Ottawa next to the track

The grace of the profession of mayor allowed me for 14 years to have the hindquarters well printed on the back seat of a company vehicle, with driver and guardian of my big body.

I have already written it, and I hope my insurer does not read me, I think I have lost the twist at the wheel, and my vehicle, which is celebrating its first anniversary these days, is already due for a first stay with the upper and lower body multiple injury body repairer.

I pull off incredible antics. I expect an offer from Cirque du Soleil…

Also, I am looking for an alternative to move on the longer course. And that for your own safety ladies and gentlemen!

And that’s where I rediscover how Ottawa is next to the track.

We forget the plane. The bus?

I’ve become wild and claustrophobic, and I don’t want to have to argue with a neighbor glued to me all the way through. So, instead of worsening my reputation for looking silly, I avoid it.

I still have the train.

The round trip between Quebec and Montreal takes about seven hours, quite a bit slower than with my vehicle. Hoping again that the SQ does not read this column…

And the frequency, we don’t even talk about it. The first departure is in the middle of the night.

But if there was a TGV, with speed and frequency, I don’t think I would ever take my vehicle or the plane again to get to Montreal, or at the end of this Quebec-Windsor line.

And how many of us think the same thing, do you think?

I bathed in this file and campaigned for a TGV for 14 years. I don’t know any worse. I had to defend my city because some geniuses in Ottawa preferred a Montreal-Windsor or Toronto route.

No need to tell you that I lay down on the rail, and they had to run over my body. I warned everyone that they would become famous if they tried to eliminate Quebec from the project. Rule.

But funnily, Ottawa has always only planned a TGF. I even accepted, reluctantly, to participate in an announcement on the TGF in Quebec, because I wanted to protect the presence of our city in this project, or that of a TGV possibly.

I think this country lacks ambition!

Canada is one of the last western countries without high-speed transportation. We are frankly backward.

Even the United States, whose inhabitants have oil in their veins, are working on several high-speed rail projects. That says it all.

Plus, we have the clean, renewable energy source to run it.

Yes, the project is expensive to build, but the Quebec-Windsor line is almost 150 times longer than the route of the third link project in Quebec. Compare the costs and ask yourself where the priority is.

The Quebec-Windsor TGV would cover regions where 60% of the Canadian population lives and which also produce 60% of the country’s jobs and GDP.

VIA Rail claims that we would save 25% of time with a TGF between Quebec and Montreal. According to an article by Julien Arsenault, of The Press¹, on a trip that currently takes 3 hours 24 minutes, it would save us 24 minutes. Crumbs and still longer than a car ride.

Roughly speaking, a TGV would cut the journey time by a couple of hours. All the difference in the world.

The TGF won’t cause a significant major modal shift in my view, but the TGV would do it spectacularly, and add up the environmental impact.

The TGF project was estimated between 6 to 12 billion dollars, but now, we no longer know…

The federal Minister of Transport said last week that he would consider that portions of the TGF make it possible to drive faster.

Little bits faster! Wowww!

Quick little tips for a small life project! Pooooves us!

As Môman would say, the minister has put his head in a political Jell-O mould, to play on both counts.

And now the Quebec government says it wants a TGV instead. We make the wave!

Of course, the prospect of supporting and developing a railway industry at home motivates him.

He wants Ottawa’s money for a third link, and an extra TGV. The butter, the butter money and… and I’ll stop here so as not to be rude.

He no longer remembers how the file of federal health services funding ended, where he only obtained dry biscuits.

But still, if I were Mr. Legault, I would not let go of the TGV and I would push in the back of Ottawa cotton!

We would even encourage him to brew Justin on it, it should make him happy. Come on, spoil yourself, Prime Minister!

It would change us from the usual Quebec-Ottawa kidding. And he’ll never get a cent for the third link anyway.

President Eisenhower, too, must have been scared when he started his project to build 65,000 kilometers of highways in the United States in the late 1950s. But he had a vision, and he was right. .

I remind you that Canada was really built following the construction of a transnational railway, at the end of the 19th^e century.

But I suppose Mr. Poilievre would jump on such a plan to cut his throat and help him win the next election.

In fact, it is probably us, the people of this country, who lack ambition.

Misery !