crs1026
Senior Member
I unfortunately wouldn't expect a lot of capital funding for any transit projects under a Poilievre government though, given how he's a hardcore fiscal conservative who will be laser focused on spending cuts. One also shouldn't underestimate how much the CPC base has become radicalized against urbanism and Canada's largest cities, and any large spending program that benefits them, way more so then when Harper was PM. Poilievre doesn't seem to want to get along with the Premiers either. FWIW Doug Ford has been surprisingly pro-transit, but I don't think he could win the PC leadership today either. If anything a Poilievre government may be more willing to fund upgrades to highways in Western Canada than any transit projects. Of course this is 100% speculation as Poilievre has said very little if anything about transportation policy, but he often complained about OC Transpo in his twitter rants before becoming leader.
I would say it's lucky that so many huge generational transit projects (like the Ontario Line, GO Electrification, REM, Broadway Subway, Edmonton and Calgary LRT expansion, even the Ottawa LRT) made it over the line while the money spigots were wide open.
I agree that PP’s DNA will be skewed towards highways and the West …. However I am hopeful that governments often all do the same in the end because there are sometimes good solutions that trump both ideology and previously stated positions.
Ford is an interesting case study, because one would never have expected him to be so pro transit, but he was - for two reasons - first, transit is the obvious and cheapest solution to mobility in the GTA, and second, because every premier wants signature projects for bragging rights, and the signature transit projects give him that… especially Line 2 and Ontario Line, where he can maintain that he did something better that TTC and Toronto Council couldn’t move on.
The unavoidable rocks in the river that the next government (regardless who it is) will face include decisions about costly airport expansion, a decision about the VIA long distance fleet, and decisions about Quebec’s hunger for north shore HSR. PP may not like it, but no PM can afford to completely snub Quebec. There is an opportunity to get something going that is cheaper and more quickly built than the Liberal’s poor effort to date. So maybe there is a spin that gives him hero status by “saving” HxR instead of killing it..
- Paul.