Actually, that might not be necessary. As someone quite astutely suggested to me, th reason why they're moving ahead with level boarding in Ottawa might have a lot to do with the HFR routing: Since all Toronto-Montreal trains would also pass through Ottawa, there'll be a need to make boarding times much faster and reduce dwell times. It's not as much of an issue in Toronto, since it's at the end of the line, though I strongly suspect that we'll know in advance which stations will be getting HFR service by looking at which ones are set to get level boarding.
With faster boarding in mind, I actually think that the NCC board member is right, but perhaps not for the reasons he cited. Passenger comfort is important, but from a time-saving perspective, it would make a lot of sense to have heated platforms which people can wait on to further decrease dwell times.
