Via Rail Privatization

The Liberals are in the process of privatizing VIA Rail. The privatization process is multi-faceted, involving all parts of the system and fancy (read: terrible) new branding of a Canadian classic.

The main driver is High Frequency Rail (HFR). That is not to be confused with high speed rail, which this is expressly not. HFR is a P3 program to give away our remaining climate friendly public transport system to the private sector.

Actually, "give away" is the wrong phrase. They are paying capital a premium to take it and to not give it back for at least 30 years. In the process they will gut the entire passenger rail system.

It is already a classic Liberal government mess pushed by know-nothing, don't believe in government ministers who obsess over promises made by their private sector friends. The current transport minister overseeing this terrible plan is generally thought of as a fool who obsesses over a "private sector is better for everything" mantra. He comes directly from the MBA six-sigma, start-up, incubator cult. But, that has not stopped the entire government backing the plan.

The main concern is that VIA Rail will collapse into a classic Canadian infrastructure boondoggle. The most recent version was the self-immolation of the previous Ontario Liberal government when they privatized Hydro One.

A campaign to stop this ridiculousness has been launched by Unifor and will be developed-out in the coming year. However, it seems like this campaign is too late to stop the privatization.

At this point, without a massive popular backlash, all it can hope to achieve is to limit privatization to the build phase.

Along with HFR is the purchase of the new locomotives and passenger rail cars from Siemens. Even this has been an incomprehensively stupid waste of money. The service of these new "rolling stock" is going to be through a very long term contract with Siemens itself, instead of in-house.

So, the trains are not made in Canada. The trains are not serviced in Canada. None of the ongoing employment is in Canada. The signaling technology is not developed in Canada. And, we have guaranteed we build no capacity in Canada to support train development.

The rest of the world is figuring-out how to most efficiently provide support for local development of future industry. In Canada, the Liberals are playing the same game they were in the 1990s and ensuring we are beholden to international Capital while wondering where the future has gone.

We cannot even learn the mistakes of the Europe or follow the lead of the USA. Both have clearly shown that in-house, publicly owned and operated rail using locally produced content is the only way to ensure continued operation and development of rail infrastructure.

Here is an explanation of how they are doing and the timelines.