crs1026
Superstar
Or in 1981. The Governor in Council (ie the Cabinet) does have the power to cancel trains.
- Paul
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VIA Rail
- Thread starter ehlow
- Start date
Or in 1981. The Governor in Council (ie the Cabinet) does have the power to cancel trains.
- Paul
crs1026
Superstar
All true, but in fairness to Ford (and I'm not a fan) the city's handling of DRL was so pathetic that they deserved what they got.... and there are now shovels aplenty in the ground, on a longer more impactful routing, so Ford deserves the credit he will claim.
I am not opposed to a Harris-style reboot, from the perspective that (in my view) Ottawa collects far too much in tax revenue and this enables Ottawa to spend without sufficient restraint or acumen. I would be happy if a new government initiated a Harris-style downloading. Government works best when the people who spend the money have to raise the funding themselves. Premiers demanding that Ottawa fund all their pet projects and whining that Ottawa doesn't pay enough are part of the problem, IMHO. There is less need for income redistribution in this country than we allow, much of it is just giving provinces back money they had in the first place.
As to VIA, the long distance train replacement is a very large ticket item and rivals the cost of some of the social benefit programs that I could siee a right wing government wanting to curtail. I can't see the train item remaining in the budget while more controversial programs are being cut. Even a right wing government would look for alternatives before cutting social benefits.
The cost of shutting down the service however will not necessarily be cheap because of severance costs and (even bigger) pension fund maintenance costs. Those opposing will have things to argue in their favour.
I think people do care about things beyond the end of their driveway.... to a degree. I would not expect public opinion in Winnipeg to cheer a plan to shut down the Canadian - it is the crew base for on board staff in both directions. Similarly, Vancouver hosts the maintenance base for the HEP I fleet. Jasper would be opposed. Even a few jobs lost in small towns with running crew bases (Kamloops, Biggar, Melville) will catch the attention of public opinion in those locales.
The issue for the long distance trains will be identity.... and I have no idea how many westerners even know the train still runs, but I imagine most in towns away from the CN route will say "it's sad, but we lost our train a long time ago, and we are still here". But a "those bastards in Ottawa cutting our train" theme might still emerge. Probably not enough to carry the day, but it will not be something that happens quietly.
- Paul
kEiThZ
Superstar
The post I was responding to suggested that rural conservative voters would be concerned about these cuts. Winnipeg and Vancouver aren't rural. And Vancouver most certainly isn't conservative.
Not saying the cuts won't make the news. But I honestly think they could shutter VIA tomorrow and the worst political damage would be a literal handful of seats. The only places that sort of care about VIA are places that receive service. And outside the Corridor, there's really not many places that get enough service to care. Few times a week isn't going to move the opinion barometer much.
Woodbridge_Heights
Senior Member
Bah, he's not getting credit from me. He, and his brother were on the city council that mis-handled the DRL line and were on the "no subways for the downtown elites" side. So he deserves criticism for slowing the DRL construction just as much as he does for the success of the Ontario line.
Not to mention there have been some criticism regarding the community consultation that has gone on for the OL.
kEiThZ
Superstar
You mean like St. Layton of Danforth and his opposition to downtown subways in the 80s and early 90s?
The tortured history of Toronto's discarded subway plans
Last week's dramatic subway announcement is the latest of many
torontolife.com
The difference here is that Doug Ford will be remembered for delivering transit with the coming ribbon cuttings.
Frank_Lee
New Member
Taxation, aside from pro
Aside from property taxes, the public finance literature generally recommends taxing income (corporate or personal) at the highest level possible to avoid "race-to-the-bottom" dynamics. Income taxes are less distortionary if they're unavoidable (i.e. by moving). Not sure if this conflicts with what you're saying.
crs1026
Superstar
The part that I dispute is that when Ontario (for example) asks Ottawa for partial funding for (for example) a Toronto transit line..... does Ottawa actually go out and impose taxation on (for example) Fredericton or Kamloops? I suspect not. The federal money raised that is paid to fund Toronto's transit projects is likely raised from Toronto.
I venture that the total federal tax collected from (for example) Ontario pretty much covers the various fundings and payments that Ontario receives.... and similar for every other province. So, if Ottawa simply ceased taxation beyond basic federal activities such as defense, and each province raised its taxation to collect the same amount, the end impact on taxpayers would be net zero. The money would simply not make around trip to Ottawa, and the performative aspects of the federal funding song and dance would cease.
That may sound draconian, and I'm not meaning to sound divisive, but I am deeply suspicious that this is how much of our federal tax flow actually works. My theory is that each province is probably funding more of its own activities than is generally believed. Call me crazy.
- Paul
Frank_Lee
New Member
If that were the case, we wouldn't have equalization---which is enshrined in the constitution, by the way. Basically the tax levels for provinces are supposed to be comparable and so are the public services, but some provinces are much poorer.
Besides that, there are lots of reasons to tax at the federal level as opposed to provincial. For example
1. Avoiding race to the bottom dynamics with corporate taxes and subsidies
2. Avoiding the "vertical migration externality" (people move from high tax to low tax places, but taxes are correlated with productivity, so the economy overall does worse)
3. Avoiding cross subsidizing education (people from places with cheap college can move to places with low taxes)
lenaitch
Senior Member
Transport Canada is a government department and; therefore, subordinate to the policy of the sitting government if, for no other reason, than the government pays the bills. Governments of the day have cut, and occasionally added, rail service over the years.
kEiThZ
Superstar
For all those culture war accusations about subways, nobody ever talks about how the Transit City plan was basically somewhere between a "chicken in every pot" idea and a gentrification plan. And also an attempt to kill subway expansion. They didn't have to start with the SRT replacement and Sheppard Subway Extension. Left leaning politicians were happy to fight a culture war over all this too. "Look at the per mile cost. What are you ignorant?" They just weren't happy when it turned out that the public actually did want subways, at least for extensions of existing lines.
I quite like the compromise that has emerged. Subway extensions for existing subway lines so that nonsensical linear transfers are minimized, and LRT on new routes. And ironically, if Ford does win one more term, he'll get do much credit when a lot of this comes online. McGuinty and Wynne could have pushed this compromise and won credit themselves.
On topic, if Poilievre is smart (this is admittedly debatable), he would basically do a Ford'esque rebrand of HFR and win credit.
Frank_Lee
New Member
God I hope so...
T3G
Senior Member
Sheppard? No, absolutely not. But SRT replacement? That was already a talking point for several years by the time Transit City was proposed. The line was 2/3rds of the way into its planned lifespan, the discussion about replacements needed to start. Alas, Rob Ford's insistence on rocking the boat and sticking it to the downtowners lead directly to the July 24, 2023 accident and to 10+ years of shuttle buses. With "friends" like this, Scarborough certainly didn't need enemies.
Per mile cost is actually an argument based in hard numbers that can be argued, though. Ford's entire argument was that the mean, evil-spirited, greedy downtowners were hoarding subways that should instead be given to the hardworking people of Scarborough - populist nonsense. No one should have cared what Rob Ford thought about the divide between downtown and suburbs - all we needed to hear was some kind of logical justification for why Scarborough should have been a subway, and not an LRT. But of course, we never got that, because it's much easier to propose a harebrained scheme and then attack opponents of it.
If the question had been posed differently, and if we didn't have Rob stirring up hatred amongst different demographics of the city, perhaps we could legitimately say that the public did want subways. I don't see how we could say that as it stands, when there was never a factual debate about it. A person on the anti-subway side of the argument could make an entirely reasonable and measured comment that the density of Scarborough hardly justifies an insane investment like the subway, and the other side would reply that he's a snobby elitist who hates the poor, beleaguered, salt-of-the-earth Scarberians. That's not democracy, that's a farce. To this day, 14 years later, I have yet to see one economically sound explanation for why the SSE is a good idea.
At any rate, to get back to the original topic: framing Rob Ford as some kind of pro-transit mayor is some Orwellian level revisionism.
warrens
New Member
That is a concern, but don't overstate it. Ontario has more undeveloped or underdeveloped farmland available than could conceivably be filled by urban sprawl within the next 200 years. You could carve out the entirety of the GTHA just in the land around Timmins and turn it into farmland. (Not making this up)
The problem is getting enough people up there to actually do it. Everyone wants to be either
or
, not a farmer.
Bordercollie
Senior Member
There is still a lot of land that needs to be redevelopment, even downtown old Chinatown and remenents of Regent park can be torn down and built with more density. All along carlton, Dundas, queen, St clair w can all be redeveloped into Multi unit dwellings. The issue is infrastructure, line 1 is already busting at its seams and extending it won't help.
Developing North York between York Mills and Steeles will help spur growth and reduce the need to go downtown. Fairview is another area that is changing, especially around consumers Rd. And around Besserian station.
They should consider re-routing the 85 bus to loop around the hospital, serve Leslie station and go along Esther Shiner Blvd and then back on route. Similar to how the Sherborne bus loops around queens Quay. This will help people get to the subway without having to walk 700m, and besides there isn't much ridership along that stretch on Sheppard anyway.
dowlingm
Senior Member
We are wandering very far from the point of this thread but you can’t simply point at a random spot and say “farmland”. There are different classifications of farmland even in the GTA. Are Mennonites and other traditional farming communities moving north? Sure but only because relentless choice to rezone for industrial and residential and “outlet malls” rather than use land conservatively require them to. It doesn’t mean the land they are going to is equally productive.