probably having to build a dedicated rail link all the way through, and then you have to deal with issues like grade separation, crossings, etc., which impose additional costs.
The thing is, depending on the design the proponent is bringing forward, you're going to get a variety of cost estimates, and without understanding what's behind the cost estimates, you're shopping by price alone, which isn't necessarily going to produce the kind of result you're looking for, unless you know the design attributes. You might be looking at a BMW model versus a Volkswagen model, but the BMW model might actually in the long run.... Particularly when you're dealing with the long-term operating and maintenance, building something more expensive off the top can sometimes save you money in the long run.
These are all aspects of this that need to be considered above and beyond the bottom line cost. Without that additional perspective and context, asking for cost alone is really not going to be terribly revealing or terribly useful.
If I were permanently on this committee, I'd probably have a lot more to say, having been in these discussions all along, but just the high-level stuff and the experience that I have had in the past suggest that this motion—I have an analogy that always gets me in trouble so I'm not going to go there—doesn't reveal enough to actually make a very good decision after just looking at the cost that's revealed on a particular project.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.