As much as I would love this to happen, a high-speed rail network has been discussed along this corridor for decades at both federal and provincial governments, with no tangible actions to making it actually happen. Given the current Prime Minister is on his way out, and the party likely to follow (barring some large swing in the polls), this is unlikely to go anywhere. I'd love to be wrong though.
When I hear of infrastructure projects like this, It reminds me of that article about why we can't build anything anymore. Due to regulations, studies, and a myriad of other things, there is no chance. It will cost billions in just an environmental assessment and take a decade. Unfortunately, we don't have a system where projects like this are feasible.
REM is a rare example of anglosphere building, which is ironic since it's driven by french Quebec.
REM is an extreme outlier though. Canada is filled with failed or failing transit projects that are all desperately needed:
Metrolinx is many years overdue and billions over budget on Line 5. Line 6 is also overdue, but is getting a pass since it's only bad and not horrifying. Metrolinx seems to have learned some lessons for the Ontario Line, but it's also over budget and unlikely to keep anything close to its schedule.
Calgary has spent over a decade working on the Green Line and is still a long way from putting shovels in the ground.
Vancouver keeps slipping on delivering the Broadstreet Skytrain expansion. At least Translink does seem to have reverted to the original Skytrain design pattern that has been so incredibly successful for the Expo Line expansion.
Quebec City tried for a LRT and couldn't even get the project started the cost spiralled so much and got down to a single bidder before they scrapped it and started again.
My own home of Kitchener-Waterloo managed to build an LRT and keep costs reasonable, but costs on phase 2 to Cambridge are terrifying for at-grade construction. Many euro nations have delivered full underground metros for much less per km. We've also been promised and are waiting for all day regional rail service for a decade+.
I'm a huge fan of transit, but it's hard to be optimistic.
I am glad to see CDPQ (who did REM) is part of the high speed rail proposal. They have shown a real ability to make smart value engineering choices and actually deliver projects. Is it enough to actually build some trains? I'm not sure, even if we ignore the political uncertainly surrounding the project.
As long as they remain "public-private partnerships" the goal for the private part of that relationship will be to extract as much money as possible out of the public for as long as possible.
When the contents of his book get more widely disseminated he's done. Right now Trump is just dominating headlines so anti-Trump sentiment is high. And even then Carney's still behind the Conservatives by a fairly wide margin.
This is perfect timing. Assuming that the Conservatives are going to win the next election, there are now two options:
- the Conservatives kill the project before significant money is spent
- the Conservatives can proceed with the project knowing that it won't be killed in 4 or 8 years if/when the Liberals go back in power. (On the off chance that the NDP forms the succeeding government, they'll have likely taken a position on the project in this election).
You aren't watching politics right now are you? It's happening in real time. It is actually quite dramatic - the US/CDN relationship is superseding most other political issues.
I thought this comment was bluster and looked it up.
Sigh.
Even Canadians dislike us now. How bad do you have to screw up that the Canadians dislike you? All I can say is that, (maybe?), this will only last the four years.
I'm sure conservative Canadian parties did not think Trump and Vance would go off the deep end. Neither did a whole lot of conservative Americans. But buyer's remorse won't get anyone anywhere at this point. Just have to try make the best of what you can and live with the consequences with respect to the rest.
Unfortunately for conservative Canadian parties, it's looking like that probably means absorbing some impact at the polls at this point.
> How bad do you have to screw up that the Canadians dislike you?
You just have to ignore a long standing positive relationship, threaten to annex the country, threaten to destroy its economy, and make a bunch of unfounded claims about fentanyl trafficking. Easy-peasy.
I would say that this feels like a significant rupture in the relationship completely borne out of a very disrespectful position. Trying to brow-beat population into submission typically doesn't really work that well for long-term relationships.
Even if most Canadians do recognize that the population isn't the administration it does give people pause and they certainly look to spend their money elsewhere until the people in power look to build upon relationships with their allies instead of trying to dominate them.
It'll die out and people will remember that 9 years of Liberal rule has destroyed our quality of life and we've lost ground to all our peer countries...
Sovereignty? There is no Canadian party that supports joining the US. If you think there is then you've really been drinking the Kool-Aid...
Edit - To add to this, read Carney's book or listen to his various speeches prior to him starting this political run... Carney doesn't believe in nations, wants to pursue a globalist future, he's been in Trudeau's ear for years and Trudeau's "post-nationalism" is very much something Carney believes in. But yeah, sure, Carney now decides he's a nationalist...
I didn't say that. It is the USA making the threats. This is causing a huge sudden swing in polls. You seem to think this momentum will "die out" why would Canadians begin to care less about sovereignty as time goes on?
Implying sovereignty is an issue at all is implying that one party cares more about it than the other...
This is a popular leftist talking point at the moment but it's far from the truth and as more information about both parties' and leaders' beliefs is disseminated yes, the momentum will die out.
It's very obvious the constituents feel like one party values the issue more than another as the polls are showing??? Not sure what your trying to say here I feel the goalpost keeps moving...
The President of the United States of America has repeatedly threatened to annex Canada. He calls the Prime Minister of Canada the "governor of Canada." He refuses to rule out the use of force or massive economic coercion. He's repeated this over and over again, and when asked if he's serious, he says he is.
This isn't a "leftist talking point." It's the President of the US making open threats, and Canadians are taking those threats seriously.
What you people don't seem to comprehend is that every political party in Canada has the same views on this matter. If every party has the same policy in regards to an issue, it's not an election issue.
By claiming it is you're claiming one party isn't going to defend Canadian sovereignty.
True question is how cons respond. Agree could just be a short bounce but I think cons have been considered MAGA lite so gen public eyes them suspiciously.
I'm not telling you any of my political preferences I'm pointing out how it will play out in the national campaign and how it has already roiled the polls. Canadians don't trust him to support the Canadian interests at least at the current moment - it's a big problem for him and the national conservatives.
Poilievre very consciously mimics Trump in slogans, style, etc. Just look at this picture and tell me it doesn't remind you of something: [0].
The question is whether Canadians want to elect someone who models himself after Trump at a time when Trump is threatening to end Canada's existence as a sovereign nation.
It's Poilievre in front of Canadian flags... Every leader of every country stands in front of their country's flag...
I guess it would be jarring to Canadians, who have a current leader who called us a post-national state and said immigrants are more Canadian than people born in Canada...
How is it that America and Canada are both well saturated with freight rail, but getting the right of ways and building permits for high speed rail is evidently a completely different animal? I understand that high speed rail needs different right of ways than lower speed rails, larger turns and all that, but it seems like the processes for getting shit done in one case should at least cross over to the other.
Or is it the case that all the rail we already have is from an era when we were still competent at building, and if we had to do it all over from scratch we wouldn't even be able to get freight rail done?
Has anyone outside of China tried to tackle the kinds of long distances there are in Canada? If it costs this many billions to do it just from Toronto to Quebec City then yeah I could easily picture cutting through extant farmland across a nationas big as that one to be an incredibly expensive undertaking. Pretty sure Canada has worse problems than not having high speed rail right now in terms of money
Our freight rail wasn’t built in recent history. Something about our cultural shifts in the interim has made it that no matter how desirable something is, we can’t possibly do it without spending a decade studying it. Governance by bureaucracy.
My personal suspicion is that when countries have excess, they waste it by CYA with endless bureaucracy. But when countries are hungry and striving for excess they are more practical and will literally and figuratively move mountains to make things happen.
I guess we won’t know what support there is if there aren’t debates about this monetary commitment. I have only followed this in the media (presumably like most Canadians) over the years and there has been discussion but the first I’ve seen this price tag only for studies is since they committed.
Hardly, this has been discussed in parliament for years already, and the crown corporation responsible for it was established in 2022. It's not like the PM just woke up one day and decided to build a train before he resigns.
I am aware it has been discussed for years. I’ve been following it like many Canadians in the media. To my knowledge, this amount of financial commitment for only the planning stage is the first it was made known widely. If that is true, don’t you think it would deserve debate?
Having done Ottawa-Toronto many times, Via currently charges about 60-70$ for advanced economy tickets. Same day tickets are typically in the 120-150$ range, but I have seen over 200$. So definitely cheaper than flying currently. Hard for me to judge how much that price would increase in response to HSR cost and popularity.
High speed rail is not a luxury, it's quite the opposite. Labour is the biggest long term expense, even after construction, so it's actually cheaper to operate faster trains. The current trip time is 10-12 hours, multiplied by the wages of a large cabin crew.
High speed travel in Europe is quite affordable. A 3h train trip (~360 miles, like the distance between Toronto and Montreal) costs about 40€ in Italy or in France if you buy in advance.
Also, who's going to want to go from Toronto to QC/Montreal? Unless you live in/near the French quarter of Toronto, this doesn't really benefit many people... language barrier and Quebec's deep hatred of English and such...
On top of the other comments, majority of Montreal is bilingual. There's a reason there's a whole neighborhood of anglophones, the city is very English friendly.
You're severely overstating the 'hatred' for english, Montreal is essentially bilingual and most people there are very friendly to english speakers.
Outside of Montreal you can get a bit a mixed reception to english, but there's no real hatred. Just pride in their own culture and a bit of fear about the ongoing loss of that which is probably reasonable.
For Ontario it's on Metrolinx and for Toronto TTC. Just in November TTC got roughly $750m in fed funding for subway cars especially for Line 2 cars that are reaching EOL, but also for the expansion lines in Scarborough and Yonge North.
The Chinese method for building high speed rail is much more cost effective and exceptionaly quick to build, at more than 1km/day.
The main machine is just a giant girder bridge on wheels, and the process is largely automated.
Given that the route bieng proposed is in the industrial belt of Canada, and the US rust belt is next door, and there is deap water marine access at the Quebec end, this should be as easy as it gets.
The problem with it bieng federal, is that it excludes the rest of the country, and relegates the "have not" provinces to click click, bang, shudder, rail service, so it's telling that this is even seeing the light of day.
Geography and density are the only things excluding the rest of the country from getting HSR.
Vancouver to Seattle and Edmonton to Calgary are the only other locations in Canada where it would be cot effective.
Edmonton could even end up with a terminus station in downtown Edmonton instead of the airport at the edge of the city but that likely won't happen due to provincial and municipal incompetence if they even get around ot building HSR in Alberta.
Huge fan of high speed rail and I've followed various projects for decades. However, I'm utterly cynical when it comes to the ability of the anglo-sphere to get these projects done. Strong property rights, NIMBYism, clunky bureaucracies, dependence on constantly shifting elected officials, environmentalists with niche concerns, etc. seem to make it impossible.
I would love for Canada to build more HSR, but these public-private partnerships are killing the projects. They turn into feasting opportunities for private companies to extract public funds. 4 Billion over 5 years without a shovel even going into the ground? Give me a break.
Wow, Quebec City is so European and quaint compared with Toronto or Montreal. It's enough hassle to get to (a few hours by car from Montreal) that it's like visiting another country. I wonder if the rail connection will mess it up.
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[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 139 ms ] threadREM is an extreme outlier though. Canada is filled with failed or failing transit projects that are all desperately needed:
Metrolinx is many years overdue and billions over budget on Line 5. Line 6 is also overdue, but is getting a pass since it's only bad and not horrifying. Metrolinx seems to have learned some lessons for the Ontario Line, but it's also over budget and unlikely to keep anything close to its schedule.
Calgary has spent over a decade working on the Green Line and is still a long way from putting shovels in the ground.
Vancouver keeps slipping on delivering the Broadstreet Skytrain expansion. At least Translink does seem to have reverted to the original Skytrain design pattern that has been so incredibly successful for the Expo Line expansion.
Quebec City tried for a LRT and couldn't even get the project started the cost spiralled so much and got down to a single bidder before they scrapped it and started again.
My own home of Kitchener-Waterloo managed to build an LRT and keep costs reasonable, but costs on phase 2 to Cambridge are terrifying for at-grade construction. Many euro nations have delivered full underground metros for much less per km. We've also been promised and are waiting for all day regional rail service for a decade+.
I'm a huge fan of transit, but it's hard to be optimistic.
I am glad to see CDPQ (who did REM) is part of the high speed rail proposal. They have shown a real ability to make smart value engineering choices and actually deliver projects. Is it enough to actually build some trains? I'm not sure, even if we ignore the political uncertainly surrounding the project.
Hard and unlikely? Yes. Impossible? No.
- the Conservatives kill the project before significant money is spent
- the Conservatives can proceed with the project knowing that it won't be killed in 4 or 8 years if/when the Liberals go back in power. (On the off chance that the NDP forms the succeeding government, they'll have likely taken a position on the project in this election).
Also it is far from clear who will be the next election -- Federally conservatives are losing ground incredibly quickly due to their pro USA stance.
You aren't watching politics right now are you? It's happening in real time. It is actually quite dramatic - the US/CDN relationship is superseding most other political issues.
Sigh.
Even Canadians dislike us now. How bad do you have to screw up that the Canadians dislike you? All I can say is that, (maybe?), this will only last the four years.
I'm sure conservative Canadian parties did not think Trump and Vance would go off the deep end. Neither did a whole lot of conservative Americans. But buyer's remorse won't get anyone anywhere at this point. Just have to try make the best of what you can and live with the consequences with respect to the rest.
Unfortunately for conservative Canadian parties, it's looking like that probably means absorbing some impact at the polls at this point.
You just have to ignore a long standing positive relationship, threaten to annex the country, threaten to destroy its economy, and make a bunch of unfounded claims about fentanyl trafficking. Easy-peasy.
Even if most Canadians do recognize that the population isn't the administration it does give people pause and they certainly look to spend their money elsewhere until the people in power look to build upon relationships with their allies instead of trying to dominate them.
Edit - To add to this, read Carney's book or listen to his various speeches prior to him starting this political run... Carney doesn't believe in nations, wants to pursue a globalist future, he's been in Trudeau's ear for years and Trudeau's "post-nationalism" is very much something Carney believes in. But yeah, sure, Carney now decides he's a nationalist...
This is a popular leftist talking point at the moment but it's far from the truth and as more information about both parties' and leaders' beliefs is disseminated yes, the momentum will die out.
This isn't a "leftist talking point." It's the President of the US making open threats, and Canadians are taking those threats seriously.
What you people don't seem to comprehend is that every political party in Canada has the same views on this matter. If every party has the same policy in regards to an issue, it's not an election issue.
By claiming it is you're claiming one party isn't going to defend Canadian sovereignty.
We had far more restrictive laws on immigration and the LGBT community in the days of the Chretien-Martin Liberal government for example...
The question is whether Canadians want to elect someone who models himself after Trump at a time when Trump is threatening to end Canada's existence as a sovereign nation.
0. https://ici.radio-canada.ca/rci/en/news/2137961/poilievre-co...
I guess it would be jarring to Canadians, who have a current leader who called us a post-national state and said immigrants are more Canadian than people born in Canada...
The fact any Canadian thinks it's weird or anything like MAGA shows how far Canada has fallen...
You can view a timeline of it here https://altotrain.ca/en/key-milestones/
Nothing going to be build though.
Although, yes, SNC-Lavalin (whatever realis they are called nowaday) will get the money for another study.
In fact there is currently study to study is going on.
Or is it the case that all the rail we already have is from an era when we were still competent at building, and if we had to do it all over from scratch we wouldn't even be able to get freight rail done?
My personal suspicion is that when countries have excess, they waste it by CYA with endless bureaucracy. But when countries are hungry and striving for excess they are more practical and will literally and figuratively move mountains to make things happen.
It seems pretty unethical to be making a commitment like this in his current lame duck position.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alto_(high-speed_rail)#History
Said swing is currently underway [0], and if the polling is correct, they'll swing further with Carney as LPC leader [1].
[0] https://338canada.com/federal.htm
[1] https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/article/leger-poll-carney-as...
They should spend the money on INTRA city travel. Expand the subway systems in Toronto and Montreal.
If the price is around that of an equivalent airplane flight, I don’t see the problem here.
How expensive to ride do you expect it to be? You have a reason to believe it will cost significantly more than an airplane flight?
Outside of Montreal you can get a bit a mixed reception to english, but there's no real hatred. Just pride in their own culture and a bit of fear about the ongoing loss of that which is probably reasonable.
For Ontario it's on Metrolinx and for Toronto TTC. Just in November TTC got roughly $750m in fed funding for subway cars especially for Line 2 cars that are reaching EOL, but also for the expansion lines in Scarborough and Yonge North.
Vancouver to Seattle and Edmonton to Calgary are the only other locations in Canada where it would be cot effective.
Edmonton could even end up with a terminus station in downtown Edmonton instead of the airport at the edge of the city but that likely won't happen due to provincial and municipal incompetence if they even get around ot building HSR in Alberta.
Our government really does just feel like a bunch of corporate monopolies wearing a trenchcoat
We're following the same path as America unfortunately, while acting like we're better than they are