A10 OTHEGLOBEANDMAIL | TUESDAY,JULY30,
EDITORIAL
PHILLIPCRAWLEY
PUBLISHERANDCEO
DAVIDWALMSLEY
EDITOR-IN-CHIEFT
he construction of a railway line that linked the
Canada created in 1867 with the western provinces
that joined Confederation a few years later is anessential Canadian creation myth. The “national dream,” as
John A. Macdonald called it, is mostly evoked as a feat of
engineering that bound a young nation together.
But that’s the romantic side of the coin. Flip it over andyou’ll find a different bit of train lore: A tale of corruption,
cronyism, government bailouts, bankruptcies and national-
ization, all of which lead us to today, where passenger
services are taxpayer-subsidized and the lucrative business
of hauling freight is in the hands of billion-dollar corpora-
tions created on the public dime.
And yet Ottawa and Via Rail, the Crown corporationformed in 1977 after Canadian Pacific and Canadian National
begged off of the money-losing passenger business, can’t
quite shake the romance of train travel out of their heads.
Where once the railways carried 60 million passengers ayear, by the 1970s that had dropped below five million,
thanks to competition from air travel and the rise of the car.
Via today runs all passenger service between major Cana-dian cities. Last year, it lost $93-million on its busiest route –
the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto service. Over all in 2018, it car-
ried 4.7 million passengers, had an operating loss of $272.6-
million, and received $394-millionin government subsidies.
As well, Via’s trains only arrived on schedule about 70 percent of the time in 2018.
In spite of these downsides, Via thinks it can run a profit-able passenger service in the most populated area of the
country. Its proposal is to build what it calls “high-frequency
rail” in the Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal-Quebec City corridor.
High-speed service, where trains run in excess of 200 kilo-metres an hour, has been mooted as a possibility in the past,
but it has always proved to be too expensive and complicated
to implement.
Via’s high-frequency plan is more practical and less expen-sive. Instead of trains that go super fast, it involves trains that
clip along at a healthy 160 km/h, and which leave more
frequently and arrive on schedule.
Via estimates that, for $4.4-billion, it can build a dedicatedpassenger line north of the current route that hugs the shore
of Lake Ontario, and which is choked with freight traffic.
The new line would run from Toronto, through Peterbo-rough, Ont., and on to Ottawa, where it would jog down to
Montreal and then continue on to Quebec City along the
north shore of the St. Lawrence River.
Via says the line would allow it to make the Ottawa-Toronto run in 3 hours and 15 minutes, as opposed to the
current 4 hours and 30 minutes. More people would use it,
Via says, and the service would become profitable.
The federalgovernment is on board. Last December, itgave Via $1-billion to upgrade its aging stock; in June, Trans-
port Canada and the embryonic Canada Infrastructure Bank
together gave it another $71-million for feasibility studies of
its high-frequency proposal.
The money from the Infrastructure Bank is important,because it is an implicit endorsement of Via’s belief that it
can get the private sector to invest in its project.
But while it would be nice to think that a modern, reliableand speedy rail service between the country’s two biggest
cities would be economically viable, the odds are against it.
People have a lot of other options. There are more flightsthan ever between Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto, including
from downtown Toronto’s Billy Bishop Airport – and air
travellers aren’t getting a taxpayer subsidy. And while Ottawa
daydreams about rejuvenating rail, governments are
constantly expanding free highways, which are a subsidy to
travel by car, ride-hailing services or bus.
If highways were tolled, passenger rail in Southern Ontarioand Quebec might stand a chance. But the main reason the
Montreal-Toronto corridor still doesn’t have high-speed rail,
or even medium-speed rail, is because building it has always
come with the need for a very large subsidy from taxpayers.
Queen’s Park and Ottawa have made vague promises about
supertrains before, often prior to elections, but the costly
idea then gets shunted onto a siding, and with good reason.
If the Infrastructure Bank can jump-start a big private railinvestment with a small amount of public seed money, then
Canadians should support that. Otherwise, this train should
remain in the station.
What’sthat
comingdown
thetrack?
GREENGOA SRe As The Greens Surge In Polls,
May Remains Confident In Her
Unscripted Style (July 29): Green
Leader Elizabeth May’s claim that
a 60-per-cent reduction from
2005 emission levels by 2030 is
doable and desirable should
cause us all concern.
Canada is nowhere near on tar-
get to meet even its basic Paris
commitments by 2030, never
mind those required to allegedly
limit temperature rise to less than
2 degrees. Remember, our com-
mitment is a 30-per-cent reduc-
tion from 2005 levels – half of Ms.
May’s fantastical goal over the
next decade. Achieving Ms. May’s
goal would decimate Canada’s
economy.
StephenWiseman
VancouverAll parties should consider taking
up Elizabeth May’s plan to put top
climate scientists before the
House of Commons for education
sessions on climate change. With-
out a full, accurate understanding
of the scientific consensus that
demonstrates the current danger
faced by humanity, how can lead-
ers take action to protect us?
LynnHarrison
TorontoOUSINGOPE/ ESSNESSRe Let’s Banish The Hoary Myths
Of Home Ownership (Opinion,
July 27): Our federal government
urgently needs to recognize ade-
quate and affordable housing in
the Charter of Rights.
It needs to tax the proceeds
from residential-property specu-
lation and rental-income profi-
teering to the level where those
tax dollars can make a meaning-
ful difference in funding more af-
fordable housing.
In major cities, the shortage of
affordable housing is already a
crisis, especially for Gen Y, and
soon for Gen Z, too. When hous-
ing hopelessness sets in for these
generations, baby boomers will
need to watch out.
GerrardWeedon
TorontoJennifer Keesmaat makes the im-
portant point that the benefits of
home ownership over tenancy re-
flect government policy, not the
operation of a free market. But
she didn’t address the most im-
portant element of policy.
Unlike all other major forms of
capital investment, principal resi-
dences – a.k.a. homes – are ex-
empt from capital gains tax. This
exemption, which economists
call a “tax expenditure,” costs
governments in Canada several
times more than all the “subsi-
dies” that go to public and private
tenants, or to the homeless. The
result is greater social inequity,
coupled with higher house prices.But good luck to any govern-
ment that tries to change that ex-
emption.
RichardHarris
HamiltonOODGUIDEDEBATERe The Food Guide Debate Has A
Historical Bite (July 29): Canada’s
Food Guide is intended to be a sci-
ence-based document, and as
such should not be “tweaked”
based on the “concerns of farm-
ers and suburban parents.”
Parents can use the guide as a
... guide. I don’t think troops will
be on the streets enforcing a “wa-
ter-drinking only!” policy, so Can-
adians are free to occasionally
substitute juice. (I know I’ll con-
tinue to drink beer.) And farmers
are not entitled to the scientific
conclusions and recommenda-
tions that they happen to prefer.
BrianBrophey
Toronto A<SÌBUSINESSMODE ÅRe As The Jays Charted A Course
To Nowhere, Stroman Lost His
Way (Sports, July 29): I cannot for
the life of me figure out the Blue
Jays’ business model. Imagine for
a moment that the Jays made and
sold shoes. Would this be their
sales pitch?
“Dear Valued Customer. Many
of you will have noticed that our
best shoemakers have left us, one
way or another. We have replaced
them with new, lower-paid shoe-
makers. As a result, until our new
shoemakers learn their trade, our
shoes will mostly be poor quality.
Occasionally, you may be sur-
prised and encouraged by an ex-
cellent pair. For the next few
years, as we develop our shoe-
makers, quality will be hit and
miss. But, please! Stay with us
and continue to buy our shoes as
we learn and grow together.”
That is a shoe-making compa-
ny on its way out of business.
MartinBirt
Uxbridge,Ont.Jays’ GM Ross Atkins and presi-
dent Mark Shapiro have hit a new
low in their quest to dismantle
this once-proud team. Star pitch-
er Marcus Stroman represented
what is needed in professional
baseball players – personality and
character. He wore his heart on his
sleeve. Hecared. His will to win
was exemplary. Another six or
seven like him on the team would
have filled the house for every
game. Now, the Jays can look for-
ward to empty seats.
And where does this expres-
sion come from, “we need an
arm, we need a bat” when seeking
to trade players? Baseball players
are people, not commodities!
The Jays need to stop the re-
volving door of arms and bats,
and focus on character playerswhom fans can be proud of. The
management of the Jays needs to
start at the top in this rebuilding
exercise.
TomLamont
Collingwood,Ont.U<GURSÌP IGTRe Connection Lost (July 27): My
thanks to Dilnur Kurban for her
bravery in describing the plight of
her family and other Uyghur peo-
ple in China. It is frustrating, as a
Canadian, to feel helpless and un-
able to do anything about the op-
pression of this minority group.
I think of the strained friend-
ship between Canada and China
with worry, sadness and regret.
PatriciaMoore
Paris,Ont.The arrest of China’s Uyghur mi-
nority is not limited to those
within its borders. Huseyin Celil
was a Uyghur human-rights activ-
ist who fled China and became a
Canadian citizen in 2005. In 2006,
with his wife, he travelled to Uz-
bekistan to visit her family. He
carried a Canadian passport. Chi-
nese authorities asked that coun-
try to arrest him. It did and he was
extradited to China.
Chinese authorities accused
Mr. Celil of offences related to his
activities in support of Uyghur
rights. He was not given access to
a lawyer, his family, or Canadian
consular officials. China refused
to recognize his Canadian citizen-
ship or permit Canadian consular
staff to attend his trial. He was
sentenced to prison, where he re-
mains today, facing more than 30
years behind bars. His wife and
children live in Canada.
As Mr. Celil’s case shows, Chi-
na’s oppression of its Uyghur mi-
nority is international in scope;
Dilnur Kurban’s concerns are
well-founded.
That Canada seeks closer ties
with China, a one-party dictator-
ship that spies on its citizens and
holds more than one million
members of a religious ethnic mi-
nority in “re-education” camps, is
a betrayal of Canadian values.
DanCameron
ReginaMMtRe Grin And Bare It (Opinion, July
27): First Brexit – and now bras-
sieres, as a Brit calls for more top-
less sunbathing. Those people are
always trying to get out of some-
thing.
FarleyHelfant
TorontoLETTERSTOTHEEDITOR
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