Montreal City Weblog

Kate 10:29 on 2025-01-13 Permalink Reply  

• DeWolf 11:27 on 2025-01-13 Permalink

  Can’t wait until PP becomes PM. Ford F-150s for everyone!

• Kate 12:32 on 2025-01-13 Permalink

  I almost included something like that in the original post, but expected I’d be shouted down!

• Nicholas 13:13 on 2025-01-13 Permalink

  We all knew this was coming. You can’t wait over half a decade into your mandate to start a complex, multi-year/-decade project that your likely successor might kill.

  But I honestly don’t know what PP thinks of HSR. Lots of conservatives around the world support and build HSR. PP is from Ottawa, the centre of the proposed system, and there will be many Tory MPs from Ontario, and also Quebec City. Quebec will be happy if Ottawa pays, and Ontario might too, especially if Ford doesn’t win the next provincial election.

  Read the article and the Tory transport critic doesn’t attack the Liberals for the plans being expensive or fantastical, that it’s a bad idea. The attack is that after a decade there’s nothing to speak of, that the Liberals failed to execute, a common refrain for this government. At the last Conservative Party policy convention a motion to support HSR passed. It’s not like leaders follow what their party conventions do, but there is support within the party for HSR, and it’s not impossible to think PP spends six months retooling, rebrands the project as his own, gets construction started, and takes all the credit. Don’t quote me saying it’s likely, but if it happens I’ll be linking back here smugly.

• Ramsay 13:46 on 2025-01-13 Permalink

  The biggest impediment will likely be the price tag while PP tries to bring down the deficit.
  I can also see the climate angle working in its favour. PP is not publicly anti decarbonization in theory and so will need policies to replace the carbon tax.
  I could also see this paired with an energy corridor idea since right of way and environmental impact assessments will be a big part of the planning process.

• Uatu 18:21 on 2025-01-13 Permalink

  Porter and Air Canada will bribe PP with a bags of cash to make sure it never happens.

• CE 19:00 on 2025-01-13 Permalink

  Not necessarily.

• Chris 22:14 on 2025-01-13 Permalink

  Let’s not pretend that Liberal promises make them saints here, while (presumed) Conservative cancellation make them devils. You can read the Via Rail article on Wikipedia and see that both parties have both increased and (mostly) decreased Via’s funding over the decades.

  An unfulfilled empty promise from the Liberals is no better than no promise from the Conservatives. Either way, no high speed rail.

• Tux 17:50 on 2025-01-14 Permalink

  PP is not publicly anti decarbonization

  The conservatives platform says this: “In pursuit of a purposeful, gradual transition to a lower carbon-use future, a Conservative government will support the continued use of oil and gas while encouraging research and development aimed at creating safe, dependable and economical options, including carbon capture technology, battery-based storage, small modular reactors and hydrogen-based generation.”

  Note the conspicuous absence of already proven clean energy sources like wind and solar, as well as the “continued use of oil and gas”

  We also have “The provinces and territories should be free to develop their own climate change policies”. Translation: “if it’s making money, we ain’t stoppin’ it, and there will be no nationally coordinated response to climate change”

  Don’t vote conservative if you care about heading of future floods and wildfires.