Quebec-Windsor Corridor

[micheal_can]

He would have similar political ideas to the Republican party in the US.

Universal dental care $4.1B
universal pharma care $11.2B year 1
Next 5 years 13.4B
Carbon tax $25B reduction in GDP.
That's just what he has stated publicly.

Unfortunately for these things it means that the people who can't afford prescriptions or dental care will need to pay for it. It will hurt poor people the most.
Hence why he's not looking out for the average Canadian. He's appealing to the wealthy who don't care about that and have private insurance.

The question is whether he will take those 'savings' and put them to HSR. Unless anyone has any insider information, we are all guessing here.

 

[lenaitch]

I think PP would maintain status quo with VIA. Cutting it entirely would require him to change the act that makes it mandatory to serve rural communities. What would he have to gain from changing that?

Curious what piece of legislation that would be.

 

[Urban Sky]

Curious what piece of legislation that would be.

I suspect he refers to the CTA (here the order which adjusted it to prescribe the January 1990 cuts), but I believe it has been repealed in the meanwhile (or at the very least no longer applies to VIA):

Order Varying Certain National Transportation Agency Orders Respecting Railway Companies

Federal laws of Canada

laws-lois.justice.gc.ca

 

[micheal_can]

I suspect he refers to the CTA (here the order which adjusted it to prescribe the January 1990 cuts), but I believe it has been repealed in the meanwhile (or at the very least no longer applies to VIA):

Order Varying Certain National Transportation Agency Orders Respecting Railway Companies

Federal laws of Canada

laws-lois.justice.gc.ca

I doubt there are companies out there that are chomping at the bit to take on a money losing service. They would want some sort of financial guarantee. I am guessing it would not be cheaper than keeping Via intact.

Has there ever been a contracted service that was actually cheaper than keeping in in a government?

 

[roger1818]

For the LDF, I think the most likely option for PP would be to kick the ball down the road by "delaying" the order and let a future government do the dirty work of actually cancelling the routes as the trains need to be retired. That future government can then blame the inaction of previous governments, but by then, PP will likely be gone. I don't think he will see there being enough political brownie points to be earned by replacing the LDF to be worth the cost.

 

[roger1818]

For those who might be curious, the potential Ottawa-Greenboro HSR stop would be ~3KM from Poilievre's riding, and certainly something the Liberal-voting areas in his riding would use from time to time.

The Ottawa-Fallowfield station is even closer to his riding, and the vast majority of his constituents woudl use it if all trains to/from Montreal used it and the travel time between stations was reasonable. I could even see him making Fallowfield Ottawa's only station.

 

[micheal_can]

Actually, you can take the bus from Toronto to Vancouver by using Ontario Northlad from Toronto to Winnipieg and Rider Express from Winnipeg to Vancouver. It takes 3.5 days and you need to change buses a bunch of times, but it can be done.

I did not realize that.Thank you for correcting me.

For the LDF, I think the most likely option for PP would be to kick the ball down the road by "delaying" the order and let a future government do the dirty work of actually cancelling the routes as the trains need to be retired. That future government can then blame the inaction of previous governments, but by then, PP will likely be gone. I don't think he will see there being enough political brownie points to be earned by replacing the LDF to be worth the cost.

This is most likely what his government will do as it can set him up to cancel it and be the 'hero' for cancelling a dangerous service.

 

[Urban Sky]

For the LDF, I think the most likely option for PP would be to kick the ball down the road by "delaying" the order and let a future government do the dirty work of actually cancelling the routes as the trains need to be retired. That future government can then blame the inaction of previous governments, but by then, PP will likely be gone. I don't think he will see there being enough political brownie points to be earned by replacing the LDF to be worth the cost.

I believe that TC and VIA have made abundantly clear that there won‘t be any legacy fleet in operation beyond 2035. Cancelling or postponing the LD fleet procurement will be an explicit decision to phase out VIA‘s non-Corridor services…

 

[roger1818]

I believe that TC and VIA have made abundantly clear that there won‘t be any legacy fleet in operation beyond 2035. Cancelling or postponing the LD fleet procurement will be an explicit decision to phase out VIA‘s non-Corridor services…

You know that and I know that, but the average person won't know that. By the time 2035 comes arround, it would be easy to feign ignorance.

 

[Urban Sky]

You know that and I know that, but the average person won't know that. By the time 2035 comes arround, it would be easy to feign ignorance.

Assuming that the Liberals get the procurement started before the election, there will need to be an explicit decision to stop it and at that point there will be countless ridings scattered across all 8 provinces VIA serves which will realize that they stand to lose their remaining passenger rail services. Unlike HSR, the beneficiaries of VIA‘s LD fleet renewal are not geographically concentrated and I believe that this is what will save them…

 

[nfitz]

Assuming that the Liberals get the procurement started before the election, there will need to be an explicit decision to stop it and at that point there will be countless ridings scattered across all 8 provinces VIA serves which will realize that they stand to lose their remaining passenger rail services. Unlike HSR, the beneficiaries of VIA‘s LD fleet renewal are not geographically concentrated and I believe that this is what will save them…

Procurement and delivery is well underway. Shouldn't be any impacts to the Quebec-Windsor corridor from the vehicle perspective. HFR should be in the HFR topic. I'm not sure what HSR is.

 

[nfitz]

Either you don't know where they run,or you don't know the ridings they run through. Take the S-WR train.It runs through the ridings of Sudbury, Nickel Belt and Algoma -Manitoulin - Kapuskasing. Currently, the first 2 are Liberal seats, and the last is CPC. I expect the other 2 to go CPC. The only routes that likely won't be heavy CPC will be the Northern Quebec routes.

What routes won't be going through mostly CPC ridings?

I may be mistaken, but one of those locations are on the corridor.

With the amount of time you take derailing discussions and going off on tangents, could you please at least reply to 100% off-topic discussions in the correct thread.

 

[Urban Sky]

You say this assuming that basically anyone cares about VIA long distance trains outside of a few remote, niche markets which are unlikely to be conservative ridings in the first place.

I‘m not going to crunch the numbers, but VIA‘s LD services serve a large number of ridings and provinces - both of which usually care when they are about to lose services and jobs which were previously paid by the federal government. Also, beyond the fleet renewal itself, the financial footprint of VIA‘s non-Corridor services is tiny (some $40 million annually pre-Covid when only looking at direct costs).

Back in the late 1980s, when VIA‘s operating deficit exceeded $1 billion dollars (in today‘s prices), it was an obvious target for drastic cuts, but I’m not sure why PP would pick up this fight for so little gain.

Anyways, 313 cars seems to be a substantial expansion over the legacy fleet, so PP could probably slash a half (or even: full) billion of „liberal excesses“ without endangering VIA‘s current mandate.

 

[innsertnamehere]

I‘m not going to crunch the numbers, but VIA‘s LD services serve a large number of ridings and provinces - both of which usually care when they are about to lose services and jobs which were previously paid by the federal government. Also, beyond the fleet renewal itself, the financial footprint of VIA‘s non-Corridor services is tiny (some $40 million annually pre-Covid when only looking at direct costs).

Back in the late 1980s, when VIA‘s operating deficit exceeded $1 billion dollars (in today‘s prices), it was an obvious target for drastic cuts, but I’m not sure why PP would pick up this fight for so little gain.

Anyways, 313 cars seems to be a substantial expansion over the legacy fleet, so PP could probably slash a half (or even: full) billion of „liberal excesses“ without endangering VIA‘s current mandate.

Again, you are assuming that the electorate cares enough to impact their vote as to whether a fairly useless, decrepit train which is very expensive and very slow stops 3 times a week in their community and *maybe* supports 1 or 2 jobs.

The reality is that the Canadian is pretty easy pork for Poilievre when it comes to "wasteful" government spending, especially if you ignore the national identity type role the train kind of serves, but even that is a bit of a stretch.

PP whacking away at Corridor services? yes, that will be disputed and will impact voting intentions. I just don't think enough people really fundamentally care about the long distance services outside of a few niche circles.

 

[micheal_can]

Again, you are assuming that the electorate cares enough to impact their vote as to whether a fairly useless, decrepit train which is very expensive and very slow stops 3 times a week in their community and *maybe* supports 1 or 2 jobs.

The reality is that the Canadian is pretty easy pork for Poilievre when it comes to "wasteful" government spending, especially if you ignore the national identity type role the train kind of serves, but even that is a bit of a stretch.

PP whacking away at Corridor services? yes, that will be disputed and will impact voting intentions. I just don't think enough people really fundamentally care about the long distance services outside of a few niche circles.

The other thing we all need to understand is 4 years.Even if on day 1` he shuts down Via Rail, since he is likely to have a majority government, he wont face anything about it for 4 years. By then, who knows what is going on in the world that will push people towards or away from him. We could be in the throws of a trade war that saw hyper inflation due to everything costing 25% more.

However, all bets are off with a minority. Do you think the Bloc will support shutting down the LDS into Quebec? Or do you think the NDP would support losing those union jobs? With the mess of Monday we no longer can assume anything is a shoe in. I figured JT would be running against PP in the fall. That seems less likely. So, will having JT out cause less of an appeal for the CPC? PP isn't well liked either. Maybe the future LPC leader will be liked just enough for another Liberal minority government. If that happens, then the LDF replacement is back in play. It also may mean the HSR is still in play.