I wouldn’t be surprised, the govt loves investing in things and then just giving it away to private companies to squander. It’s the 3pp way.
Also: via rail sucks. They don’t actually maintain their tracks, they just keep slowing down the trains instead.
VIA rail doesn’t own much track at all. Almost all (97%) of the track they operate on is owned by other companies, like CN.
And that is why their service sucks. They get second priority to any cargo trains that CN wants to run down them.
Ah makes sense.
I wasn’t even concerned about the low priority of passenger cars. I meant the physical condition of the track itself, and the resulting reduction in top speed along many section in the maritimes.
a fast track to privatization
The winning bidder is a public/private partnership, so yes, it does.
It depends on what the public role is though, no? E.g. who would have the ownership of the tracks, trains, who’d operate it, etc. It could be a scheme that leaves some of that in public hands. At this point I don’t know if this is clear since they’re in a design/feasibility stage.
While Cadence will technically report to Alto, the consortium will maintain control over both building the line and running its trains.
The federal government will subsidize the consortium’s work but will have little control over how its money is used.
It sounds like the public role is “moneybags.” While Cadence is pretty much running the show, it’s quite unclear to me where actual ownership lies, though. In an article of this length, that’s a disturbing detail to find absent.
My unsolicited rant follows...
In my opinion it should be at minimum 51% public owned, and ideally 100% of at least the land/stationary assets.
Not only should it be publicly owned, the contract with Cadence for ongoing management should have an exit/public buyout plan, possibly with different terms depending on who wants out and whether it’s early or at renewal time. Give Cadence the reasonable guarantees they need to reach a fair return on investment, in a manner that still depends on the quality of their long-term stewardship. There can even give provisions for renewal - but nothing in perpetuity, ever.
We have the right leadership for the moment and I hope we manage to keep it through the election. But even with his expertise, this isn’t really something I’m confident Carney will handle any better than Trudeau will have done. Maybe eventually we can elect someone with some faith in the public sector, and the confidence to either drive harder bargains or be willing to forge our own path. But I know we’re going to overpay long term for the private investment. We always do, and it’s my biggest worry considering the generational investment we’ll need to pivot away from heavy U.S. trade reliance.
“There’s a mentality in government that a public corporation can’t do things, even though there’s no reason why VIA Rail couldn’t be tasked with developing higher-speed rail by itself,” the research concludes.
Yep. Sometimes I think neoliberalism is imposter syndrome in a trench coat.
I like your unsolicited rant.
The plan notably excludes involvement from VIA Rail, Canada’s only company with experience running a national daily passenger rail service.
Alto is officially known as VIA HFR – VIA TGF Inc., and their website says,
VIA Rail provides advice on the technical and operational aspects of existing passenger railway services.
So does that directly contradict the article or is it a semantical difference that doesn’t detract from its thesis?
It certainly seems to contradict the notion that VIA has no involvement - in fact, as near as I can tell, Alto is still a VIA subsidiary. But maybe that’s wrong, it’s a little unclear.
I don’t think it necessarily invalidates the idea of it being a “fast track to privatization,” or that ticket prices will be high.
Hopefully the contract being awarded doesn’t preclude the option for regulation of things like fare caps.
