Air Canada, TGV train company join group bidding for high-frequency fast rail project
1,000 kilometres of dedicated and mainly electrified tracks between Windsor and Quebec City, with stops in Toronto, Peterborough, Ont., Ottawa, Laval, Que., Montreal and Trois-Rivières, Que.If it goes ahead, it will be the biggest Canadian infrastructure and transportation project in the 60 years since the St. Lawrence Seaway was built.
It will likely cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars.That’s why the government is trying to enlist private partners to help finance and build it while offering the chosen companies a decades-long concession to operate the trains.Cadence is a consortium made up of global companies, and a huge pension fund, with expertise in the design, development and operation of large-scale transportation infrastructure projects.Other Cadence members include CDPQ Infra (the infrastructure investment arm of Quebec’s Caisse de Depot pension fund), SYSTRA Canada, Atkins Realis Canada (formerly SNC-Lavalin) and Keolis Canada.The other two consortiums are:Transportation lobby group Transport Action Canada (founded as Transport 2000 in 1977), is also displeased with Air Canada joining the Cadence team belatedly and the lack of transparency about it.In a statement Wednesday, the group noted that Air Canada does have existing rail-air partnerships in Europe. “But for an airline to bid on HFR raises questions about conflict of interest, competition, and the transparency of the process.”“Allowing one of three shortlisted consortia to reveal major changes in its composition only when it was too late for the others to respond was unfair,” Transport Action Canada added, saying the government has not answered any of its questions about it.The federal government has created a separate Crown corporation called VIA
. Read more on globalnews.ca
