Parti Québécois Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon provoked derision recently for vowing to derail the federal government’s “nation-building” high-speed train project if he is elected premier and suggesting Ottawa should instead just hand over the money to fund other infrastructure.

“I can’t justify to Quebecers that their money would be invested in a colossal project that, according to studies, would have little impact on road traffic and strongly risks becoming an enormous financial fiasco,” St-Pierre Plamondon said of Alto’s plan to build a high-speed rail line connecting Quebec City, Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto, with a stop in Laval and a route that is raising ire among farmers in Mirabel, who are still bitter their land was expropriated for an airport in the 1970s.

St-Pierre Plamondon’s reasons for opposing the rail line are predictable. Basically, he doesn’t want it to strengthen Quebec’s ties to the rest of Canada because all he wants is sovereignty.

And his demands are unrealistic. The federal government isn’t just going to cut Quebec (or any province) a blank cheque from the $60 billion to $90 billion estimated cost of the high-speed rail line to spend how it pleases.

But motives and unlikelihood aside, the PQ leader may have a point.

What if instead of spending all that money on intercity transportation, the federal government invested in expanding public transit within regions? Perhaps that suggestion isn’t any........

© Montreal Gazette