(The Globe and Mail posted the following editorial by Jeffrey Simpson on its website on April 23.)
TORONTO — Waiting for the Via Rail train to chug late again into Ottawa (by “only” 25 minutes this time) gave a frequent traveller time to read newspaper stories about Air Canada’s bankruptcy and ask: Why can’t Canada get its transportation policy right?
Don’t believe those Via ads now running on television, the ones with the smiling passengers arriving on time. Via is a sad excuse for a national train system. And Air Canada, the national carrier, has sought bankruptcy protection.
Start with Via. In 2002, according to its annual report, it took in $271-million in revenue, but had operating and capital expenses of $518-million for a net loss of $247-million. In 2001, the loss was $254-million; in 2000, $223-million.
In 1989, the year before Via reduced its national network substantially, the per passenger subsidy was $82. In 2001, the subsidy was still $82. This is progress? Remember, too, that those wealthy business passengers in the Via ads are among those being subsidized.
In 1990, the first year of the streamlined Via, the railway load factor was 55 per cent. Last year, the load factor was 57 per cent. This is progress?
How about the late trains? In 1990, 88 per cent of Via trains arrived “on time.” Last year, 84 per cent arrived “on time.” This is progress?
Via time, by the way, is not real time. “On time” means, according to Via’s annual report, a “15-minute tolerance,” or, in plain English, 15 minutes late.
Via’s chronic problem, among others, is not owning the track that belongs to the private carriers whose freight trains get priority. How many times have Via passengers experienced the delights of waiting on a siding for a freight train to pass? Can you imagine that happening in France or Germany or Switzerland, where watches can be set by train arrivals and departures?
Via is essentially a Central Canadian corridor service with a few trains tacked on elsewhere. About 90 per cent of Via’s passengers travel the Quebec City-Windsor corridor. Their subsidies, it should be said, are much smaller than those for passengers on even less frequently used routes in Western and Atlantic Canada.
Via has big plans, of course, to hook up with Bombardier of Montreal for a new high-speed rail project in the corridor. The price tag? About $3-billion, although the costs of megaprojects are notoriously unreliable.
The Liberal government has often comported itself as a collection of honourable members from Bombardier, so no one should discount the possibility of this project’s eventually proceeding. The air, bus and road lobbies have already formed a coalition to oppose it.
The federal government has often been unable to make up its mind about what it wants from rail travel. It has pressed Via to become more efficient, reduced subsidies and forced it to cut routes — but still pours in subsidies and toys with projects such as high-speed rail that will be a guaranteed money-loser.
Meantime, Ottawa has presided over aviation policy that produced the death of one national airline (Canadian) and has the other one (Air Canada) in bankruptcy. While Ottawa did not cause these problems directly, it did contribute indirectly to them.
Various federal governments kept trying to keep Canadian flying because they feared Western Canada’s anger if the airline failed. Ottawa has consistently made life tough for Air Canada. For example — and this is just one example — Ottawa complains about uncompetitive practices when the airline lowered fares but grouses about price-gouging when the fares rose.
The federal government, while subsidizing Via, treats air carriers as revenue generators. Ottawa has piled on so many taxes that these, when added to airport-improvement fees and the like, produce rates approximating sin-tax levels on short-haul and cheap fares.
Again while subsidizing Via, Ottawa charges airport authorities escalating “rents” for money that the federal government spent years ago when it ran — and ran poorly — the nation’s airports. Passengers and airlines get shafted twice. They pay today’s “improvement” fees for facilities that were underfunded in the past for which Ottawa now wants “rent.”
No golden era existed for transportation policy when Ottawa owned and ran passenger travel. But there hasn’t been one, either, since Ottawa decided to get out of the airport and airline businesses and to demand that Via operate more like a commercial enterprise.
Ottawa cannot decide whether it wants a private-sector model for transportation, or one where companies operate like private-sector ones but with Uncle Ottawa’s finger in the pie.