I think its unfair to slag VIA and Canada. The Chinese are undertaking transportation improvements at a later stage of development. They also have to move large numbers of people through dense areas. That's perfect for high speed trains.
Conversely, most of Canada's population with the exception of the Quebec-Windsor corridor is rather sparsely populated. That's why we developed a network of airports and vast airlines (Air Canada and Westjet are rather large relative to our population). However, that will change with time. We'll get high speed rail now that its becoming much more feasible in certain corridors (Quebec-Windsor, Calgary-Edmonton).