I agree with that assessment.
We saw a public-private partnership for the project called Sud Europe Atlantique, which connects Paris to Bordeaux and was completed in 2017. That partnership involved a private contractor contributing to the cost of the line but as a result having very high toll fees for trains that used those tracks, which resulted in very high fares on trains that were using this system, even if they were fares charged by the existing public operator, SNCF.
Therefore, I also am concerned about the fare costs resulting from having a private investor. This is something that should be considered seriously by the government.
I did want to mention a few other things that might be relevant to decisions on private versus public development. There's been a lot of discussion in this panel about how many stops to have along the line. I would suggest one option is to have multiple types of services along the same corridor. This is feasible with multiple tracks.
You can have express services, for example, going directly from Toronto to Montreal or directly from Toronto to Ottawa, but you can also have regional services that provide stops along the way. A private investor is much more likely to concentrate services on those that have the highest ridership and, frankly, carry the highest-income individuals and serve the biggest cities. There's an option to improve service for the cities along the way, and that's where a public investor or public interest can play a bigger role.