lenaitch
Senior Member
A private member's bill from the NDP has success written all over it.
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VIA Rail
- Thread starter ehlow
- Start date
micheal_can
Senior Member
Fair point.
crs1026
Superstar
Shameless plug for David Graham's blog and in particular his commentary on Private Members' bills.
A View From the Back Bench | David Graham | Substack
Perspective built from nearly ten years on Parliament Hill in various roles from opposition staffer to government Member. Click to read A View From the Back Bench, by David Graham, a Substack publication with hundreds of subscribers.
www.davidgraham.ca
A Backbenchers' Theoretical Power: Private Members' Business
One would assume that one of a Members of Parliament’s primary responsibilities is to bring forward, discuss, debate, and pass legislation. In reality, individual MPs have the technical power to do so but procedurally may be lucky to get a single opportunity to do so through their entire career...
www.davidgraham.ca
David is a very articulate former Liberal backbencher who interestingly has since drifted into a career in railroading. His candid essays on his time in Parliament are worth a read.
- Paul
kEiThZ
Superstar
This would be the starting point of a conversation. Still doesn't guarantee that the idea makes sense. What's annoying is that these councillors don't ever realize what they are demanding. Just see any federal agency as a pot of money to abuse, not another level of government with their own mandates.
kEiThZ
Superstar
On another note.
Bill introduced in Parliament to give VIA trains right of preference - Trains
OTTAWA, Ontario — A member of Canada’s Parliament from British Columbia has introduced a bill to create a right of preference for passenger trains on the nation’s railroads — the lack of which has long hampered VIA Rail Canada operations. Taylor Bachrach, a House of Commons member of the New...www.trains.com
I'm honestly not sure this kind of legislation would stand constitutional scrutiny. It's imposing liability on a private corporation in a discriminatory manner after the fact (the feds pocketed all that money from privatization).
But good showmanship for the NDP I guess. They now get to complain how it's the Liberals holding back VIA.
Bordercollie
Senior Member
Maybe the law won't get passed but they could come to some sort of gentleman's agreement. At least give better treatment than they are now.
crs1026
Superstar
I do think it's the starting point for a useful conversation (gads, I hate that cliche'd term).
If nothing else, a parliamentary review might put things on the record via committee hearings or other deputations that would shed light on the whole contractual relationship between VIA and freight railways. That in turn may be invaluable for future negotiations that matter more... such as will be required when HFR is launched (remember, without the freight railways, there can be no direct access to central terminals in Quebec City, Montreal, or Toronto).
If I had to put money on it, I would bet that the Liberals will kill this dead.....but.... maybe it helps get the genie out of the bottle. Or kick the first stone down the hillside, starting the avalanche. Or some other equally hated cliche, but you get my point.
- Paul
micheal_can
Senior Member
West of the Ontario Border, Western Alienation is a thing. It is real. Western provinces look at Ontario and Quebec like the rest of Ontario looks at the GTA.They get to the point of wondering why they pay taxes if they don't see anything from it. It gets so bad that the idea of leaving the country (or leaving Ontario) becomes a real discussion. What is annoying is simply brushing it off instead of looking for solutions. Maybe that solution is a national bus service paid for by the federal government. Maybe it is reversal of cuts to Via's routes. Maybe it is a reroute of a line. Point is, there should be an honest discussion within the elected officials about a solution instead of brushing off another concern by citizens of this country that votes and pays taxes.
Is a massive passenger rail network west of Ontario going to stop western alienation? No, but, it could be a small step in the right direction.
lenaitch
Senior Member
Perhaps, but the concept of 'negotiation' implies a compromised solution that benefits both (or all) parties. Short of dangling some sort of seriously interventionist legislation (I would argue more that this one proposed), what does the government have that the railways really, really, really want?
I don't know if the proposed legislation is constitutionally flawed (it might be, I just haven't thought about it) but it would, if passed, wind up in decades and billions in civil court employment for many lawyers. Beyond establishing that preferred access impairs their profitability, it would likely also fit the definition of 'constructive appropriation'. For the link:
"De facto (or “constructive”) taking occurs when the government body exercises regulatory powers that significantly impair a landowner’s use and enjoyment of their property."
"Where constructive taking has been established, a landowner has a presumptive right at common law to be compensated."
Court decisions are obviously dependent on the facts of the individual case, but said priority access could end up being very, very, expensive.
kEiThZ
Superstar
Trains solving Western alienation. At least now we know you haven't actually talked to any Westerners.
micheal_can
Senior Member
I guess you didn't read a thing. That's ok.
crs1026
Superstar
A very American business tactic (which we saw Trump use in NAFTA negotiations, but EHH used it repeatedly in railway matters, and I have seen other CEO's use it quite skillfully) is to look at negotiations as a coercive process rather than looking only for win-win. That is, what can I do that will really hurt you if I don't get what I want. And look, I'm already starting to do that. Now give me what I want or I will continue to dish out more of the same.
It's not necessarily a "nice" way to behave, but I have come to realise that it is how business is often done, and maybe we ought to use it to our own best interest and worry less about looking or being "nice".
So I would ask, what do the railways really, really fear rather than what do they really, really want.
My thoughts
- They really, really don't want to have to replace the Westinghouse air brake
- They really, really don't want interswitching
- They really, really don't want US railroads reaching across the border to compete for business
- They really, really don't want a stringent safety regime run by civil servants, let alone intrusive accountability when bad things happen
- They don't want to have to string wires
- They don't want to serve some sorts of customers (branch lines, single car shipments, mixed car manifest traffic generally)
What do they really, really want?
- The ability to set prices and service standards in a way that enriches them (to a level that some of us might consider "unjust enrichment", another legal principle)
- One person crewing (and immediately, implementing it on the fly rather than proactively working out how it should operate)
- Control. Of everything. (Period.)
I do think that Ottawa could, if they were clever, create a set of levers that would motivate the railways to be more flexible - but it would mean not playing nice. And maybe offering some enrichment that might require holding our noses.
(Now I am the one sounding like the broken record.....) The flaw in the line of thinking of people saying "we need legislation" is - we already have it. The law says that anyone wanting passenger trains on our railways can have it, provided they pay what an impartial third party (the CTA) says is a fair price.
The interesting thing is just how rarely anyone troops off to the CTA and asks for anything. (VIA has in fact done this, successfully, but in rare circumstances.)
Apparently, the Law School 101 teaching has sunk in: Don't ask a question unless you are prepared to live by the answer.
I would argue that the railways and Ottawa and VIA are already in an environment where the railways offer an outcome that is more beneficial than what anyone would get by going to the CTA. So in that respect, we are already at win-win. We just want to win more, and the railways want us to win less. A good compromise pleases no one, and that's what we are already getting, more than we acknowledge.
- Paul
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kEiThZ
Superstar
I did. And your arguments are ridiculous. "Western alienation" is largely centered around economic grievances, that they largely feel are imposed from the centre. Like equalization, climate policy and regulation of the resources sector. I have not once heard a Westerner say they'd feel less alienated if the feds gifted a bus system or ran the Canadian twice as frequently. Indeed, I suspect they'd actually get offended by such offers and see it as tokenism that avoids their issues. If you had actually talked to any Westerners about Western alienation you'd know this.
Also, you are doing exactly what those municipal councillors in Saskatchewan are doing: viewing the federal government as their magical fairy godmother who should just rain down cash on their (or in this case your) rail fantasies.
What's up next? Are you going to suggest the feds build more trains to cure cancer? Or maybe if we double frequencies of the Ocean, we can have world peace? Have you ever come across a problem where the federal government fully paying for more rail service didn't solve it?
Urban Sky
Senior Member
Indeed, “the federal government fully paying for more rail service” seems to be to our fantasy bear what donuts are to Homer Simpson:
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micheal_can
Senior Member
As someone who lived out west, I did talk to those that lived there. They are pissed off that they work in a sector that brings the government lots of money in taxes that is mainly spent in Ontario and Quebec. If you had read the last line you would have seen that I did say that if that was all the federal government did, nothing would change.