ssiguy2
Senior Member
Nope. They need to finish that super long study they have going on which runs till 2022.
If the Liberals are in a minority, would they even bother with any projects on VIA, when they might funds more immediately to buy votes? I'm not even sure a Liberal-NDP coalition would prioritize HFR to the point of firming up funding and launching procurement.
Don't agree as I actually think the opposite maybe the case. The NDP have their base in Central/South Western Ontario and they will want to show their constituents that voting NDP and working with the Liberals was beneficial. If HSF goes thru the NDP will demand that it is not just a Tor/Ott/Mon route but the entire Corridor and if there is any segment delays it will be from Mon to QC as QC rebuffed both the Liberals and NDP.
Much will also depend on VIA rail itself. So far, VIA has done an incredibly poor job of explaining to the public what exactly HFR is and how will benefit them. For the vast majority of people, HFR, means only that, more trains and to most that doesn't mean much. To the average person that means that there will simply be more unreliable slow boats to China than there are now...............hardly enough to get people excited about or willing to see their tax dollars going there and of course the less excited the people, the less likely Ottawa will support it.
If VIA wants the money, they have to tell the people that not only will the train service will be more frequent but how much more dependable it will be and most relevantly for the average person, how much time will they save going from A to B. Until they clearly state the above, public support will be very limited and hence so will Ottawa's attention.