Dear Minister MacKinnon, Minister of Transport
Is it time to renationalize the CN rail network in Canada? asks the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives, which works hard and thoroughly to cut through the surfeit of razzle-dazzle from those averse to paying taxes to make our country better.
"It has been 30 years since Canadian National was privatized, and Wall Street continues to profit at Canada’s expense."
It was a penny-wise pound-foolish move as are many such transfers. I have examples, but rather than digress, here are the topics examined in the study:
- Prioritizing shareholders over workers
- Raising costs for Canadian shippers
- Disinvesting in infrastructure
- Turning from Canada towards the United States
- Undermining passenger service
- Restoring public ownership
I agree with results found in this important study not simply as a user of the passenger service by choice when possible, which is extremely limited in Eastern Canada and subject to the vicissitudes of the right of way for freight.
My husband and I recently completed the VIA cross-Canada train trip from Halifax to Vancouver. In spite of constant delays, it was an experience every Canadian should have at least once in their lives to appreciate the beauty and diversity of our country and understand how important it is to protect that. The VIA staff are exemplary.
Yes, we subsidize passenger and rail services, but we expend far more to subsidize the fossil fuel sector and to pave more and more of the country, all of which increases congestion, pollution and destruction of arable land and habitat. Air travel is becoming more and more unpleasant. Now we are about to spend billions of tax dollars propping up a fossil fuel industry, which already has a predicted expiry date globally, with pipelines which can transport only one product and provide short-term benefit for stockholders while the development of cleaner alternatives is being thwarted by fossil lobbyists. We have also seen disasters because of poorly enforced or inadequate regulation. With proper regulation, rail can transport many products. It has never been, and never will be, in the interests of the private sector to encourage proper regulation or balance the needs of the public over the pockets of investors. We will see how it goes with the "public-private" concept for high-speed rail in the corridor. I suspect we will see transport suffer at our end of the country as a result.
“Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society.” This oft-repeated quotation is carved over the entrance of the national headquarters of the Internal Revenue Service in Washington, D.C. It is attributed to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. It is clear what has happened to that "civilization" which seems hell-bent on escaping or diverting public revenue for the profit of a few, no matter what harm results.
