Transport committee  Last year we would have returned about $7 million out of an operating budget of about $600 million. This year we're forecasting around $6 million, so about 1%.

Transport committee  The $7 million was from the amounts earmarked for capitalizing our pension plan. Therefore, those amounts cannot be re-profiled or moved across the line.

Transport committee  There are no amounts set aside or under reserve to replace the assets. Every year, through the annual appropriation for which we are before you today, VIA Rail secures either the operating funding or the capital funding required to maintain the fleet in a state of good repair. From time to time, every seven years or so, as I indicated earlier in answer to Mr.

Transport committee  Thank you for the question. The fleet being refurbished is the LRC fleet, which was built in the 1970s by Bombardier.

Transport committee  The normal time frame for a fleet is about 30 years. Every 15 years or so mechanical components, and over time beyond that 15-year mark structural components, need to be replaced. This is the third refurbishment of that fleet. That's why it will be the last refurbishment. A refurbishment was undertaken in the late 1990s and early 2000s, again in the 2007 time frame, and now this refurbishment.

Transport committee  The work was originally started in New Brunswick, but the firm there was taken into bankruptcy by the Province of New Brunswick. The work was then moved to Montreal. It was done partly at the VIA Rail maintenance facility, the Montreal maintenance centre in Pointe-Saint-Charles, and part of it was contracted out to a Montreal-based company called Cad Railways.

Transport committee  We put a request into our shareholders to replace this fleet. As I said in my introduction, this fleet is coming to its end of life after this refurbishment. This will only give it a 7- to 10-year life expectancy. The first cars were completed in this refurbishment back in 2012, and that means that by 2018 or 2019 some of those cars, if not replaced by a new fleet, will have to be taken out of service.

Transport committee  No, not at this time. Through Canada's free trade commitments this is a procurement that would be open to international markets and players. There are some players in Canada that we all know, but there are also international players out of Europe and the United States who could decide to bid for this opportunity.

Transport committee  Absolutely. Montreal and Quebec are two markets that have cultural and commercial affinities, in addition to linking the Quebec metropolis to the capital of Quebec. These are two natural markets, consequently. As for the potential ridership between Montreal and Quebec, you have only to travel on highway 20 or 40 to see that millions of cars travel there every year.

Transport committee  We think we have already put in place the minimal parameters for the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor, i.e. an investment of $4 billion and an increase in ridership from 2 million to 7 million. This project will be built in four years and it can be financed with a contribution from the Canada pension plan, which invests in rail passenger transport throughout the world.

Transport committee  The objective of the work was to determine the minimal investment for a maximum return in the shortest possible time. That is how we came up with the project for the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor, to be built over a period of less than four years, at a cost of $4 billion. The idea was to modify the public notion of devoting 30 years to studies on a high-speed Quebec-Windsor train that would cost $22 billion, take 12 years to build, do nothing for regional services and compete with air transportation, and cause a lot of distortion in transport modes.

Transport committee  The $20.2 million is a re-profiled amount that reflects the fact that the projects took more time to complete, either because of difficulty with suppliers.... In the case of the LRC and the HEP car refurbishment, one of the suppliers went bankrupt. The other one, out of the U.S., was just long on delivery, and therefore the project went over by a year.

Transport committee  It's on infrastructure work, and there are two types. One is steel. Rail steel is in high demand in North America because of the growth of regional passenger rail services. In the last five years, for example, GO Transit out of Toronto, has grown by over 21%, and they have acquired 83% of their network.

Transport committee  The increase is marginal at best. We are expecting to net out 35,000 to 40,000 new passengers in 2015. That's over a base of four million, so it's insignificant. On the revenue side we'll finish around $8 million better than our revenue forecast. Again, on a total budget of $600 million, it's negligible.

Transport committee  The transport portfolio is one that is a major contributor to greenhouse gases. Sixty per cent of those greenhouse gases are produced by cars, and that is why our project of having a dedicated line that would remove 5.5 million car trips per year off the corridor would significantly reduce the carbon footprint of drivers in Canada.