VIA Rail

[ARG1]

The important part of that Alberta plan is that it is PROVINCIAL. Note that VIA and the federal government didn't have anything to do with it. Sure, conservatives here do have some differences to Americans, however the federal conservatives are cut from a different cloth because they can't use rail as an appeal to populism and grievances against other provinces and the federal government. Instead, the only winning formula is to cut and devolve responsibility. That plan reinforced my belief that VIA is useless and ought to be done away with, even if most of that map should just be served with busses instead of trains.

My point to bring up Alberta is a counter to your point of "his government will beholden to the interests of western and rural voters who cannot comprehend that a rising tide lifts all boats". Alberta is about as western and as rural as it gets, and much of the CPC's talking points and politics are centered around that province's interests. So, when the province that closely matches the politics of the CPC elects a CONSERVATIVE premier that is highly support of rail expansion, it represents a good sign in which direction the party will look as a core principle.

This is before I bring up that the CPC needs to get some votes in Ontario and Quebec to win, voters (if you judge by Doug Ford's continued success) are highly interested in transportation and infrastructure expansion within their province. Something like continuing the support of HSR will be crucial to note lose the next election.

When it comes to the party resolution in support of HSR, party convention resolutions are worth less than nothing and are ignored almost every time with few exceptions. The only thing that will matter is the party platform come the next election and the comments from the incoming prime minister do not inspire confidence.

They're a good litmus test to understand what the core doners and political backers want. Keep in mind, these are the people that are responsible for a good chunk of the party's annual income, as well as responsible for choosing the party leader. Understanding what the party doners want is extremely crucial in predicting what the government will do, doubly so in regards to the CPC who very much operate at the whim of the doner.

 

[C_Johnson_1995]

My point to bring up Alberta is a counter to your point of "his government will beholden to the interests of western and rural voters who cannot comprehend that a rising tide lifts all boats". Alberta is about as western and as rural as it gets, and much of the CPC's talking points and politics are centered around that province's interests. So, when the province that closely matches the politics of the CPC elects a CONSERVATIVE premier that is highly support of rail expansion, it represents a good sign in which direction the party will look as a core principle.

Again, it's provincial. You will likely never see that replicated on the federal level because as long as the premiers are handling transit populism, the federal government has no reason to touch the issue.

This is before I bring up that the CPC needs to get some votes in Ontario and Quebec to win, voters (if you judge by Doug Ford's continued success) are highly interested in transportation and infrastructure expansion within their province. Something like continuing the support of HSR will be crucial to note lose the next election.

The Ontario PCs and the CPC are vastly different parties. They (the CPC) are going to get those votes regardless of what they do. The next election will be purely reactionary to votes to get the Liberals out. There isn't an incentive to act out a long term project with the ability to go overbudget or have any other controversy attached to it when they can score easy political points by 'axing taxes' and cutting 'wasteful Liberal follies' like what HFR is likely perceived to be.

At this point, nobody here is going to convince anyone else the other way. We can just agree to disagree because we will only see who's right next year. I'm just not sure what this party has done to inspire any level of confidence. Ultimately though, the blame lays squarely with the Liberals by not sufficiently advancing the project if it ends up being canceled.

 

[Urban Sky]

At this point, nobody here is going to convince anyone else the other way. We can just agree to disagree because we will only see who's right next year. I'm just not sure what this party has done to inspire any level of confidence. Ultimately though, the blame lays squarely with the Liberals by not sufficiently advancing the project if it ends up being canceled.

It rather sounds to me that you have conspiracy theories, but no actual evidence. The scope of HxR can be scaled back to match the government’s desired funding size - and if that’s zero, then we’ll probably get something which more closely resembles VIA’s initial pitch.

But, again, the Conservative’s problem with passenger rail proposals is the government funding part, not the passenger rail part. And also the voters are not stupid: they can differentiate between a project shelved because it would have been too costly for the taxpayer and one cancelled because the government hated rail.

I anticipate that the new Government will just make sure to take as much credit as possible for getting the project done where the Liberals were only holding inconsequential announcements while limiting the taxpayer exposure to a bare minimum. And as a positive side effect, this refocus of the project scope should speed up the delivery…

 

[Bordercollie]

Both, in the case of Wynne’s HSR election stunt and the Carbon Tax now, these policies were/are highly controversial amongst the Conservative’s core constituents and the Conservative’s campaign was/is very transparent about their intentions post-election-victory. Has PP publicly said anything critical about VIA (or HxR) since 2012, when VIA’s fiscal credibility was orders of magnitudes worse than today?

But ten years later we expropriated land to basically build the same bypass that was proposed ten years ago.

 

[Urban Sky]

But ten years later we expropriated land to basically build the same bypass that was proposed ten years ago.

Sorry, I‘m not sure what you are referring to. Could you be more specific?