Finance committee  Thank you. I'm pleased to be here on behalf of the Railway Association of Canada. I'm joined today by Victor Wong, a member of the RAC's tax committee and assistant vice-president of taxation at Canadian Pacific. Canada's freight railway network consists of two Canadian-owned an

Finance committee  I'll be very brief. The gap for us is a lot narrower than other sectors. There are established programs in place with community colleges where we're constantly recruiting and finding a new workforce. Of course, we're coupled with the challenges that many sectors of the economy a

Finance committee  No, there are none specific to the railway. There are two recommendations that are strongly correlated. The first is our recommendation of around having 100% right off in the first year of spending to facilitate greater investment in the infrastructure issues and challenges that

Finance committee  We're referring to both infrastructure and rolling stock.

Finance committee  There are several models to consider. I would be pleased to share information about those models to the clerk and to the committee. In this context, we're referring to a program where a company has to demonstrate that it's willing to make an investment in order to have some sor

Finance committee  I wouldn't want to exclude them from the proposal that we put in front. The principal focus of the recommendation is short-line freight railways. That being said, there are short-line railways, some in Quebec, that have a split service model whereby they're providing both passe

Finance committee  Absolutely, and thanks for taking VIA Rail. Essentially, the HFR project addresses dedicated track in Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec. The estimated costs are $4 billion. It's a four-year deployment. Estimates of corridor ridership of 9.9 million and the potential of GHG re

Finance committee  Sure. I may defer the ACCA question to you, Victor, if that's okay. I would be very hesitant to try to predict what type of investment uptick this could create. I would just underline that we argue that the railway business is the most capital intensive business in the country.