I seem to say this a lot....but..... the whole debate around what the government can do and what rights the railways have as private enterprises gets a whole lot simpler if one refers to the Canada Transportation Act.
Federal laws of Canada
laws-lois.justice.gc.ca
The most relevant sections to this discussion are -
Section 36 - CTA authority to impose mediation and Arbitration
Section 112 - Commercially fair and reasonable
Section 113 - Levels of service
Section 138 - Running rights and joint trackage
Section 145.1 - Offer to governments before discontinuance
Section 152.1 - Public Passenger Service Providers Dispute Resolution
Section 157.1 - Determination of costs
The point being - the CTA does give the government (via application to the CTA) much of the power that posters are wishing it had.... and the CTA does already outline the general framework for determining compensation to the railways when such powers are exercised. So, the law is not as constitutionally murky - or as toothless - as one might think.
Open access of a European vein would likely mean scrapping the CTA in entirety, and writing a whole new regime. definitely a hammer to kill a big bug proposition. Maybe that would be desirable, but the delay before anyone could get on with a passenger rail project would be considerable.
The present framework may not expedite solving some of the issues that stand in the way of a better passenger infrastructure, but the solution may be some tinkering and not a more substantial legal rewrite.
- Paul