I'm also a big supporter of high speed rail & pretty much agree with your view (eg: being able to build and maintain it indicates you have the administrative and skilled work capacity to do long-term projects - seeing Britain totally lose this ability has been pretty tragic - they'd already bought the land for HS2 before it was canceled which is just complete vandalism...). I'm really hoping the Toronto-Quebec line actually gets built for romantic reasons but also because it would be a sign Canada is still able to function as like... a normal country.

and the expected domino effect of the delayed copycat downfall of its anglo siblings
So you're saying Quebec will save us? :p