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All of it. Railways are federally regulated. The government can dictate anything that happens on railways in Canada. They could easily force CP or CN to play ball with VIA even if they don't want to. They could pass all kinds of laws they would hate. A war between CN/CP and the feds can only...

Again, increasing debt isn't a problem if your GDP is also increasing. It's like people: getting a more expensive mortgage is totally okay if your income goes up by enough to afford the extra payments. From 2015-16 to 2016-17 the debt-to-GDP ratio remains steady and it starts falling next year.

Ontario's HSR proposal has $40 average fares between Toronto and London. VIA's new president is very aware that his competition is with cars, not planes.

Things are different for an HSR project. Nobody really cares about the Canadian. But if the federal government went in on HSR, they will have very little patience for any pesky interference from CN or CP. And they can use the full might of their regulatory control over Canadian railways if they...

Canadian provinces have much more responsibilities than other subnational jursidictions. Most public spending in Canada is at the subnational level, possibly the only country in the world where this is the case. So comparing Ontario to subnational jurisdictions in other countries isn't valid.

Nope. GO is exempt from the franchise rules and it can operate buses wherever it wants.

Wow. Looks like there's three elements to this Missing Link plan: 1) A new railway entirely along the 407 in Brampton 2) adding more tracks to the CN line through Southern York Region so that CP trains can use it too. The first element would free up the Kitchener line through Brampton, the...

Whoa wait a minute.. could that new freight line take CP trains off Milton line as well, thus freeing up that line for GO improvements? If so that's a very valuable project that probably should be prioritized...

A lot of people still drive of course. I'd say it's about half-half VIA-UPX and driving split judging from what I see around me. Syracuse is a surprisingly unpopular option. Now with the dollar of course it makes little sense but even when the dollar was strong, not many went to Syracuse. The...

You're definitely wrong on that. As an Kingstonian I can say that many people here take VIA to Toronto then UP to Pearson. More people do that than fly out of Kingston airport. I myself am doing that this Saturday for my trip down south. That's what sunseekers in Kingston do. Feeder flights are...

That might be a good reason to justify an interim extension of the Yonge line to Steeles or even just to Cummer. Isn't the Yonge North extension shovel-ready? With federal dollars, something like that could be built reasonably quickly.

It should be noted that when $20 when Blue22 was proposed is equivalent to about $25 today thanks to inflation.

The funny thing is that of all the Metrolinx lines, the UP Express is the one with the most fair case for provincial subsidization. By connecting Pearson to the intercity train and bus networks, it makes Pearson much more accessible to people in places like Ottawa, Kingston, Kitchener, London etc.

The creation of Metrolinx definitely seems to have brought about more action on transit, but I agree it has too little teeth. Ultimately I'd like to see Metrolinx evolve into a regional transit agency like Translink in Vancouver.

The OEB denies rate hikes all the time. Hydro Ottawa--which despite being Ottawa-owned is run with a heavy profit motive as the city is constantly trying to squeeze dividend money out of it to pay for other city priorities without property tax--recently applied for a big hike to local...

But that's exactly my point. Privatization won't cause any increases beyond what would have happened anyway if it had remained 100% public. And blaming a private operator for rate hikes will never work. For one, Hydro One isn't really even private. The government still retains a 40% stake in...

In a few short years we'll have lots of off-peak GO service there and not much after that there will be RER.

This family day weekend promo is really lucky for me! I happen to be going out of town on Saturday and I've been planning this trip for a year :)

Privitization of Hydro One will have zero effect on hydro bills and will not change the pace of increases. Hydro rates are regulated by the OEB and the IESO and that doesn't change whether a utility is public or private. Many of the transmission utilities in Ontario are already private.

However, keep in mind that the PCs are very beholden to the interests of the rural crowd. They're the group that forms the bulk of the party membership, finances, committed support, and current caucus. When John Tory tried that trick of moving the PCs to a more centrist urban-friendly tone a la...