Transport committee  The environmental and social impacts constitute one of the savings to be gained by doing a thorough social and environmental cost-benefit analysis.

Transport committee  It was done, but that was 15 years ago. Things that are preoccupations today were different then. We want to do a more in-depth analysis. Our own department, Transport Canada, did a study over the past couple of years, together with the provincial governments and the modes, the d

Transport committee  I think the assessment of the technologies is going to get to that. There are so many systems today that weren't available 10 or 15 years ago. High-speed rail isn't that old, actually. It's about 40 years old, and when we started, there was probably only one kind of system. Now i

Transport committee  We're looking at it in terms of the impact on the environment of using high-speed versus.... For example, as we all know, the automobile has become very efficient. The emissions it now emits, compared with those from automobiles 15 years ago, are very different. This has been a

Transport committee  That was for the previous study. We're going to be redoing all of it. At this point we haven't discussed yet with consultants what discount rates to use. It's usually an average of what the provinces use and what the federal government uses. Treasury Board has a discount rate th

Transport committee  I wouldn't want to speculate at this point. We'll wait to see.

Transport committee  We have already included that in section 8, which refers to a review of transportation policies in other countries with HSR. The Americans are the closest example for us. We want to look at that, and I think that the study will be completed by January or perhaps February. As for

Transport committee  Ridership has increased in the past year for VIA. I forget the exact amount, but it's by close to 1%. As you may recall, VIA's network was significantly reduced back in 1990, and since then, every year VIA has recorded small but definite improvements. We have seen important gro

Transport committee  They will, definitely. We've asked them, in fact, to look at that. We think this is an opportunity in two ways: one, to attract other investment in a service like this, but also as a model whereby we could share some of the risk with the private sector, and some of the opportun

Transport committee  I can't answer the last part of your question, but I think it's important for us, as officials who have to make recommendations and are making them.... There are three governments—the two provinces are working hand in hand with us on this—and we have stakeholders. As you are awar

Transport committee  There has not been at this point, because we don't in fact have a corridor yet. Again, it's part of what we're asking the consultants to look at for us. In the study, they're going to look at possible corridor alignments. Until we get to that point, it's difficult to consult, bec

Transport committee  As I mentioned before, your issues are our issues. We're looking at those. I mentioned that in section 8 we're looking at the policies that exist in other countries and here, and trying to determine if there are comparable rationales for this. We understand, given the population

Transport committee  In looking at the technology options we've asked the consultants to consider, that is a real concern for us. We want to make sure that what they're going to come forward with as realistic options are tested technologies. There are countries that maybe don't live in as big a white

Transport committee  We haven't gotten to that point yet. That's part of the advice on the financial business case that the consultants will be doing for us.

Transport committee  Yes. That is very important. Currently, when someone takes a plane, they have to arrive an hour in advance, then the trip itself may take an hour or an hour and a half, and it can take a long time to get out of the airport. It is important to compare the full length of a train tr