Transport committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon, members of the standing committee, and thank you for this opportunity to appear before you today. I assure you my remarks are very short, so that we'll have time for dialogue. With me are my colleagues--you have just introduced

Transport committee  Well, we are a crown corporation under the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities.

Transport committee  The company doesn't, no.

Transport committee  We participated in a study. Did we actually do a study by ourselves?

Transport committee  While there was some conclusion, I was not, Mr. Volpe, part of that particular study. That's why Mr. Gravelle and Gerry are here. They were involved in this directly. André certainly was. And if you want to question us on the specific findings of that study, I will have to refer

Transport committee  Did we identify a corridor?

Transport committee  For instance, Mr. Volpe, we acquired the Alexandria subdivision, a portion of the track between Montreal and Ottawa, after the ice storm. CN, who owned it at the time, were not interested in investing in and restoring it, so we actually purchased it at that time.

Transport committee  Once again on that subject, one of their conclusions of the studies that are being looked at right now, I suppose, will be on the routing. I can't presume what routing they will pick. But if they were to use existing routing, let's say between Montreal and Ottawa, to stay on subj

Transport committee  We've been in this business for 30 years. We now operate a certain portion of the infrastructure. We own the Alexandria subdivision and we own a portion in southwestern Ontario. We dispatch it, we maintain it, we market it, and we serve people on it. We built our stations, renova

Transport committee  We haven't necessarily talked about this particular subject, but on the subject of intermodal integration, we've been champions of that. In the context of what we do, we've had many discussions with Mr. Langis from Orléans Express; I know that he was here as well. We've had discu

Transport committee  Our most recent study focused on VIA Fast, but that was not a high speed rail system project. The trains would have travelled at higher than conventional speeds, but this would not have been considered high-speed rail service. The unique feature of that project is that trains ca

Transport committee  Further to this injection of capital, we are adding some features to our system based on the VIA Fast concept. We have selected the project components that can be implemented today. We are gradually identifying zones in which the speed and frequency of trains can be increased and

Transport committee  VIA Rail must authorize the study's release. I am prepared to approve the committee's request, but the study does contain some confidential data and permission to disclose that information must be obtained before I can give you a copy of the study. The report was drawn up with th

Transport committee  I can answer the first part of your question. I'm am prepared to make some inquiries to see if the study can be turned over to the committee. We will coordinate this with the committee or with Transport Canada.

Transport committee  Ms. Chow, the first comment I need to make is that this is very important, and once again, when we talk about high-speed trains that travel in excess of 300 kilometres per hour, they do travel on dedicated and exclusive right-of-way.