Moose Rail (National Capital Region)

[Charles]

@Joseph Potvin,

Glad to see you back, you've been absent for a while. I do hope that you'll answer a question that's been outstanding for a while.

In July 2017 you put out a press release concerning your relationship with LeMine Consortia. According to your press release, LeMine was a credible organization which “specializes in bringing international capital to high-quality Canadian projects.” LeMine was to conduct a four month due diligence review to determine if they would subsequently fund your feasibility study. (link)

Last fall you stated that you would “work out a communications approach with LeMine-Consortia N.A., of course, one way or the other” in regards to the results of the due diligence review. (link)

Can you please advise what that method of communication was, where one might find it, and perhaps you could give a short synopsis of the results of that review.

 

[Joseph Potvin]

@Charles,

MOOSE and Lemine-Consortia exchanged of letters of intent with 120 days for each to learn about the other. That ended after 120 days, and instead Moose Consortium Inc. now has in place a signed contract with a more prominent investment syndication management company oriented to Canadian sources of capital. At this time the identity of this firm is available to targeted investment sources.

Joseph Potvin
Director General | Directeur général
Moose Consortium (Mobility Ottawa-Outaouais: Systems & Enterprises) | www.letsgomoose.com
Consortium Moose (Mobilité Outaouais-Ottawa: Systèmes & Enterprises) | www.onyvamoose.com

 

[kEiThZ]

@Charles,

MOOSE and Lemine-Consortia exchanged of letters of intent with 120 days for each to learn about the other. That ended after 120 days, and instead Moose Consortium Inc. now has in place a signed contract with a more prominent investment syndication management company oriented to Canadian sources of capital. At this time the identity of this firm is available to targeted investment sources.

Joseph Potvin
Director General | Directeur général
Moose Consortium (Mobility Ottawa-Outaouais: Systems & Enterprises) | www.letsgomoose.com
Consortium Moose (Mobilité Outaouais-Ottawa: Systèmes & Enterprises) | www.onyvamoose.com

So you've now contracted to find a firm which will finance your feasibility study to determine if it's possible to finance your project? Is that an accurate assessment of the situation?

And why are you now limiting it to Canadian sources of capital? Where has all the enthusiasm for the Chinese gone? @steveintoronto was regaling us with predictions of Chinese funded maglevs to every Ottawa Valley podunk town. All based on insider info that he couldn't tell us more about (where does that sound familiar?). And you couldn't convince the Chinese to drop loose pocket change on you?

 

[Charles]

@Charles,

MOOSE and Lemine-Consortia exchanged of letters of intent with 120 days for each to learn about the other. That ended after 120 days,

So your 'communications approach' upon conclusion of the review is a post in a online forum. Far cry from the five page press release when it started.

So I take it that as a result of a due diligence review by a 'specialist' organization, what was 'learned' by Lemine was that they didn't see sufficient grounds to even consider proceeding with the funding of a feasibility study.

 

[Joseph Potvin]

So your 'communications approach' upon conclusion

Media releases are issued when there's something important to report.

So I take it that

MOOSE and Lemine-Consortia were mutually assessing each other. As indicated in my earlier post, MOOSE chose to sign with another investment management firm.

This is a normal trajectory in business.

Joseph Potvin
Director General | Directeur général
Moose Consortium (Mobility Ottawa-Outaouais: Systems & Enterprises) | www.letsgomoose.com
Consortium Moose (Mobilité Outaouais-Ottawa: Systèmes & Enterprises) | www.onyvamoose.com

 

[steveintoronto]

...It's particularly useful, for example, to compare and contrast the MOOSE plan with that of former Minister of Transport David Collennette, produced when he later chaired the former Mayor of Ottawa's Task Force on Transportation (2007).

Excellent link. Short on time now, just a cursory glance proves very interesting. This immediately caught my eye:

 

[kEiThZ]

So your 'communications approach' upon conclusion of the review is a post in a online forum. Far cry from the five page press release when it started.

So I take it that as a result of a due diligence review by a 'specialist' organization, what was 'learned' by Lemine was that they didn't see sufficient grounds to even consider proceeding with the funding of a feasibility study.

Real businesses normally don't have CEOs trolling enthusiast forums on weekends. Yet, here we are.

This is a normal trajectory in business.

The better part of a decade just to get feasibility study funding? That's not normal in business.

MOOSE and Lemine-Consortia were mutually assessing each other. As indicated in my earlier post, MOOSE chose to sign with another investment management firm.

Hilarious. Are you a teen in high school? "I didn't get dumped. I dumped her."

Yeah. We're going to believe the team with no money rejected investors who would have provided tens or hundreds of millions in financing.

And again, why the focus on Canadian investors? There's a rather limited pool of capital at home. So what's stopping MOOSE from pursuing foreign investment? I suspect you guys think Canadian investors are easier marks. You're going to have to learn the hard way I guess.

 

[micheal_can]

Yet, you said I don't get it. That assertion presumes you have answers. Please proceed.

You assume I need answers. I assume the city will do the due diligence needed for this project.

 

[Charles]

I assume the city will do the due diligence needed for this project.

I think they already have.

From Mayor Jim Watson: "I don’t think MOOSE has the experience, credibility or financing to do what they want to do . . . "

 

[micheal_can]

I think they already have.

From Mayor Jim Watson: "I don’t think MOOSE has the experience, credibility or financing to do what they want to do . . . "

That is a good start. It shows that the city will not just let them bankrupt themselves and the city. It also gives the onus on Moose to show that the city is wrong about them.

 

[steveintoronto]

The City can think and say as they wish, short of defamation, but the decision isn't theirs. It's the CTA's. If the City disagrees, then push ahead with the court appeal. I hope they do, (and all indications are that they will lose) and then that will force the City to divest ownership of the PoW Bridge, and force the hand of the NCC or some other federal agency, ministry or department to assume it, and recompense the City in a just and reasonable manner, while the City will still have shared use of rail access as embodied in the Transportation Act and others, if the City meets the criteria as detailed in the Transportation, Safety and other Acts.

 

[kEiThZ]

You assume I need answers. I assume the city will do the due diligence needed for this project.

As Charles pointed out, they have. Yet, you and a few other folks on here can't take "No" for an answer..... Most likely because you don't live in Ottawa and it's all sport to you.

It's not just the city. Clearly, potential investors aren't taking MOOSE seriously either. They won't even give them enough to put together a decent feasibility study. So all Mr. Potvin can shop around is MOOSE's concept paper. No wonder the mayor dismissed him.

The question for me is why you and a few other MOOSE sycophants take MOOSE more seriously than the mayor, City Council, MPPs, MPs and potential investors.

 

[steveintoronto]

^lol...perhaps because Federal Law trumps the City of Ottawa's jurisdiction? The irony of invoking "Ottawa" appears to know no bounds.

Even GO Transit comes under Federal regulation:

Transport Canada
Chapter 4: Regulatory Framework
[...]

The regulatory framework for railway safety encompasses the federal and provincial legislation, regulations, rules, and standards that provide the structure in which railway companies can operate safely. Some 34 Canadian railways1 have interprovincial or Canada-U.S. operations and are therefore regulated by federal law. These include the two major freight-carrying railways, CN and CP,2 the passenger rail company VIA Rail, and more than 30 short line companies. [...]

https://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/tcss/RSA_review/chapter4-374.htm

Here is one of many SCC decisions on applicability of Federal powers over railways, *even if they don't cross interprovincially*...in this case RE: GO Transit:

Supreme Court of Canada
The Queen v. Board of Transport Commissioners, [1968] S.C.R. 118
Date: 1967-11-20

As to the second question, the commuter service comes within the legislative jurisdiction of the Parliament of Canada as being a local work or undertaking within the meaning of s. 92(10)(a) of the B.N.A. Act, 1867.

The Canadian National Railways, extending beyond the limits of the province of Ontario, is subject to the jurisdiction of the Parliament of Canada, and the question is whether the commuter service can be said not to form part of this railway. To come to this conclusion, it would be necessary to hold that federal jurisdiction over inter-provincial railways extends only to interprovincial services provided on such railways. It is not possible to so hold. The constitutional jurisdiction depends on the character of the railway line and not on the character of a particular service provided on that railway line. The fact that for some purposes the commuter service should be considered as a distinct service does not make it a distinct line of railway. From a physical point of view, the commuter service trains are part of the overall operations of the line over which they run. Parliament of Canada has jurisdiction over everything that physically forms part of a railway subject to its jurisdiction.

Supreme Court of Canada Judgments
https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/4749/2/document.do

Later in the judgment linked above:

In Attorney General for Alberta v. Attorney-General for Canada1, Lord Moulton said at p. 370:

By s. 8 of the Dominion Railway Act Parliament treats in a special manner the crossing of Dominion railways by provincial railways. These portions of the provincial railways are made subject to the clauses of the Dominion railway legislation, which deal also with the crossings of two Dominion railways, so that the provincial railways are in such matters treated administratively in precisely the same way as Dominion railways themselves. The Parliament of the Dominion is entitled to legislate as to these crossings because they are upon the right of way and track of the Dominion railway as to which the Dominion Parliament has exclusive rights of legislation, and moreover, as the provincial railways are there by permission and not of right, they can fairly be put under terms and regulations.

1 [1915] A.C. 363, 19 C.R.C. 153, 22 D.L.R. 501.

 

[Charles]

@steveintoronto

What you may not have realized so far is that the issues surrounding MOOSE and their ability to create a railway network have almost nothing to do with CTA and any decisions they may make about the POW Bridge, or even access rights in general.

Remember, the MOOSE plan is to create and operate a 400km railway network over three lines, which would be funded by 'voluntary' payments from property owners and tenants around stations.

A CTA decision is not going to:

• provide MOOSE any funding to conduct a feasibility study, let alone the Billions of dollars required to initiate this project.
• change the fact that there is insufficient ridership to warrant having a railway network.
• change the fact that the MOOSE business plan, which expects to generate 100's of MILLIONS of dollars annually from voluntary payments, is completely non-viable on an ongoing basis.
• give MOOSE access to the Bristol leg as it is not federally regulated.
• give MOOSE access to the Chelsea leg as it is not federally regulated.
• give MOOSE access to the Montebello leg as it is not all federally regulated.

I could go on. As I've said before, my opinions are not anti-rail, nor anti-privatization. This is about MOOSE and my opinion that they :

• lack credibility,
• lack any sort of reasonable business plan,
• have no likely chance to procure investment support,
• will be unable to complete a proper feasibility study that justifies the creation of this network,
• have no experience,
• have no certification.

 

[steveintoronto]

What you may not have realized so far is that the issues surrounding MOOSE and their ability to create a railway network have almost nothing to do with CTA and any decisions they may make about the POW Bridge, or even access rights in general.

Having participated in this forum for a lot longer than yourself, I'm fully aware of what MOOSE is, isn't, and how the CTA has jurisdiction over almost every aspect being discussed.

You can post all you like on how MOOSE eats dead babies, hates love, and sleeps with apes...you do so as a means to obfuscate and derail discussion on the *Rights of MOOSE* as accorded by the Law.

This is about far more than just MOOSE, even if you wish it otherwise.