Would "rail franchising" work in Canada?

[Long Island Mike]

A VIA Rail Canada Corridor partnership with Ontario and Quebec: YES!

This news article demonstrates what can be done in a North American context where a private freight owner operates the track. In this case, Amtrak (the operator) partnered with the State of New York (the funder) to lease a track from freight operator CSX (the track owner), effectively giving Amtrak control over the New York-Albany line. The Feds then swoop in to fund some track expansion that improves the efficiency of passenger services.

Of course, in order to do this you would need a Federal government that's willing to invest even a marginal amount in intercity passenger rail, a provincial government that cares about intercity public transportation, a Federally-run passenger rail operator that actively seeks out new partnership opportunities and a freight operator that's willing to cede over trackage. We have none of these.

It's been quite interesting to follow developments to passenger rail in the US. It's still worse in some places than Canada, but America is quickly catching up. They're boasting statistics these days that should give us some pause, such as a 50% increase in Amtrak ridership in 12 years (VIA ridership has been essentially flat, in absolute numbers, since the early 2000s).

HD and Everyone: I am familiar with what NYS has done with its partnership with Amtrak to take control of the stretch of Empire Corridor track between Poughkeepsie
and Hoffmans,NY (W of Schenectady) to allow upgrades in speed and perhaps operate more frequent train service between Schenectady-Albany and New York City...

Metro-North has themselves upgraded tracks between Poughkeepsie and the Spuyten-Duyvil junction at which point the Empire Connection to New York's Penn Station
begins and this route now has two operators that are primarily concerned with passenger service as compared to CSX's freight operations...

I have noted how Canada's federal government has cut VIA Rail and I am in agreement that a Corridor partnership between the Ontario and Quebec governments
and VIA perhaps similar to a Amtrak California entity may be the way to preserve and expand VIA Corridor services to their full potential perhaps...

LI MIKE