The spending watchdog’s estimate of what it will cost to build a high-speed rail line from Toronto to Quebec City is somewhat higher than the $60 billion to $90 billion estimate from the Via Rail subsidiary in charge of the project. The PBO acknowledged that there’s enormous uncertainty in any estimate, with no route yet decided and a single kilometre of track costing tens of millions of dollars for planning, land acquisition and construction. (The Logic)

Talking point: “Institutional and project-management risks have been assessed to be more important than engineering risks,” the PBO said, so another major source of uncertainty is whether the Alto project goes more like a relatively smooth European high-speed rail project or stunningly expensive ones in the U.S. and U.K. The latter seem like the obvious (and worrying) examples for Canada, the PBO report said, but the Liberal government has been striving to make building easier—more like recent European experiences. A lot will depend on how successful that work has been.

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