A high-speed train is shown at a station in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Jan. 11, 2018.Wilfredo Lee/The Associated Press
The federal cabinet has approved plans for a new dedicated passenger rail line between Quebec City and Toronto that would include high-speed technology, according to a senior government official.
Ottawa has been reviewing submissions from a short list of three bidding consortiums. Each of the three was required to present the government with two options: one that includes traditional trains operating frequently on dedicated tracks and a second option that goes further to include at least some segments of high-speed rail.
High-speed rail, a term generally used to describe trains that travel at speeds of around 300 kilometres an hour, is more expensive to build because it requires the construction of bridges to avoid grade crossings.
The senior government official said an announcement would be made that will include high-speed rail.
The Globe is not identifying the official because they were not authorized to comment on the matter.
The news was first reported by Radio-Canada, which said the announcement would be made in the coming weeks.
Many details remain unknown about the government’s plan, such as whether the full line would be high-speed or only segments of the line.
Transport Minister Anita Anand’s office would not confirm the decision.
“No contract has been awarded to a consortium for the rail project in the Quebec City-Toronto corridor,” Ms. Anand said in a statement.
The statement included a partisan jab at Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, who is well ahead of the Liberals in public-opinion polls with a federal election campaign expected to take place at some point within the next year.
“While Pierre Poilievre talks about cuts, we’re focused on what we’re building to transform Canada for future generations,” she said.
The Conservative Party has not announced a clear position on the proposal, which the Liberal government has been studying for years. In a recent transport committee report on the topic, the Conservative members said the government has not released enough information on the cost to allow the party to take a position on the issue.
The government has not provided any recent cost estimates for the project since it began entertaining the option of including high-speed elements.
Former transport minister Omar Alghabra has previously speculated that the project could cost between $6-billion and $12-billion, but officials have since hinted the updated cost is likely much higher.
Via Rail had initially proposed the project as high-frequency rail, meaning it would not go much faster than existing trains but would be more frequent and reliable.
Via Rail has long said it is prevented from offering better service because of its current arrangement in which it mostly operates on rail lines owned by CN Rail, which gives priority to its freight traffic. Freight trains travel at slower speeds than passenger trains.
The project would include stops in Trois-Rivières, Montreal, Ottawa and Peterborough, Ont. It would run parallel and to the north of the tracks currently used by Via Rail. Via would continue to serve communities on its existing route, such as Kingston, Ont. ,and Drummondville, Que.
In a September report, the House transport committee urged the government to “look to countries with successful publicly operated high-speed rail systems, such as Spain, Switzerland, Austria and Germany, to inform the procurement and operations model” of the rail project.
Martin Imbleau, CEO of the government’s high-frequency rail project, told The Globe in August that the project could conceivably lead to cutting travel time between Montreal and Toronto down to three hours or less with high-speed trains.
“It’s not a dream that we think we can cut the travel time in half,” he said at the time.
