With regard to the investment of $3.3 million announced in Budget 2016 to support an in-depth assessment of VIA Rail’s high-frequency rail proposal and the additional investment of $8 million announced in Budget 2018 to support the continued in-depth assessment of VIA Rail’s high-frequency rail (HFR) proposal for the Quebec City-Windsor corridor: (a) how much of the $3.3 million and $8 million have been spent to date, broken down by (i) feasibility studies, (ii) contractors; (b) how many employees are assigned to the assessment; (c) has VIA Rail provided the government with studies on the high-frequency rail proposal; (d) if the answer in (c) is affirmative, will Transport Canada publish the entirety of these studies and their findings on its website; (e) how many studies and assessments have been conducted on this subject by Transport Canada to date and, if applicable, (i) what were the findings of each of these studies, (ii) will the entirety of these studies and their findings be published on Transport Canada’s website, (iii) what was the cost of each of these studies; (iv) when did Transport Canada conduct each of these studies; (f) why were the findings of the $3.3 million first phase of the assessment insufficient to approve funding for HFR; and (g) what data were missing from the $3.3 million first phase of the assessment that were required in order to fund HFR?
In the House of Commons on June 11th, 2018. See this statement in context.