CBCNEWS — Live Cross Country Check Up
20261004 200000 UTC
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[00:00:25] i'm mean
[00:00:25] in hannamansing the
[00:00:26] of host of cross country checkup, we're about to start the show and we have lot
[00:00:30] to talk about, but first here are few stories to get you ready for that
[00:00:34] conversation today. what's going on with
[00:00:37] Alto? if you don't know, that's the proposed
[00:00:39] of high-speed of rail line that could take you from Toronto to Montreal in just about 3
[00:00:43] hours. here was the initial route proposed last year. it's approximately
[00:00:47] 1,000 km from Toronto to Quebec City, which stops in Peterborough,
[00:00:51] Ottawa, Montreal, Laval, and Tois Rovier. now, Ottawa
[00:00:55] says it's favoring a
[00:00:56] of more southern route that could make Kingston a stop. We'll get to that, but first... Just
[00:01:00] quick facts about the project. This would be Canada's first high-speed rail
[00:01:03] network. It's designed to have trains running at 300 km or more per
[00:01:07] hour. They're planning to
[00:01:08] of start of construction in 2029-2030 and say it's going to take
[00:01:12] around 12 years to build. The price tag is between 60 and
[00:01:15] of 90 billion dollars. So it's a major project
[00:01:18] of and Kingston
[00:01:19] of of of doesn't want to be left behind. You have Queens University, we have military members coming
[00:01:23] in
[00:01:24] in and out of CFB Kingston. We have
[00:01:26] a regional hospital network. After gaining feedback from the public, Canada's transport.
[00:01:30] of minister said he's considering it, we're going to take
[00:01:32] of a
[00:01:33] of very, very long, strong and positive look at it, but this
[00:01:36] makes the question, how many more stops until it's no longer a high-speed
[00:01:41] in of railline? we do not believe that a stop in Kingston is a
[00:01:45] of significant lengthening enough that would
[00:01:47] of dissuade people, and how much does it overlap with existing trains? here is the current
[00:01:51] VR rail
[00:01:52] of route from Toronto to Quebec City, and here are the confirmed
[00:01:55] of high-speed of rail stops. Keep in mind, we don't know the train's exact route. Alto
[00:01:59] estimate. the travel times will be cut in half and that the high-speed
[00:02:03] rail line
[00:02:04] of will be integrated with via. for example, if you're traveling from
[00:02:06] of Toronto of of to Ottawa, your commute could go from 4our and a half hours to
[00:02:10] two. but there are also many concerns about this project. the Ontario
[00:02:14] Federation of
[00:02:15] of Agriculture of says many farmers are concerned
[00:02:17] a about the railway cutting through their land. they're concerned about what the future looks like for
[00:02:21] their business, whether they'll be able to continue to operate. um, with half
[00:02:25] of their farm on one side
[00:02:26] of the tracks, half of it
[00:02:27] on the other. uh, certainly need critical infrastructure. as well, but we need to put
[00:02:31] it
[00:02:31] of along existing corridors that are that are already there, the CN
[00:02:35] tracks, the 401 corridor, ford agrees, follow the
[00:02:39] 401 corridor, don't start taking farmers lands and everything else out, but
[00:02:42] transportation minister Stephen Mckinnan
[00:02:44] in says that could be complicated, notably because
[00:02:47] of the curvature
[00:02:48] of the highway, but we will apply the
[00:02:51] basic logic that we should use public right of ways whenever
[00:02:55] possible, those are some
[00:02:56] of the technical issues, then you have the politics, conservative leader.
[00:03:00] opposes Alto, this $90
[00:03:02] of billion liberal boondoggle does not make sense and
[00:03:06] it does not make dollars and Party Quebequa leader Paul Saintpier Plammandan
[00:03:10] says if elected his government would prevent Quebec from getting
[00:03:13] a involved. We spoke to a transport expert who sits on an independent academic
[00:03:17] of advisory panel for Alto. He said with Canada being the only G7
[00:03:21] country without
[00:03:22] of high-speed rail, it's easy to get excited, but there are just too many unanswered questions. We
[00:03:26] still haven't seen a business case on this project. We don't
[00:03:28] know what the ultimate cost is, we don't. have a projection of what
[00:03:31] the the ridership is that's very
[00:03:33] of detailed
[00:03:33] of and we don't know really what the fairs are yet. those are the things you really need to
[00:03:36] know to decide if this project is going to be worthwhile and the way they're promoting is that people are
[00:03:40] going to be able to go back
[00:03:41] of and forth and it's going to be pretty low cost. i would like to see how
[00:03:45] they're paying for that cuz that's that's going to require more subsidy. in the meantime, alto is
[00:03:49] touting some ambitious numbers. they're expecting 24 million
[00:03:53] passengers riding the rail line per year by 2055.
[00:03:56] they say the project could create
[00:03:58] of over of 50,00 jobs to... construction and estimate it will
[00:04:02] contribute to a 1.1 uplift in Canada's GDP,
[00:04:05] of that's equivalent to 24.5 billion
[00:04:07] of today,
[00:04:08] and the question on everyone's mind, fair prices. Alto says it's too early to provide
[00:04:12] specific details, though they say affordability is in their mandate,
[00:04:15] so what can you expect next? Another round of consultations will take
[00:04:19] place for the
[00:04:20] of Ottawa Montreal segment this fall. That's the first part they're planning to build, with
[00:04:24] construction set to begin in approximately 4 years. Trishla
[00:04:28] Parek, CBC News, Toronto. presidents
[00:04:32] of Gadno have been weighing in on the proposed
[00:04:35] of high-speed rail line, alto, the group behind the project is
[00:04:39] me holding of one of its final public consultations at Gatno City Hall,
[00:04:42] and it got a much warmer reception in GATNO than it has in
[00:04:46] rural parts of
[00:04:47] of eastern Ontario, where many people have expressed opposition to the rail
[00:04:51] line. most
[00:04:52] of the people CBC spoke to in Gatnow told us
[00:04:55] a they support the project. I'm really up
[00:04:59] of for of it buse I I usually take VRI to go to Toronto and
[00:05:02] Montreal, so I'm a big fan of
[00:05:04] you know taking the train like getting on the subway, getting to the train
[00:05:08] arriving downtown in the other city, like it's just comfortable and
[00:05:12] of easy. so with the high speed train, it's just going to be faster and
[00:05:15] higher frequency
[00:05:16] per day, it's going to give us more options to pick better times for a
[00:05:20] schedule. i'm really excited about it, i
[00:05:24] love public transportation, hate driving and hate getting stuck
[00:05:27] in traffic. i think it's a necessary step for Canada, necessary
[00:05:31] step for interprovintially between Quebec and
[00:05:35] Ontario, uh, being able to build bridges between Toronto, Quebec City,
[00:05:38] Montreal, Ottawa, I think that's a wonderful initiative. I'm from southern
[00:05:42] Ontario so to visit my family so quickly will be
[00:05:46] absolutely phenomenal
[00:05:48] um I love the high speed trains in Europe so it's
[00:05:51] just perfect that this is coming to North America and
[00:05:55] Canada and it's just uh it'll be a it'll be a game
[00:05:58] changer in this rapidly
[00:06:01] changing world Canadians are faced with new challenges both at
[00:06:05] home and abroad get the answers you need the national
[00:06:09] canada's newscast every week the issues that matter to
[00:06:13] Canadians, connecting politics to people. Join
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[00:06:21] CBC.Ca/aircheck.
[00:06:25] This is a project for people to allow people to more freely
[00:06:29] live, work, play, across this corridor, and also attract
[00:06:33] visitors. Hi, I mean had a man sing in Vancouver cross country checkup is
[00:06:37] live. It's time for us to put an end to these costly, liberal
[00:06:41] schemes with cost. estimates of up to $113
[00:06:44] billion dollars. Are you on board for high-speed rail in
[00:06:48] Canada? What questions do you have? Give us call
[00:06:50] 1888-416-8333
[00:06:54] 888-416-8333. I'm
[00:06:58] pretty keen about having the rail come here.
[00:07:02] Basically, we are a desert, we have a universe. I think this would be the
[00:07:06] best thing for Peter. I'm really opposed to the high-speed
[00:07:09] rail and there's just so many reasons why. and go ahead,
[00:07:13] why can't they spend some of that money on improving the veta service?
[00:07:17] we came from England and of course we had electrified
[00:07:21] trains even in the 50s - I think it's held
[00:07:24] back Canada tremendously. This week, Canada's parliamentary
[00:07:28] budget officer released report on the proposed high-speed railline
[00:07:32] between Toronto and Quebec City. So how much will it cost?
[00:07:36] Well, their estimates says up to $113 billion dollars, which
[00:07:40] is higher than previously thought. that same report projects the line will
[00:07:44] add $2 billion to the economy by 2033 and
[00:07:48] create up to 9,00 jobs. the conservative party says the liberal should
[00:07:52] scrap the project, arguing it will be too great of a burden on
[00:07:56] taxpayers across the country. also, the crown corporation
[00:07:59] overseeing construction faces resistance from some land owners
[00:08:03] along the route and from some politicians in Ontario and
[00:08:07] Quebec, and soon this debate will stretch west as well as
[00:08:10] Alberta prepares to launch. formal process for its own
[00:08:14] high-speed rail line connecting calgary, red deer and edminton. our
[00:08:18] question this week, are you on board for high-speed rail in canada? what questions do you
[00:08:22] have? you can call us now,
[00:08:23] 1888-416-8333 or go to
[00:08:50] we're live on CBC radio and CBC News Network. This is Cross
[00:08:54] Country Checkup, your voice, Canada's
[00:08:56] voice. And if you are watching on
[00:09:00] CBC News Network right now, we are live, and that means this is a program
[00:09:04] that you can take part in. You just call us and join the conversation right
[00:09:08] now. Let's begin with two experts who are here to answer questions.
[00:09:12] respond to calls and share their expertise. Matia
[00:09:16] Simiatikki is a professor of geography and planning and director
[00:09:20] the infrastructure Institute at the University of Toronto, and
[00:09:23] Michael Shabas is a Canadian railway consultant who's worked on high-speed
[00:09:27] rail across Europe and North America, including the Toronto Quebec City
[00:09:31] corridor, and they're in our Toronto
[00:09:33] studio. Michael the PBO
[00:09:36] estimates the uh cost could be up to
[00:09:39] $113 billion dollars with that. price tag in
[00:09:43] mind, why do you believe there's a strong economic case for this
[00:09:46] project? there's a strong economic case for this project if it's
[00:09:50] done right, and there's no single problem that's worth that much money
[00:09:54] to solve, but there are several problems in the quarter and high-speed rail have done
[00:09:58] correctly, can address all them. you can't get
[00:10:01] reliably between cities, between Toronto and Montreal, Toronto and
[00:10:05] Ottawa for business in less than five hours, even if you're prepared to pay to
[00:10:09] fly, if it's six hours, six hours of your drive, "if there's
[00:10:12] a sun thunderstorm or snowstorm, you might not make it at all. that's a
[00:10:16] serious economic problem for Canada. secondly, it's too
[00:10:19] expensive. students, families, uh,
[00:10:22] children, uh, going to see their grandmother. their tourists uh,
[00:10:26] they have to pay too much, you either have to drive, sit in the car for six hours,
[00:10:30] which is crowded and not comfortable, ride via, which has fairs that are
[00:10:34] much higher actually than high-speed rail will have, or you end up flying,
[00:10:38] which is very expensive. the uh, the third problem which high speed rail can
[00:10:42] solve is it can provide capacity into our cities and link
[00:10:46] cities like Kingston, Peter, London, Ontario, trois
[00:10:50] rivier, which have suffered from low growth because they are remote, they're
[00:10:53] increasingly remote from the... cities because they rely on road traffic, all of
[00:10:57] those places can be places where we develop more housing, the land is
[00:11:01] much cheaper, it's affordable, and and the way to solve our housing crisis
[00:11:05] is to build it in places like Peter, Kingston, London, not to
[00:11:09] keep growing the edges of Toronto, because that's not working anymore and it's too
[00:11:12] expensive. Matty, it all sounds so reasonable, what's your response to
[00:11:16] that? It sounds
[00:11:17] like wonderful vision, uh, for me uh, this, I would love highspeed rail,
[00:11:21] I love it when I travel internationally, um, I think here the big issue that...
[00:11:25] is nice to have, not a need to have, we have so many issues we're grappling with in
[00:11:28] this country, whether it's every Canadian having a family doctor, whether
[00:11:32] it's indigenous drinking water, whether it's uh clean drinking water, whether it's national
[00:11:36] defense, whether it's even our urban transit systems that are falling
[00:11:40] apart right before our eyes, uh, the city of Toronto, for example, the TTC has a
[00:11:44] $24 billion dollar uh maintenance backlog by the time we get to 2035,
[00:11:48] we have so many things we we could be investing in, I think it would be great if we can move
[00:11:52] between our cities faster uh, I think we should be in. investing
[00:11:55] absolutely and ensuring that it's the existing system is reliable,
[00:11:59] upgrade what we have, make targeted investments, but
[00:12:03] really we have to be focusing on our country as a network and
[00:12:07] we have all sorts of infrastructural needs that could really use this money more.
[00:12:10] we did reach out to Alto to comment on the PBO report, they
[00:12:14] provided the following, a quote, here's part of it, once in operation Alto is
[00:12:18] expected to be financially self-sustaining with revenues projected to
[00:12:22] cover ongoing operating and maintenance cost. the statement
[00:12:25] also mentions that the PBO estimate is based on comparable
[00:12:29] international projects. Maddy, from a political standpoint, what
[00:12:33] challenges do you think lie ahead for the liberals on this project?
[00:12:37] the sticker shock is one in that this is becoming a big number and it's only
[00:12:41] likely to go up from here. the projects that are being referred to in
[00:12:45] California high speed rail, that's become a quagmy, it's not, it's not
[00:12:49] even close to finish yet, and in Britain the costs are escalating and they're
[00:12:52] moving away from uh high-speed rail. not even completing the network they had
[00:12:56] proposed, so there's really uh challenges there, and then there's challenges along the
[00:13:00] route that people are really concerned about their their property uh, the impact on
[00:13:04] farming families, the impact on the environment uh, there are uh there
[00:13:08] are real impacts and uh and in eastern Ontario and in Quebec there are
[00:13:12] concerns uh locally, so the politics of this could shift very quickly
[00:13:16] uh as this project proceeds if if it's not done uh carefully and
[00:13:19] transparently. we're live on cross country checkup with Matty Semiatikki
[00:13:23] from the University of Toronto and consultant Michael Shabbis and
[00:13:27] we're asking you, with cost estimates of up to $113 billion, are
[00:13:31] you on board for high-speed rail in Canada? What questions do you
[00:13:34] have? 1888-416-8333,
[00:13:38] or you can go to CBC.cash Air Check. Michael The
[00:13:42] Conservatives want to scrap the Alto Train all together, calling it a
[00:13:46] massive burden for taxpayers. Realistically, how much do you think
[00:13:50] will be covered by private investment versus public
[00:13:52] dollars? The Exp? is that high speed
[00:13:56] rail generates fairs, revenues actually with
[00:14:00] average fairs that are lower than they are on via today, operating surpluses of
[00:14:04] about 50%, so this line will carry 30
[00:14:07] million people, $80 ride, that's 2.4
[00:14:10] billion, you will see an operating surplus pretty soon after it opens
[00:14:14] of billion a year or more. if that doesn't seem
[00:14:18] believable, you should look to Europe and see where private companies are
[00:14:22] investing billions of dollars in fleets of trains to compete. the incumbant
[00:14:25] high-speed rail operators, there it will,
[00:14:28] it will not pay back 100% the capital cost, but it probably will
[00:14:32] pay back a third to a half. Matty, what do you make of
[00:14:35] that? let let's say that that's possible. I mean, we know that
[00:14:39] from transportation research that the costs are often underestimated and the
[00:14:43] benefits overestimated. They're projecting that they're going to have 24 million
[00:14:47] rides by 2055, even that seems ambitious, like the Eurostar
[00:14:51] connecting London and Paris, that just got to 20 million passenger.
[00:14:55] trips after 20 years, so to think that we're going to get to 24 million
[00:14:59] or 30 million as Michael has said uh seems fanciful, but uh
[00:15:03] let's uh we can we can uh stick with that, but even even
[00:15:06] still you still have all the capital cost and all the debt that's going to be put on the country in
[00:15:10] order the upfront investment that as Michael mentioned is never going to be repaid other
[00:15:14] than uh through uh uh by taxpayers. Actually, just
[00:15:18] clarify, the Eurostar, London, Paris, Brussels is only 10 million
[00:15:22] passengers, it's 20 million because they took over. the London,
[00:15:25] Brussels, Frankfurt Cologne services and put them into one company, so it didn't actually grow
[00:15:29] at all, it's only 10 million a year, but
[00:15:32] you have to understand, Paris, London, Brussels, Amsterdam, all
[00:15:36] have high-speed.
[00:15:37] roots going out
[00:15:38] in different directions from each, what you need to do is look at the per capita
[00:15:42] rottership in the whole country. In France, there are 120 million trips
[00:15:46] a year for 60 million people, 120 million high speed rail trips, so
[00:15:50] that's two trips per person in the whole country. In Spain, it's
[00:15:54] closer to one, in Italy it's one and a half, in Germany it's about
[00:15:57] two, when we say 30 million for the
[00:16:01] quarter, there will be 30 million people in the quarter, that's ridership
[00:16:05] similar to what Spain has its high-speed. system and they have
[00:16:09] higher car ownership and better roads than we do too by the way. For those of you
[00:16:12] who are listening or watching, I hope you decide to pick up your phone and give us
[00:16:16] call at 888-416-8333 or text us
[00:16:20] 2267588924 with cost estimates of up to
[00:16:24] $113 billion dollars. Are you on board for high-speed rail in
[00:16:28] Canada? What questions do you have? And before we go to calls,
[00:16:32] Matty, one more question for you. Sometimes when people look at this issue,
[00:16:36] particularly the way it seems to... have been playing out in Quebec and Ontario, they
[00:16:39] see an urban rural divide in terms of of
[00:16:43] support, who benefits the most from high-speed rail? people in
[00:16:47] the cities where the stations are, that's one of my other concerns about this, that we're going to
[00:16:51] spend uh up to 120 billion, maybe even more when this is all said and
[00:16:55] done, and there will be seven or eight cities that are connected, and everyone else uh
[00:16:59] with stations in them, and everyone else in this giant
[00:17:02] pro province, not to mention this entire country, will still be faced with the exact same challenges
[00:17:06] about getting around, still... having a family doctor, still having
[00:17:10] uh all sorts of other infrastructural issues, this is huge investment
[00:17:13] that will be taking so much of our capital uh, it will be soaking up, and
[00:17:17] yet all the challenges, it'll be really um focused in just a small
[00:17:21] number of areas whereas all the other parts of this country uh could be left
[00:17:25] behind without uh without additional funding. michael: the biggest
[00:17:29] beneficiaries individually are actually people in smaller cities, places
[00:17:33] like Peter, Kingston, Bellville, Brockville, tr rivier,
[00:17:37] they... travel five times as much, they go into a local hospital and they say,
[00:17:41] you've got a special condition, you got to
[00:17:42] go to doctor in Toronto, that never happens
[00:17:44] to you in Toronto, you never go into a lawyer in Montreal and he says, oh I can't handle this,
[00:17:48] there's an expert you got to see, he lives in Peter, people in small cities need to
[00:17:52] go to big cities, and Alto was learning, initially they didn't want to include the
[00:17:56] stage in Kingston, they thought it would lose money, it would delay the trains, they've now come
[00:18:00] around, they've recognized that you can have express and stopping trains as everyone
[00:18:04] else in the world does, so the express trains won't stop at the... intermediate places, they'll
[00:18:08] actually be able to go faster, but people in these intermediate station
[00:18:12] cities travel five times as much today on via as
[00:18:16] as people from big cities, and it will be the same with high speed rail, so that's why I get to
[00:18:19] 30 million. I've built my rodarship estimate up using techniques that I've used
[00:18:23] for businesses, for private investments, real, hundreds of millions
[00:18:27] of dollars spent on rolling stock, and and that's that's where the
[00:18:31] biggest ben, most people in Toronto will never use this, most people in
[00:18:35] Toronto don't go to Montreal, they're
[00:18:36] not even sure.
[00:18:37] it is sometimes, i think, hopefully more them will, they'll get to know other parts of
[00:18:41] Canada, people will go to quebec city who've never been there, but the biggest
[00:18:44] beneficiaries will actually be the people in the smaller cities where Alto must
[00:18:48] stop. okay, that's the voice of Michael Shabbis, reilway consultant, and we
[00:18:52] also are hearing from Matty Simitiki, director the Infrastructure Institute at the
[00:18:56] University of Toronto, they're with us for the remainder the
[00:18:59] hour, as are those who call us at
[00:19:02] 888-416-8333, like David Kitchen who's in Winnipeg.
[00:19:06] Hi David, hi. and how do you feel about high-speed
[00:19:09] rail? well, it's interesting, like i don't live
[00:19:13] in the area, i live in winapeg, but do travel to
[00:19:17] Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal for work and for pleasure, and
[00:19:21] over the last couple decades I've I've seen the traffic increase, like I
[00:19:24] just have anxiety whenever I see Toronto
[00:19:28] or uh, Montreal on my air itiner, because I
[00:19:32] know how much pressure there is on the airlines and the
[00:19:35] airports there, and... "i've driven the highways between
[00:19:39] Ottawa and Montreal or Toronto and Ottawa and I can
[00:19:42] see that it's just
[00:19:45] unmanageable, that traffic has to move somehow,
[00:19:49] so when I hear about high-speed rail, I,
[00:19:53] I too, I'm a fan of of high-speed rail, I've traveled it in
[00:19:56] Europe, but for the cost, I'm
[00:19:59] curious which is the better option, do we expand
[00:20:02] airports and flights and expand highways to
[00:20:06] manage that?" excess travel capacity or
[00:20:10] is high speed rail the better option that gives us a third
[00:20:14] option over over flying and driving. haven't
[00:20:18] heard much about that and i'm curious to hear what uh what your
[00:20:22] experts might say about that. i am too. david, let's start with
[00:20:25] Michael. so air isn't going to do anything for the smaller
[00:20:29] cities in between the cities uh there there there used to be flights
[00:20:33] from kingston air Canada stop them. they still do fly from London but that...
[00:20:37] what's going to how long that's going to last, it's not going to carry commuters, air
[00:20:41] is always going to be expensive, it's always going to be disrupted in
[00:20:44] weather, so rail, the reason every other rich country
[00:20:48] in the world, except I guess... Canada in the United States has high-speed
[00:20:52] rail and intercity electric rail which are really a continuum that you
[00:20:56] know I let's let's not get focused on the speed so much is that it's actually
[00:21:00] far cheaper, you carry people a cost per seat that is
[00:21:04] half of what it is on vz diesel trains so so all these
[00:21:07] things can solve it uh places like London and Kitchener used to
[00:21:11] be an hour two hours from Toronto when I was kid I'm now pretty
[00:21:15] old and now it's three to four hours they've become increasingly
[00:21:19] isolated. "and it will only get worse without rail. rail is
[00:21:23] the only technology in the world that can solve that kind of short,
[00:21:27] medium, inter city transportation problem, and it's what everybody
[00:21:31] else does and there's a reason because it works.
[00:21:34] maddie? yeah, i'd like to see much more integrated network,
[00:21:37] focus on improving the via network that that we have
[00:21:41] now, look at intercity bus so that we can serve many of our much
[00:21:45] smaller communities that are as Michael mentioned, almost completely
[00:21:48] detached.
[00:21:49] I do have. ideas about uh looking at uh at Canada becoming a leader in
[00:21:53] electric airlines and airplanes, we are such a big country that
[00:21:57] we're never going to be able to blank at this entire place uh with high-speed rail, we need to think
[00:22:00] differently than the convention for other countries, we're a giant country that's that's
[00:22:04] relatively sparsely populated, we have dense pockets, we could be thinking
[00:22:08] differently, one the challenges obviously with air is about the environmental implications,
[00:22:12] if we can get if we can be leaders in electric air, it's something we could do here in the
[00:22:15] country and it could become an export industry, i think we need to think uh differently
[00:22:19] about we go about this and the final point is road tools, many the other
[00:22:23] countries that we compare ourselves to, they have high-speed rail networks, they also have road
[00:22:27] tools that generate revenue and encourage people to take the public transit. i think that's
[00:22:31] something we need to look at in Canada as well. lots of ways to get your point of view
[00:22:35] on the air, including getting in touch with us online, and our producer Meg
[00:22:38] Cambell is tracking some of that reaction. hi Meg,
[00:22:42] hello, what kind of responses are you seeing? yeah, the
[00:22:46] people are talking planes, trains and automobiles here, so...
[00:22:50] Heather Levy
[00:22:50] in Stone mails Ontario shared her thoughts via aircheck. She wrote, "My
[00:22:54] township is one the areas being considered for Alto.
[00:22:58] For me, this is not an abstract debate. It can mean a rail corridor through
[00:23:01] homes, farms, forests and communities where people have built their
[00:23:05] lives. Communities deserve a full conversation before Canada commits
[00:23:09] and corridor communities are asked to bear the impacts and then Tony
[00:23:12] Winson and Gwelf Ontario shared his perspective.
[00:23:16] He said after my recent travels in China involving. multiple train
[00:23:20] trips, I felt I had gone back decades in time returning to
[00:23:24] Canada, a train at 300 kilometers per hour through
[00:23:27] multiple mountain tunnels, is nothing unusual in China, with
[00:23:31] passenger numbers much higher than those seen during busy day at Toronto's
[00:23:35] Union Station, and Patrick Osborne and Vancouver BC
[00:23:39] shared his thoughts online. He wrote high-speed rail is laudable
[00:23:42] goal, but I prefer to see this funding go towards solutions that improve
[00:23:46] regular passenger rail service Canada wide rather. than this
[00:23:50] narrow corridor, maybe we need more regular track
[00:23:54] along existing rail corridors so passengers trains don't have to
[00:23:58] deal with CP and CN's right of way, we let passenger rail
[00:24:02] atrophy for decades, why don't we fix system-wide issues
[00:24:06] first before we set off on this ambitious and expensive
[00:24:09] project? very clever to invoke planes, trains and automobiles cuz you
[00:24:13] know that's a thanksgiving movie, exactly, one week
[00:24:17] away people, ex okay, and you are ' less than a week
[00:24:20] away until we hear from you again on some the online reactions, so we'll
[00:24:24] check in with you maybe in about 20 minutes or so. with cost estimates
[00:24:28] of up to $113 billion dollars. are you on board for high-speed
[00:24:32] rail in Canada? what questions do you have? 888
[00:24:36] 4168333 or you can speak directly to Meg
[00:24:40] by going to CBC.ca/aircheck. right now though, I'd like to speak
[00:24:43] to someone whose livelihood could be on the line. Karine
[00:24:47] Bercier is co-owner of Ber business that cleans
[00:24:51] and sells soy beans and cereal seeds. all 3,0
[00:24:55] acres of her family's land sit directly inside Alto's proposed
[00:24:59] rail corridor, and we've reached her in St.
[00:25:02] Isador, Ontario, about an hour east of Ottowa. Hi
[00:25:06] Kareen, hi, thanks for having me.
[00:25:10] Uh, so how do you feel, what kind of impact? Give me an example of an
[00:25:13] impact that uh, this proposed railline could have on your
[00:25:29] had in pack, I mean we've put everything on hold uh
[00:25:33] regarding some projects we were in the works uh
[00:25:36] um in our family business um
[00:25:40] and uh we're transferring land right now uh to the
[00:25:44] next generation which is us and uh we've
[00:25:48] considered uh stopping some transfers and everything and this has
[00:25:51] been in the plans for us for the last five years, we've been working on
[00:25:55] this with lawyers and um
[00:25:58] and um...
[00:26:02] and um accountants for a long time, so there's also planning
[00:26:06] and these large farms that we own
[00:26:10] now, there's lots of equity behind it, and
[00:26:13] in cas crop farming in itself, I
[00:26:17] mean the the margins are small, there's
[00:26:21] all the all around
[00:26:24] the um, there's so many factors we can't control
[00:26:28] agriculture in itself, we can't control the...
[00:26:32] fields in our field, we can't control mother nature, we can't
[00:26:35] control um uh the prices of mark market
[00:26:39] prices, we can't control input costs, so there's so
[00:26:43] many things you can't control, yeah, will you get compensation
[00:26:47] though if if this rear line goes ahead and cuts through your property, mean if
[00:26:51] they pass let's say they say the they're going to take 60
[00:26:54] meters, they need 60 meters wide for this
[00:26:57] train, um well the 60
[00:27:01] meter uh Yes, could pass a small
[00:27:05] variable of my my parts of of land, but I have
[00:27:09] land on the other side of that 60 meters, right, so
[00:27:12] I'll have to access that land, and a large portion
[00:27:16] of my other partials are are going to be on the other
[00:27:20] side, and they won't be doing overpasses on every
[00:27:23] small country road, so we'll have to do crazy detours, our
[00:27:27] windows of opportunity in the fields are very
[00:27:30] narrow, uh... as they
[00:27:33] are, and so we'll have to probably do 45
[00:27:37] minutes one way to get to to land, and
[00:27:40] we do go to that land maybe uh 15 times a year,
[00:27:44] so there's lots of back and forts that we do that will
[00:27:48] just add to our cost of operations,
[00:27:52] and then there's also some part the land we won't have access
[00:27:56] to, will we be compensated for that? and then there's
[00:27:59] a so it's just the viability. of our farms
[00:28:03] are really in question when you think of all these challenges, I
[00:28:07] mean they're gonna, they might cut some the land in half, they won't be
[00:28:10] able to avoid that, because that train needs to go
[00:28:14] straight, right, so if they cut some in half,
[00:28:17] there's we have big parcels of land now
[00:28:21] that have complex drainage involved,
[00:28:25] so cutting that and half will bring
[00:28:28] um a big challenge with drainage, and that...
[00:28:32] too, I'm assuming Alto will pay for damages there, but
[00:28:36] again it's a gray zone, we were not so sure,
[00:28:39] so and then you have parcels of land that
[00:28:43] won't be big rectangular land, there they're going to be may
[00:28:47] maybe triangular land, and with our big machinery, heavy
[00:28:50] machinery will compact some of that land, so then will
[00:28:54] affect our yields, so there's so many things
[00:28:58] to to think about, and and
[00:29:02] it just... makes us think, well, if
[00:29:05] food security is something we think about, and the prime
[00:29:09] minister did talk about that in January, um, if
[00:29:13] we want to be self-sufficient, if we want
[00:29:16] independence, especially in the air of trade
[00:29:20] negotiations and all that, I think, taking
[00:29:23] parcels of land like this, and impacting the viability of
[00:29:27] strong farms,
[00:29:29] is um, it's, it's scary.
[00:29:32] ultimately, we have less than a minute left, there have been
[00:29:36] i guess the opportunity, there has been the opportunity for public
[00:29:39] consultation, how was that gone? so
[00:29:43] public consultation, we went to a public consultation in
[00:29:46] January, it was more of a PR campaign for Alto, I
[00:29:50] mean we didn't get any answers there, and then
[00:29:53] we formed roundtables with our
[00:29:56] NP um to talk about all the challenges
[00:30:00] and all the mitigation possible. abilities and all
[00:30:03] that. um, we've received answers from Alto,
[00:30:07] but it's very generic answers, nothing concrete, so we're
[00:30:11] still to this day, nine months later, we still feel like we're
[00:30:14] left in the dark and we have nothing answered, and
[00:30:18] the the the unknown is very detrimental to the
[00:30:22] economics of our our um
[00:30:26] local economies. okay, karene, thank you very
[00:30:29] much, thank you. is the co-owner
[00:30:33] of a farm that cleans and sells seeds, specifically soy bean and
[00:30:37] cereal seeds, and we reached her in St. Isador,
[00:30:40] Ontario. Our question this hour and cross country checkup with cost estimates of up
[00:30:44] to $113 billion dollars: are you on board for high-speed rail
[00:30:48] in Canada? What questions do you have?
[00:30:50] 1888-416-8333, or you can
[00:30:54] text us
[00:31:18] Prouse now, who is in Toronto. Hi Jon,
[00:31:20] hello, I see you have concerns about climate change in this
[00:31:24] conversation, and you have a question. Yes, my question
[00:31:28] is, and it's the question that you raise is the cost
[00:31:31] 113 billion dollars, but I i don't think
[00:31:35] I'm just wondering, has there been any um
[00:31:39] factoring in the cost the effects of
[00:31:43] um,
[00:31:43] you know, having more... short hall flights, which is the result
[00:31:47] of um traveling between Toronto and Ottawa and
[00:31:50] Montreal and Quebec. um, as anyone, that
[00:31:54] the the use of short hall fights is major contributor to
[00:31:58] climate change, and I don't think that people are
[00:32:01] factoring in the cost that it that we're seeing with all the climate
[00:32:05] disasters like wildfires, floods, um,
[00:32:08] you know, um, disasters like storms, it's it's
[00:32:12] actually costing money and it's actually... um impeding
[00:32:15] certain businesses like farming, i the last caller mentioned you know
[00:32:19] the forces of mother nature, well the forces are getting stronger that we're
[00:32:23] and i'm
[00:32:23] think just i don't wondering
[00:32:24] has anyone thought about maybe getting funding from insurance company that's paying out for all these
[00:32:28] um these uh disasters.
[00:32:32] the just thank pick question one you very much of
[00:32:33] jone and for
[00:32:34] i'll you uh mattie, do you know has there been any
[00:32:38] kind of uh like hard analysis in terms
[00:32:42] of actual
[00:32:44] you know numbers or? the
[00:32:45] of climate costs of having this train as opposed to as Joan would
[00:32:49] say more short hall flights? so Jone is absolutely right
[00:32:53] that short hall flights have an impact on the climate. um,
[00:32:57] the train is not a slam dunk when it comes to climate change. the reason is that the
[00:33:01] construction has lot of what's called embodied carbon that you have to, you use lot
[00:33:05] of concrete and steel and all of that has carbon
[00:33:08] impacts, all of that to put all the rails and everything in the
[00:33:11] ground. that has if we think of it a carbon cost, and it has to... be offset by the
[00:33:15] ridership, so the ridership has to be really high over many years in
[00:33:19] order to offset that initial investment so to speak, and we haven't seen a full
[00:33:23] assessment yet, life cycle assessment, but uh, it would be decades uh
[00:33:27] likely before it pays off because of how consequential the construction will be of
[00:33:31] a project like this. let's go to a question from social media, Dick Coott in
[00:33:35] Stitzville, Ontario asks, the problem with via we hear is
[00:33:39] that they have to share tracks with freat trains, why don't we hear anyone calling
[00:33:43] for the double tracking and upgrading? the existing lines a fraction the
[00:33:47] cost of proposed high-speed rail with
[00:33:50] fewer expropriations. Michael, well, the
[00:33:54] main line from Toronto to Montreal is actually entirely double track,
[00:33:58] some sections are triple track. The trouble is you've got mile long freight
[00:34:01] trains mixing in. It's not just that they're slow, it's they're
[00:34:05] fundamentally unreliable. They break down every day there's a train that
[00:34:08] breaks down somewhere on the line, not seriously, but it's delayed for an hour or two while they fix
[00:34:12] a brake hose or something like that somewhere along the. train freight
[00:34:16] is just not compatible with passenger rails, the way freight is operated in North
[00:34:20] America. In Europe, freight is run differently, the freight trains act more
[00:34:24] like passenger trains, they're very reliable, they're much shorter, their
[00:34:28] freight chargers are also twice what they are in Canada, so if
[00:34:32] Canada wants to have farmers and mines pay twice as much to move their
[00:34:36] freight to the ports, then we could make CN change its railway to
[00:34:39] operate so you could share the tracks, you still wouldn't have fast
[00:34:42] railway, you still wouldn't be able to run frequently and the costs
[00:34:46] of conventional rail are actually very high. it it the reason
[00:34:50] jet planes are used to cross the Atlantic isn't so much because they're
[00:34:54] faster than propeller planes, it's because it's the cheapest way to move people long
[00:34:58] distances over water is by jet planes.
[00:35:01] electric high-speed rail is actually cheaper than
[00:35:04] conventional diesel or even conventional electric rail
[00:35:08] for the distances we're looking at. if you're building new line anyway and and we have
[00:35:12] to build new tracks, you might as well build them in open. there aren't any mountains
[00:35:16] in the way so you might as well make the tracks pretty straight
[00:35:19] and you might as well go fast, it's what the French and the Spanish do
[00:35:22] and we should too. I'm ean Hannahman, sing in Vancouver, this is Cross
[00:35:26] Country Checkup and you've heard me talk about
[00:35:28] CBC.ca/aircheck, that is a way
[00:35:32] to give us a comment or also say you'd like to be on the show and
[00:35:35] Jone de Frusha uh did the latter and she is
[00:35:39] on the phone right now from Peter County Ontario. Hi
[00:35:42] Jon. Hi Ian. Uh, you have concerns I
[00:35:46] see about a potential stop in Peter, tell us about that?
[00:35:50] I do. Um, I think that most
[00:35:53] the um people going from Peterborough are going
[00:35:57] through to Toronto, and I'm wondering why they can't just
[00:36:01] beef up the um, the regional transportation
[00:36:04] system in this area, like a go-train from Peter to Toronto
[00:36:08] or Peter, osua even Link, um, we don't have that right
[00:36:12] now, and I just don't think that... the volume
[00:36:16] of people actually coming to Peter say from
[00:36:20] from Toronto or from Montreal, they're not, why are they
[00:36:24] going to stop in in Peter, the likelihood is? they're aiming
[00:36:28] for Toronto where the bus big businesses. Michael, what
[00:36:31] about that? why why not uh beef up uh go-train service and for
[00:36:35] those who aren't familiar with it? far away from Ontario, the government of
[00:36:39] Ontario commuter trains, which when I've taken them to visit a friend of mine in
[00:36:43] Burlington, they seem to be really efficient. uh, why not beef up that service
[00:36:47] between Peter and Toronto as opposed to this multi-billion dollar high-speed
[00:36:51] rail project? so my my cottage is actually near Peter so I got to declare
[00:36:55] in interest. um, cities at the distance of Peterborough in
[00:36:58] in Europe and Britain, in fact there's a city called Peter, which is about 100
[00:37:02] kilometers north of London, they generate thousands of commuter trips
[00:37:06] every day into the big city, Peter will grow, it may double in
[00:37:10] size over the next 30 years if this is built, you'll have 5, 10,00 people
[00:37:13] a day commuting in from Peterborough, not daily commuted so much
[00:37:17] as people who live in Peter, maybe live
[00:37:19] in the court, the likes go in the Toronto tour three times a week, you can't do it
[00:37:23] by upgrading the existing tracks, the tracks that run into Peter now,
[00:37:27] carry orange juice and rocks from a mine - the track speed is
[00:37:31] 10 miles per hour, you may have noticed how slowly the trains are moving, you might
[00:37:35] get it up to 40 miles an hour, it would still be two-hour trip, you've got to build a high-speed
[00:37:39] line between Toronto Auto and Montreal, it might as well pass near Peter, might
[00:37:43] as well have a station, the extra cost is tiny and you can make lot of
[00:37:47] money, carrying commuters in, the fair might be 20 bucks each
[00:37:50] way uh, it'll make lot of money for Alto carrying people into
[00:37:54] Toronto and it'll
[00:38:45] essential, people have to start looking at public transit like
[00:38:48] it is public infrastructure. roads do not make money either, yet
[00:38:52] nobody really bats an eye when governments spend millions building and
[00:38:56] maintaining roads. so why is it that
[00:39:06] for high-speed rail, the prohibited cost of construction
[00:39:09] combined with high operational and maintenance costs will not be
[00:39:13] supported by low ridership and expensive user costs. The
[00:39:16] business case doesn't consider costs of amputated communities and
[00:39:20] especially family run farms already struggling with rising diesel
[00:39:24] fuel and other operational costs and on tiktok
[00:39:27] CBC News got this message from Nate. Nate wrote would love to get
[00:39:31] see Canada get a bullet train from coast to coast
[00:39:34] and another user wrote um on TikTok, this is going to be
[00:39:38] like California high speed rail 2.0. I am non support of
[00:39:42] this. We already have plenty of flights between Quebec City, Montreal,
[00:39:46] Ottawa and Toronto, and that doesn't require the
[00:39:49] expropriation of private property or construction of this mega
[00:39:53] infrastructure. All right, Meg, thanks for uh monitoring that.
[00:39:57] I think we'll... you back one more time on this topic before the end
[00:40:00] the hour, let's go to David Belhiv, who's in
[00:40:04] Ottawa, and David, we connected with you before the show, because you're
[00:40:08] the founder the Go Alto campaign, an independent
[00:40:11] initiative, building public support for this
[00:40:15] project, why are you so enthusiastic about Alto? for
[00:40:19] me, Alto is really about what it can transform, so uh,
[00:40:23] we talked about that earlier and other people have chimed in about this,
[00:40:26] but basically we're comparing a way of travel that we have not
[00:40:30] experienced yet in Canada, which would enable people to
[00:40:34] do more trips, but also the trips that matter to them, so we're
[00:40:38] already wasting time at airports, we're wasting time driving between our largest
[00:40:41] cities, while we could do it much more efficiently, for cheaper
[00:40:45] and actually a schedule that works for more people, so
[00:40:49] it's very interesting when we are from people uh reaching out to the campaign
[00:40:53] to share what it means to them personally, i thought people talk about being able
[00:40:57] to see specialists in other city, to be able to come visit their
[00:41:01] family or parents when the they need assistance for various
[00:41:05] reasons or simply being able to choose a program of study in the
[00:41:08] university that interests them, so my speed dull is not about
[00:41:12] just fast train a fast track, it's about what it enables
[00:41:16] around it, and frankly I'm really excited for a future where we'll have
[00:41:20] actual options that don't rely on people driving to get where they need
[00:41:24] in this country. A lot the criticism of this...
[00:41:37] That is lot of money, does
[00:41:39] that give you pause at all? "it doesn't a single bit,
[00:41:42] because let's look
[00:41:44] at what the PBO actually states, so their analysis is based on
[00:41:47] comparative cost from projects in other parts the world,
[00:41:51] and it's important to remember 113 is the top the
[00:41:55] range, the bottom the range is 75 billions per the pbo.
[00:41:58] this is a completely different forecasting model than the one used by Alto to
[00:42:02] come up with their own range of 60 to 90 billion, but it tells us something
[00:42:06] important, we are in the general ball park for..." project that
[00:42:10] can meaningfully transform our nation and it's also w to remembering
[00:42:14] that cost is only one side the equation because we can also look
[00:42:18] at the benefits we get on the economy, we the benefits we get as
[00:42:22] society, but also what we enable for decades to
[00:42:25] come. you're an interesting position,
[00:42:28] you you're from originally Quebec City, you live in Ottawa,
[00:42:32] maybe there's a day sometime, who knows where life takes you, you might work in Montreal,
[00:42:36] all of that kind of factors in your view of this as well, right?
[00:42:40] Yeah, absolutely, because I believe like, well, we're keep talking about
[00:42:44] making the Canadian economy stronger, well, half the
[00:42:47] population and half the economic output of this nation happens
[00:42:51] in this very corridor, so I believe we can, by
[00:42:55] integrating it further, by having more opportunities for people to travel
[00:42:58] efficiently between those cities, we can actually enable people to reach better
[00:43:02] outcomes and also have access to a larger market. I can think of
[00:43:06] businesses here in Otawa that could make more business with...
[00:43:10] people in Montreal, in Rivière, in Kingston potentially, in Toronto,
[00:43:14] but also for example, people that are in the academic field,
[00:43:18] which is where I personally work, well, we have scholars that
[00:43:22] have the opportunity to go to conferences in Montreal, in Toronto, that might choose not
[00:43:25] to do it, because it requires them to spend multiple days instead of being
[00:43:29] able to go in the morning and come back by lunchtime, this is the kind
[00:43:33] of decisions we're putting aside because we don't have actual options
[00:43:37] we can rely on, David B. Thank you very
[00:43:41] much, real pleasure. David is the founder the Go
[00:43:44] Alto campaign, an independent initiative building public
[00:43:47] support for this project, and our two guests for
[00:43:51] this hour are Matty Simitiki, the director the
[00:43:55] Infrastructure Institute at the University of Toronto, and Michael
[00:43:58] Shabbis, and I'm going to put this next question, Michael to you, he's a
[00:44:02] railway expert in our studio in Toronto, and and here's
[00:44:05] a question Michael, we got from social media, uh, in fact, actually,
[00:44:10] I'm looking at it now is from a handful of listeners have reached out online to express
[00:44:13] concerns about the viability of high-speed rail given our
[00:44:17] harsh winters and and weather conditions uh what about that
[00:44:21] concern? well obviously it's not easy to run anything a
[00:44:24] snowstorm uh but the experience is that rail is just
[00:44:28] about the most reliable form of intercity transport. there will be
[00:44:32] times when the wires come down when trees blow blow across the tracks
[00:44:36] there will be times when the trains have to slow down because of snowstorms and
[00:44:40] but the it will be the best way to travel when it's when the weather
[00:44:44] is bad outside. our phone number on cross country checkup is
[00:45:22] Okay, so it's interesting, so you made the drive from Duncan to Sydney
[00:45:26] Bc, where the Victoria Airport is, and then drove back home, and
[00:45:30] you're way out on the west of of western Canada, how do
[00:45:34] you feel about this big project? well, there's so many
[00:45:38] question marks and I think your two guests would would... confirm some of this stuff
[00:45:41] um a cost 113 billion then as we all
[00:45:45] know there could be cost overruns top of that hopefully not uh this is
[00:45:49] tax payer money although hopefully there'd be some corporate but
[00:45:52] perhaps this is something that needs a national re uh national referendum
[00:45:56] about this buse that's a lot of coin and you know
[00:46:00] there's reality versus dreams a bullet train is a dream for
[00:46:04] Canada uh we have mountains we have degrous geography as
[00:46:08] one gentleman just talked about other stuff um,
[00:46:12] but reality is uh, we've got repair costs the
[00:46:15] tracks that are rotting right now, on Vancouver island we have not
[00:46:19] had any rail since 2011, no freight, no
[00:46:23] passenger, and those tracks are rotting, we have the island corridor
[00:46:27] foundation, which you may know about in that uh is trying to resurrect train
[00:46:30] on the island with a workable commuter
[00:46:33] schedule so people could use it, but there'd have to be shuttles or
[00:46:37] something at either end
[00:46:38] so you get out
[00:46:39] the train and then then what you can walk to work
[00:46:42] um and
[00:46:43] you know it's it's a it would be a great idea to get people over the
[00:46:47] Malahat which is a dangerous mountain uh given
[00:46:50] weather uh but perhaps pilot projects to test
[00:46:54] this line out between in the high population areas, which were
[00:46:58] not uh Toronto to Montreal
[00:47:01] uh, but the idea is to perhaps we have
[00:47:04] to uh crank up the gas prices, the fuel costs
[00:47:08] even more to get people out their cars and think about using a train. yeah,
[00:47:12] could you imagine the political cost of that though? well, I can,
[00:47:16] but
[00:47:17] you know, this is huge project. um, I've been in many other
[00:47:20] countries that leave us behind, in rail including India uh
[00:47:24] where trains are no one can afford cars uh
[00:47:28] but the I would hope if we did something like this
[00:47:31] all the stuff would be made the hardware would be made in Canada
[00:47:35] like through bombardier or someone like that okay
[00:47:39] um and I'm I'm assuming high speed trade are we talking
[00:47:42] passenger and freight or or what do I think this is just a
[00:47:46] passenger but Peter let's leave it there thank you very much for the call I I really
[00:47:50] appreciate it um let me put a question to to Matty, um, Albert
[00:47:54] is moving ahead with at least discussing, kind of
[00:47:58] getting serious about a high-speed real project uh between Calgary, Red
[00:48:02] Deer and Edmonton, uh, does the investment in
[00:48:06] HP rail make sense in in that part the country?
[00:48:09] Again, we need to see the business case, and this has been one the real critiques about Alto
[00:48:13] as well, is that so far, what's been released publicly is essentially a marketing
[00:48:17] prospectus that needs much more detail, and in Alberta, uh, they're at
[00:48:21] an early stage. uh and I think it's okay to talk about these things and to come back
[00:48:25] to uh your caller David's comments earlier, I think that vision is
[00:48:29] really compelling. The question is for me, it's partly about cost and it's
[00:48:33] really about the opportunity cost, what else could that money be spent on? That's
[00:48:37] you know, it's hard to fathem how much $110 billion dollars is, but you have
[00:48:41] to think about what else could you could uh invest and get for that. You know,
[00:48:45] people are talking about stitching together entire regions and having people
[00:48:48] travel from one city to the next to go to school and what not, I have.
[00:48:52] students who struggle to get from a Tobaco, which is suburb of Toronto, into the University of
[00:48:56] Toronto downtown to their classes, because
[00:48:58] the the Toronto transit commission has been starved of cash for a long time and has 19
[00:49:02] go slow zones where the trains literally have to go slow because
[00:49:05] the the tracks are not in a state of good repair. This is being repeated right across our
[00:49:09] transportation systems across the country, where we have
[00:49:12] 1.6 billion people who are trips on our urban transit
[00:49:16] systems where the systems are falling apart, they're struggling, they're
[00:49:18] unreliable, and this is and and our regions are... struggling in
[00:49:22] the same way that David talked about this this national vision and this inter city
[00:49:26] uh vision, many more people are struggling to get to their jobs or get to their appointments within
[00:49:30] the cities that they live in because the systems are falling apart, so I really think whether it's in
[00:49:34] Alberta or in Ontario, in Quebec or elsewhere in the country, this is a
[00:49:38] question about both cost and what else that money could be uh better spent
[00:49:42] on. Back to the phones, Andrew Teedson is in Kingston, Ontario, hi
[00:49:46] Andrew, hi, so the uh Alto
[00:49:49] Route would be close to your property uh... and
[00:49:53] you are in favor of it? yeah, um,
[00:49:57] my property is long and narrow, so if lost a bit of land from it, um, it's not
[00:50:01] a big deal for me, more concerned with other farmers and things, but in spite of
[00:50:05] that, I'm still in favorite, because this is a project for the future, it's for
[00:50:09] my potential grandchildren, it's not for me, I'm 61, I will never ride that
[00:50:13] train, um, actually,
[00:50:15] you know what, something that I I we should make sort of clear, uh,
[00:50:19] Michael, if all of this went ahead, when would the train start? to
[00:50:22] roll, i think they could get trains running from a
[00:50:26] station on the edge of Montreal to a station on the edge of Ottawa in 10 or
[00:50:30] 12 years if they started now, there are no mountains to go
[00:50:34] through, there's a bridge across the Ottawa river, it's mostly through open
[00:50:38] country, it's about the most favorable terrain in the world to build a
[00:50:42] high-speed railline uh, the place that's even better is Alberta
[00:50:45] actually, which is why Edmonton and Calgary makes so much sense uh, it's it's
[00:50:49] open country between the two cities, so it's it's
[00:50:53] simple construction. okay, Andrew, so hopefully you will get a chance to, if you
[00:50:57] so choose to ride at least a portion of this high speed project
[00:51:01] if it if it goes ahead. um, but what is it about the legacy
[00:51:05] of this for your grandkids that has you on board?
[00:51:08] well, the root represents half of Canada's population
[00:51:12] and about half of our our GDP, and that's only growing. the
[00:51:16] same time, the number of urban people that don't have cars is increasing all the
[00:51:20] time, and it's a way of connecting. Canada for people that aren't
[00:51:24] affluent enough to have a car.
[00:51:27] Um, if you look at even what a cheap car costs to run per year,
[00:51:31] and
[00:51:31] you take a TCC pass, there's still dozens of potential
[00:51:34] trips between Ottawa or Toronto and and Montreal, um,
[00:51:38] for less money than it cost to have a car and an urban center. Yeah, okay,
[00:51:42] thank you, Andrew for your call, appreciate it. And let's go back to Meg Cambell,
[00:51:46] who, as you know, if you've been listening all hour, all hour, has been
[00:51:50] watching the online conversation. Yeah, the
[00:51:54] conversation is yet to be derailed, so Cindy
[00:51:57] Bowen Ontario sent us this
[00:52:00] message. I don't believe is the best
[00:52:04] interest the... country, we've so many issues that we should
[00:52:07] prioritize, healthcare, homelessness and existing
[00:52:10] infrastructure maintenance are few, we should protect our prime
[00:52:14] agricultural land, this train if people actually use it, will hurt
[00:52:18] the small communities along the route, and John Duglin
[00:52:22] in Brunel Pei shared his thoughts via email. John
[00:52:26] wrote, "I understand
[00:52:27] that the construction of this project would create an enormous amount of
[00:52:31] economic activity in the construction phase. I question that..."
[00:52:35] actual long-term benefit, I would like to see development of Atlantic
[00:52:38] Canada's offshore wind power potential, cross
[00:52:42] country energy infrastructure, establishing an
[00:52:46] enhanced national wildfire fighting service, and yes,
[00:52:50] some sort of reasonable passenger service from Enlaton Canada to
[00:52:53] Central Canada be given greater priority and attention,
[00:52:57] and Mary Claire, Mosikot reached us from Port
[00:53:01] Alberny, BBC, she says, I grew up in Montreal and
[00:53:05] and I know the Toronto to Montreal drive well, the 401
[00:53:08] especially. I'm fully on board with the proposed high-speed
[00:53:12] rail. It would provide safer and more efficient
[00:53:15] alternative to driving a very dangerous highway. There are so
[00:53:19] many transport trucks on the road and bad weather in the winter.
[00:53:23] Meg Camble, thank you very much. Let's go to
[00:53:27] Lumsden Ciscatuin now. David Stillborne uh is calling. Hi
[00:53:31] David, hello there. So I see you would like to see better.
[00:53:35] real, but not for commuters, tell us about that? thank you kindly, i'll
[00:53:39] just a little bit, the question has already been about
[00:53:43] freight trains, but i'll just reference specifically how
[00:53:47] Canada is focused so much in the south, but so much not
[00:53:51] only of our current resource needs, but also our future
[00:53:55] resource needs are actually in the north. secondly,
[00:53:59] as we look at global transportation route, of course our arctic sovereignty is
[00:54:03] under threat with. a well-designed
[00:54:06] northern high-speed freight rail
[00:54:10] system, i would submit and expect we could actually
[00:54:13] undercut the costs and make global shipping across our
[00:54:17] portion the arctic um rather unattractive because we could do it will be
[00:54:21] cheaper by running it across Canada. okay, David, thank you very
[00:54:24] much for that call. uh, let's go to a
[00:54:28] question from social media, Megan Mccarrell sent is this: given
[00:54:32] that established trains between Ottawa and Toronto, are being cancelled by
[00:54:36] Via due to low ridership, how can Alto justify their predicted
[00:54:40] ridership numbers? By some accounts, the corporation believes that ridership
[00:54:43] between Montreal and Toronto will greatly exceed that of roots between much
[00:54:47] larger larger cities in Europe, such as Paris and London.
[00:54:51] We address this to an extent earlier in the hour, but but
[00:54:54] let's give uh Megan answer. I'll go to both of you,
[00:54:58] starting with you Michael, and uh, keep in mind we're just
[00:55:02] running a short of time here, but you go ahead, Michael, sure. i don't think v
[00:55:06] is cancelling those services because there are no passengers, i think they think they
[00:55:10] want to concentrate the services on other roots. i don't actually agree with lot of what they're
[00:55:14] doing, i don't think, i think there's massive pent up demand and they are
[00:55:17] overpricing the train services, actually they need to lengthen the trains.
[00:55:21] uh, comparisons with Europe are not correct either, uh, London to
[00:55:25] Paris is about 7 million people, i think, London to Brussels is about
[00:55:29] 5 million. typically you have five or six or 10 million
[00:55:33] any city pair. of those sizes, well for
[00:55:36] Alta, remember we're talking Toronto, Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal,
[00:55:40] Montreal, Ottawa, Ottawa Quebec City, Montreal, Quebec City,
[00:55:44] eventually Toronto to London, uh, London to Ottawa, each
[00:55:48] of those will be generating two, three, four, five, six million passengers, that's
[00:55:52] how you get to the 30 million, you can't, these aren't single city pairs,
[00:55:56] these are multiple city pairs you're serving, so that's what you have to do to understand the
[00:55:59] ridership number. Matty, ridership numbers, what do you
[00:56:02] think, from my perspective? uh the way that I do it
[00:56:06] is I look at reference classes or comparators internationally uh this
[00:56:10] looks highly ambitious uh to me uh and and likely an
[00:56:14] overestimation which is what tends to happen with uh ridership
[00:56:17] forecasts uh and the other point about cutting service that's the other thing
[00:56:21] that has been observed internationally is that when high-speed rail goes in it sucks
[00:56:25] away some the the ridership uh from the regional trains to the
[00:56:28] local trains and you end up starting to see cuts in the network and you start to see atrophy
[00:56:32] there and that's another concern for people in... our communities who are wondering why their train
[00:56:36] service is disappearing, that is likely to accelerate if this high-speed rail line
[00:56:40] goes in as well. all right, we're running short of time on this topic, but let ask
[00:56:44] each of you at least one more question, michael, we were talking about
[00:56:48] via rail, if Alto takes over this route for
[00:56:51] high-speed service, what does happen to VR? well, I think on the
[00:56:55] roots between Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Campec City, the VR rail services
[00:56:59] will be discontinued, and I think that's the right answer, I have to say I didn't
[00:57:03] believe that three years. ago I've done a lot of analysis on it, but if we
[00:57:07] can have stations at Kingston, Bellville, Brockville, Peter, and actually somewhere
[00:57:11] near Santador, which is not too far from Cornwall, there there will be
[00:57:15] no passengers on the via trains between.
[00:57:18] in Montreal. What I don't think we should do is lose the brand. I actually think the ViA brand's a much better name
[00:57:22] than Alto. We should just say we're building new tracks for ViA. We're shifting
[00:57:26] via away from the CN tracks onto its own tracks. We're buying them a
[00:57:29] new fleet of fast trains so they can do that
[00:57:32] and we're serving pretty much all the same places with stations along the
[00:57:36] way plus few more. That's what we're really doing. Yeah, that that's an intriguing
[00:57:40] idea. Um, Matdy, beyond this high high speed rail
[00:57:43] project, and and again, this is something you touched on, but I want to ask you.
[00:57:47] directly, what other transportation projects should the government be making a
[00:57:51] priority of? investing in our urban uh regional transit
[00:57:55] networks uh, the transit networks are falling apart before our eyes,
[00:57:59] um, I was stuck a subway for 10 minutes yesterday and the speakers are so bad
[00:58:03] that you can't even hear what's going on and why the train is delayed even though they're trying to tell
[00:58:07] you. in Montreal they had a station taken out of service for structural reasons, in
[00:58:11] Ottawa they have they're having issues with reliability their service, the
[00:58:14] systems that people depend on every single day, are falling apart, this is
[00:58:18] not just about building new, it's about maintaining what we already have and
[00:58:22] expanding on it, so people in the day-to-day trips that they take the most regularly to
[00:58:26] get to all the things that are super important in their lives, that those that those trips can
[00:58:30] be done reliably, and in our cities where both the vast amount the trips are made
[00:58:34] and frankly the vast amount the pollution is is produced as well that we can
[00:58:38] do better and that people can uh move around our regions uh a
[00:58:42] smoother uh way, I think that's where really where the priority should be, we need to
[00:58:45] improve how we move between... cities but and
[00:58:48] and that can be invested into, but for some the money and let's
[00:58:51] put it elsewhere across our transportation networks as well. this is a live
[00:58:55] program cross country checkup and sometimes we make some changes on the
[00:58:59] fly. what i'm going to do actually is continue on this topic for few
[00:59:03] moments past the top the hour, so i'm going to come back to the two of you
[00:59:07] in just moment, and think i have time after the top the
[00:59:11] hour to squeeze in one more
[01:00:15] on CBC radio cross country checkup, Continues, I'm mean Hannah Mansing
[01:00:19] in Vancouver, and as we talk about high-speed rail for
[01:00:22] few more minutes, keep in mind our number continues to be
[01:00:26] 888-416-8333.
[01:00:30] Scott Mayberry is in Northumberland,
[01:00:33] north uh, north, oh yeah,
[01:00:36] northermland, county, Ontario, hi Scott, good
[01:00:40] afternoon, uh, you've taken high-speed rail
[01:00:44] in China, and you have a question to our experts based on that.
[01:00:47] experience, yes, I have, I've taken in China, but also in
[01:00:51] France, and France are at great, and they have figured
[01:00:54] out, I'm a farmer as well, but...