Trudeau is so dazzled by the graphite and glitter
of his high-speed rail project that he’s just
ignoring the caretaker convention
JOHN IVISON
national post
At this stage of his political career, a Justin Trudeau press conference should be like living next to the highway. With little more than two weeks left in office, the prime minister’s musings should be irrelevant background noise, with no spending implications whatsoever.
Yet the announcement on Wednesday in Montreal that the federal government plans to hand over nearly $4 billion to a consortium to develop high-speed rail between Quebec City and Toronto was a reminder that Trudeau’s still got it when it comes to brazen disregard for the taxpayer.
The prime minister’s position is unchanged constitutionally. He is presumed to hold the confidence of the House of Commons until the House says otherwise.
But he has resigned and it is clear that his government would fall had he not prorogued the House. As such, the “caretaker convention” should be in place, discouraging a lame-duck government from blowing a hole in the next lot’s budget. This is a clear violation of that convention.
Trudeau is so dazzled by the graphite and glitter of the high-speed rail project that he obviously cares little for such niceties.
He was in his element in Montreal, waxing lyrical about Canada lagging behind as the only G7 nation without high-speed rail. He identified the winning Alto consortium — Atkins Réalis (formerly SNC Lavalin), Air Canada and French train operator SNCF Voyageur — that will now co-develop the plan to bring to life a line connecting Quebec City, Trois-Rivières, Laval, Montreal, Ottawa, Peterborough and Toronto.
The dedicated 1,000-kilometre electrified route would allow trains to travel at 300 kilometres an hour, halving the time it takes to get from Montreal to Toronto currently.
Trudeau said it will improve the bonds between cities, raise productivity, reduce costs for businesses, boost inter-provincial tourism, take cars off the road, induce weight loss and reverse aging.
I made up those last two, but the prime minister’s enthusiasm was unbridled, calling it a “nation-building project we can all be proud of.”
“It will turbo-charge the entire economy,” he said.
There is much to be said for high-speed rail, if you can provide a frequent and affordable service, such as the Italians do between Turin and Naples, or the French do between Lille and Marseille.
Evidence from Japan suggests high-speed rail can reduce housing costs and congestion by making it easier to live further from big cities. Electrification could reduce emissions.
Three consortia bid on the contract, so the private sector clearly believes there is a business case.
But against the prime minister’s impetuosity should be weighed the reality of rail travel in Canada. Via Rail, which received $462 million in the last budget for a new fleet, had a $381.8-million operating loss in its last fiscal year. Passenger numbers in 2023 were still lower than they were pre-pandemic.
These high-speed-rail projects are massively expensive: Transport Canada estimated $80 billion, but more recent studies suggest a figure nearer to $120 billion. California approved a high-speed rail project between Los Angeles and San Francisco in 2008 but construction didn’t start until 2015 and, so far, only 35 kilometres of track has been completed.
Trudeau said that his announcement is a sign that “this is real,” after 26 studies over the past 33 years.
But it’s not. The $3.8 billion earmarked by the government has been announced but not approved by Parliament. That approval will have to be forthcoming before contracts are signed.
Even if approved, that money is for consultants who will spend the next four to five years deciding where to locate stations and track. Not one shovel will break ground.
Yet, for Trudeau, as always, the announcement is the thing. He now has his fingerprints on the largest infrastructure project in Canadian history.
“It takes a will and determination to move forward and lock in this project,” he said. “This investment in Canadians, which starts right now, will be very difficult to turn back on.”
Transport Minister Anita Anand was on hand to recite the first verse from the Book of Trudeau: i.e., “We can’t afford not to (spend).”
“How could they (the next government) not invest in the potential to add $35 billion a year to the economy once this project is complete?” she asked, rhetorically.
The real question is: Even if we had the fiscal space (which we don’t), it’s not your fiscal space, so what gives you the right to commit billions of dollars when you won’t even be in government to sign the phase one contracts?
Answer that and stay fashionable.
