(The following story by Nicolas Van Praet appeared in the Montreal Gazette on October 27.)
MONTREAL — A train with Via’s new-style cars, the refurbished Renaissance cars put into service over the past couple of years, pulls into Central Station yesterday. Via plans to refurbish more of its cars and buy new locomotives from an as-yet-unknown builder with some of the $700 million in new funding announced by Ottawa.
Airline and bus companies came out swinging yesterday against a federal commitment of $700 million in new money to Via Rail Canada, calling for a public inquiry into the “secretive” train service even though the funding might never go through.
The Air Transport Association of Canada, the country’s airline trade group, called the Liberal government “a weapon of mass destruction” bent on crippling the airline industry. It said Via is a “secretive” organization that publishes “skimpy financial data,” and demanded a full public inquiry into its operations and future.
Quebec’s biggest bus company called the funding decision “a farce” and said it could give its 1.2 million annual customers free rides in new buses for 25 years if it were given the Via cash.
Transport Minister David Collenette said yesterday the $700 million over five years will be used to upgrade Via’s network countrywide and to “preserve the option” for higher-speed rail at a later date. The investment includes cash for new locomotives, rebuilt train stations and infrastructure improvements.
The $700 million represents barely a quarter of the $3 billion Via has said it requires for a fast-train line from Quebec City to Windsor, Ont. Funds will be allocated starting in fiscal 2004-05, Collenette said.
Sylvain Langis, president of the bus line Autocars Orléans Express and president of the Canadian Bus Association, said: “This is a banana peel thrown at the feet of the next government and the next prime minister.
“How can a government minister announce $700 million that will be taken from the budget of another government of which he will not be a part?” Langis demanded, referring to the imminent replacement of Jean Chrétien’s government with one headed by Paul Martin.
Even if Via doubled its passengers as a result of the new spending, it would carry only a tiny number of people compared with the bus and airline industries, he said.
Via now has 4 million passengers a year. Langis said the bus industry carries 100 million people a year when charter buses are included. Air Canada has 25 million passengers a year.
“This decision is a big farce,” Langis said. “And once again, taxpayers from all regions in Canada will pay for something that only benefits people along a thin line in Quebec and Ontario.
“People living in the north of Manitoba or Alberta, in Saguenay, Abitibi or Gaspé, are not served by trains. They need buses like ours. The government is taking public funds to fund a transportation system that’s inefficient and that won’t grow all that much in terms of passenger volumes.”
More than 80 per cent of Via’s ridership is concentrated along the Quebec-to-Windsor line. Last year, taxpayers spent close to 16 cents to transport each Via passenger one mile. In 2000, Ottawa gave Via $402 million to address what it called the rail provider’s “urgent capital needs.”
Air Transport Association of Canada president Cliff Mackay said the funding is a public subsidy that will hurt private business at a painful time for airlines.
“This government is turning into a weapon of mass destruction against the airline sector,” Mackay said. “It’s raking in money from airline passengers in any number of different ways. … We think it’s just completely and totally unfair.”
Canadian carriers lost $500 million last year, Mackay said, as security fees imposed by the government and airport rents battered their bottom line.
Airlines have said they’re worried Via will receive so much government help it will eventually wipe out air service on some routes. They want Ottawa to make public all Via’s detailed spending, results and plans.
Officials at Via – a federal crown corporation accountable to Parliament – yesterday insisted that the rail provider is transparent because it is audited every year by the federal auditor-general.
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A Long Road
There has been talk of high-speed rail between Quebec City and Windsor for decades, but the money hasn’t been found.
Oct. 4, 1989: Federal Transport Minister Benoît Bouchard says Via’s $650-million subsidy will be cut in half. Via slashes service and lays off staff.
Nov. 1, 1991: The Ontario, Quebec and federal governments announce a study into the feasibility of high-speed train service in the Quebec City-Toronto corridor.
1992: Via receives $389 million in government subsidies a year.
May 25, 1994: Parliament votes 147-48 against a high-speed rail project.
1999: Subsidies to Via Rail are down to $170 million. Public-transit lobby group Transport 2000 makes two suggestions to the government’s standing committee on transport: one for a tilting train that could run on existing track at 240 kilometres per hour at a cost of
$1 billion, the other for a new track that could support speeds of 300 kilometres per hour and cost $10 billion. Transport Minister David Collenette says, “Governments don’t have that kind of money any more.”
April 12, 2000: Ottawa promises $401.9 million in capital funding to Via over five years. Eighty per cent is earmarked for the Quebec City-Windsor corridor. Via refurbishes trains, buys 139 cars and 21 locomotives that can travel at 175 kilometres per hour, and makes track improvements.
March 12, 2003: Montreal’s Bombardier show off its JetTrain, which has reached 251 kilometres per hour in testing. Bombardier wants Via to buy the train for the corridor.
Sept. 30, 2003: The German company Siemens claims its Maglev, an electric train that can reach 400 kilometres per hour, is better than Bombardier’s and reveals that it has been angling for government consideration.
Yesterday: Ottawa announces $700 million for Via. Some of that money will go to further track improvement and the purchase of faster trains for the Quebec City-Windsor corridor. Collenette says it could take up to seven years to set up high-speed service and it would cost a further $2.3 billion.