Toronto-Quebec City High-Speed Rail

[CdnFox]

2 hours ago, eyeball said:

See, you can't change your tune either. Typical cantservatism.

That's true, the truth doesn't change and we keep speaking the truth. Only a liebral would somehow think that's an insult    LOLOL!!!

 

[eyeball]

1 hour ago, CdnFox said:

That's true, the truth doesn't change and we keep speaking the truth.

Pinkie swear double dare?

[CdnFox]

16 minutes ago, eyeball said:

Pinkie swear double dare?

No need, we're conservatives and don't need to do that  

Also that's not your pinky. Weirdo. 

 

Meanwhile, here's who you think should be running canada hard at work 

Carney government plans to water down fundraiser rules

[eyeball]

6 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

Carney government plans to water down fundraiser rules

He's unstoppable.

Oh well, you sound happy in any case. It'll always be a lot easier to criticize Carney than it is to defend Poilievre.

Keep up the good work.

[CdnFox]

12 minutes ago, eyeball said:

He's unstoppable.

He is easily stopped. Just quit voting for him

[Barquentine]

19 hours ago, CdnFox said:

You're in ontario aren't you?

Wrong as usual!

[Zeitgeist]

13 hours ago, CdnFox said:

So your solution is to spend all of their money on a freaking train? And then we can't afford infrastructure or roadway upgrades and people won't be able to afford to maintain a vehicle anyway

Again I don't think you understand the scope of how much money we're talking about here. I don't think you get how badly this will deplete our federal ability to spend money on other things. Perhaps you think money is infinite and it's not possible to over spend?  I assure you that is not the case.  BC just had it's credit rating downgraded and the feds are on track for that. 

There is NO way this kind of expenditure makes sense even during good financial times, but right now? When our Debt to gdp is historically high? While the provinces are going broke as well?  While the libs are set to rack up endless deficits around 80 billion or so for every year with just their CURRENT spending?  WIth the trade war and the world facing an economic downturn?

FFS, think about it!

We’re spending the money anyway to put all those auto , steel, and aluminum workers who’ve been thrown out of work on EI or welly.  Might as well give them real jobs building infrastructure or supplying resources to infrastructure.  Our needs for all modes of transportation are going to grow.  If there’s around 12 million people in the Greater Golden Horseshoe, you can count on that number growing by 50 percent in 3-5 decades. Already we’re so behind in infrastructure.  Our trains are too slow and infrequent.  Our highways are clogged, our flights are expensive and overbooked.  I haven’t even mentioned Quebec and Ottawa’s transportation issues. This will all get worse.  

Edited April 8 by Zeitgeist

[CdnFox]

12 hours ago, Barquentine said:

Wrong as usual!

You should move there. You qualify  

[CdnFox]

9 hours ago, Zeitgeist said:

We’re spending the money anyway to put all those auto , steel, and aluminum workers who’ve been thrown out of work on EI or welly.  

NO we are NOT!!!   The ENTIRE Ei program pays out 26 billion A YEAR IN TOTAL from every single cliam!  We're not even paying a couple of billion for steel workers!  You're talking about 50 to 100 years of EI payments.  I think it's safe to say they'll stop collecting by then 🙄

And the fact is there already is programs in place in the vast majority of those people will retrain Oregon jobs if they are forced to leave the steel industry

And there are many projects we can do to keep them working that don't cost between $90 and $150 billion A pipeline would cost max $20 billion and would produce even more steel

9 hours ago, Zeitgeist said:

Our needs for all modes of transportation are going to grow.

That's nice but that doesn't justify this project. It's the kind of cheesy thing people say when they know they're wrong and they can't prove their point but they want to say something that sounds defensible.  You offer no specifics, no facts no evidence this will adderess those needs effectively,  If we spend 90 billion does that solve all the future problems? Because we probably won't have much left for anything else 

There is not the demand to justify the cost for this project. If the day comes when there is then we build it. In the meantime there's a million other things we could do with that money that would actually benefit our economy and grow our freaking economy while we're in trouble with the Americans

The trains are fine and the highways can be expanded for a teeny fraction of what you're talking about money wise

This train can only handle so many people and from what the estimates are that it can handle there is no way this is worth it

Once again you cannot make an argument to justify this other than in the most general possible of terms.

[Zeitgeist]

4 hours ago, CdnFox said:

NO we are NOT!!!   The ENTIRE Ei program pays out 26 billion A YEAR IN TOTAL from every single cliam!  We're not even paying a couple of billion for steel workers!  You're talking about 50 to 100 years of EI payments.  I think it's safe to say they'll stop collecting by then 🙄

And the fact is there already is programs in place in the vast majority of those people will retrain Oregon jobs if they are forced to leave the steel industry

And there are many projects we can do to keep them working that don't cost between $90 and $150 billion A pipeline would cost max $20 billion and would produce even more steel

That's nice but that doesn't justify this project. It's the kind of cheesy thing people say when they know they're wrong and they can't prove their point but they want to say something that sounds defensible.  You offer no specifics, no facts no evidence this will adderess those needs effectively,  If we spend 90 billion does that solve all the future problems? Because we probably won't have much left for anything else 

There is not the demand to justify the cost for this project. If the day comes when there is then we build it. In the meantime there's a million other things we could do with that money that would actually benefit our economy and grow our freaking economy while we're in trouble with the Americans

The trains are fine and the highways can be expanded for a teeny fraction of what you're talking about money wise

This train can only handle so many people and from what the estimates are that it can handle there is no way this is worth it

Once again you cannot make an argument to justify this other than in the most general possible of terms.

Sorry, but Toronto and Canada for that matter need to think much bigger.  Toronto is already bigger than Chicago and will eventually overtake LA.  What other alternative projects are you proposing?  There’s no room to widen our existing GTA highways, unless you start tunnelling them, which is doable but more ambitious than HSR.  I’ve been watching the discussions on rail for 30 plus years.  These aren’t small cities like out west.  K-W, Cambridge, and Guelph alone are becoming big city regions, and these extend around the Golden Horseshoe to Bowmanville and up to Barrie.  We should have continuous rail and subway development because we’re grossly behind.  The current plans are good but based on yesterday’s population and settlement patterns.

If we do this right, we can preserve the Greenbelt and farmlands while providing the transportation network that will move people efficiently between these centres, improving quality of life and making new synergies possible.  You may not agree, but having lived here my whole life, the people of Southern Ontario are pretty supportive of this idea, because we’ve seen the decades of dithering and cancellations as millions of new residents arrived without the infrastructure to support the growth.

We’re going to have to agree to disagree on this because I think transportation infrastructure is one of our most pressing needs in Ontario.  It impacts our daily life in very tangible ways here.  People are spending hours in daily commutes that only get longer. You have your priorities out west.  We have ours.  

Edited April 9 by Zeitgeist

[CdnFox]

3 hours ago, Zeitgeist said:

Sorry, but Toronto and Canada for that matter need to think much bigger.  Toronto is already bigger than Chicago and will eventually overtake LA.  What other alternative projects are you proposing?  There’s no room to widen our existing GTA highways, unless you start tunnelling them, which is doable but more ambitious than HSR.  I’ve been watching the discussions on rail for 30 plus years.  These aren’t small cities like out west.  K-W, Cambridge, and Guelph alone are becoming big city regions, and these extend around the Golden Horseshoe to Bowmanville and up to Barrie.  We should have continuous rail and subway development because we’re grossly behind.  The current plans are good but based on yesterday’s population and settlement patterns.

If we do this right, we can preserve the Greenbelt and farmlands while providing the transportation network that will move people efficiently between these centres, improving quality of life and making new synergies possible.  You may not agree, but having lived here my whole life, the people of Southern Ontario are pretty supportive of this idea, because we’ve seen the decades of dithering and cancellations as millions of new residents arrived without the infrastructure to support the growth.

We’re going to have to agree to disagree on this because I think transportation infrastructure is one of our most pressing needs in Ontario.  It impacts our daily life in very tangible ways here.  People are spending hours in daily commutes that only get longer. You have your priorities out west.  We have ours.  

Blah blah blah a rolling stone gathers no moss, look before you leap, etc etc  Not a single fact or figure showing that a single thing you're saying is correct or that this train will solve it. 

We. Cannot. Afford. This.  

And it will NOT solve ANY ,,, AND I DO MEAN ANY... of our transit problems. It will make them worse because we won't have the money to do anything else. 

No, you won't preserve the greenbelt and trying to do so will just add to the pricetag. 

I would be happy to agree to disagree but you're selling out the children's future.  If you were paying yourself and that was it that would be your choice.  BUt you're going to rob a generation of it's quality of life and you just don't care.  Just like you and your kind did with justin trudeau despite being warned again and again and again. 

[Zeitgeist]

4 hours ago, CdnFox said:

Blah blah blah a rolling stone gathers no moss, look before you leap, etc etc  Not a single fact or figure showing that a single thing you're saying is correct or that this train will solve it. 

We. Cannot. Afford. This.  

And it will NOT solve ANY ,,, AND I DO MEAN ANY... of our transit problems. It will make them worse because we won't have the money to do anything else. 

No, you won't preserve the greenbelt and trying to do so will just add to the pricetag. 

I would be happy to agree to disagree but you're selling out the children's future.  If you were paying yourself and that was it that would be your choice.  BUt you're going to rob a generation of its quality of life and you just don't care.  Just like you and your kind did with justin trudeau despite being warned again and again and again. 

Raising military spending to 5 percent of GDP would do far worse to Canada’s finances.  We need to have a positive vision for what the country can become, not simply a list of things we don’t want because they’re expensive, going to destroy the country, etc.  Most people simply want better lives.  I remember this happening during the brief period after Mulroney when Kim Campbell was PM and said unemployment would rise perhaps to around 20 percent. Doom and gloom aren’t going to cut it right now.  We’ve had enough of it. 

Edited April 9 by Zeitgeist

[CdnFox]

5 hours ago, Zeitgeist said:

Raising military spending to 5 percent of GDP would do far worse to Canada’s finances.

Theoretically that's true, but of course as we have discussed elsewhere they're not actually doing that. They're taking existing spending and Relabeling it as "military".  The coast guard? Now it's military.  Trudeau's tree planting program?  Totally military.   Etc etc. 

In fact we barely increased military spending at all and somehow magically it are 2% 😛

A lot of things with the liberals are smoking mirrors and I suspect in the end this project will be the same. You will not get the happy ending you think you will and a crap ton of money will wind up in the hands of liberal friendly people

5 hours ago, Zeitgeist said:

We need to have a positive vision for what the country can become, not simply a list of things we don’t want because they’re expensive,

Rolling stone gathers no moss, look before you leap, etc etc.  There's no substance to what you're saying. Having a positive vision will not change our financial picture.

Now if you could somehow provide actual reasonable evidence that suggests this will in the long run improve our economy more than it drains from our economy then that's a conversation we could have. But all indicators suggest the opposite.

This will not make anyone's lives better. Or certainly so few people that it doesn't justify hundreds of billions of dollars.

You want to make people's lives better? Reduce their taxes by $100 billion. Make everyone's lives better and actually do something for economy with more people having disposable income to buy things.

Instead you want to raise taxes so that a small handful of people can use something that will not make their life substantially better for the most part.

5 hours ago, Zeitgeist said:

Doom and gloom aren’t going to cut it right now.  We’ve had enough of it. 

We have doom and gloom because we listen to the liberals and let them make this kind of decision for us. We have doom and gloom because people without a brain actually believed Trudeau when he said he was investing in infrastructure and that it would make us all kinds of money.

All you're doing is guaranteeing more doom and gloom for the future. What people are really sick of is the failures that the liberals have brought to this country for the last decade and your proposing we continue

You want things to be positive? Make positive proposals.

All this does is rob children of their future for something that nobody's going to benefit from

[Zeitgeist]

1 hour ago, CdnFox said:

Theoretically that's true, but of course as we have discussed elsewhere they're not actually doing that. They're taking existing spending and Relabeling it as "military".  The coast guard? Now it's military.  Trudeau's tree planting program?  Totally military.   Etc etc. 

In fact we barely increased military spending at all and somehow magically it are 2% 😛

A lot of things with the liberals are smoking mirrors and I suspect in the end this project will be the same. You will not get the happy ending you think you will and a crap ton of money will wind up in the hands of liberal friendly people

Rolling stone gathers no moss, look before you leap, etc etc.  There's no substance to what you're saying. Having a positive vision will not change our financial picture.

Now if you could somehow provide actual reasonable evidence that suggests this will in the long run improve our economy more than it drains from our economy then that's a conversation we could have. But all indicators suggest the opposite.

This will not make anyone's lives better. Or certainly so few people that it doesn't justify hundreds of billions of dollars.

You want to make people's lives better? Reduce their taxes by $100 billion. Make everyone's lives better and actually do something for economy with more people having disposable income to buy things.

Instead you want to raise taxes so that a small handful of people can use something that will not make their life substantially better for the most part.

We have doom and gloom because we listen to the liberals and let them make this kind of decision for us. We have doom and gloom because people without a brain actually believed Trudeau when he said he was investing in infrastructure and that it would make us all kinds of money.

All you're doing is guaranteeing more doom and gloom for the future. What people are really sick of is the failures that the liberals have brought to this country for the last decade and your proposing we continue

You want things to be positive? Make positive proposals.

All this does is rob children of their future for something that nobody's going to benefit from

A lot of our financial problems are related to Trudeau increasing the size of government and adding dubious programs. At least with infrastructure we get something usable at the end that expands economic capacity or productivity, allowing us to do more and add value. Much of Trudeau’s spending was on odd lefty passion programs like funding LGBTQ organizations and providing free birth control, in a country with a collapsing birth rate. I don’t know how much of a departure Carney is from Trudeau.  I voted Conservative, but that party lost momentum entirely because Trump’s threats made Canadians cling to the nanny Liberals.  

[suds]

14 hours ago, Zeitgeist said:

We’re going to have to agree to disagree on this because I think transportation infrastructure is one of our most pressing needs in Ontario.  It impacts our daily life in very tangible ways here.  People are spending hours in daily commutes that only get longer. You have your priorities out west.  We have ours.  

Just how many people do you figure 'daily commute' between Toronto and Quebec city? Or for that matter between Ottawa and Quebec city, or Ottawa and Toronto? Would high speed rail  make local rapid transit any more efficient? I have looked at the pros and cons and have come across nothing that indicates it would, or certainly nothing to justify the cost. Local rapid transit isn't designed to run at 200 mph due to the number of stops it has to make. In California, their attempt at high speed rail has so far been nothing but a legacy of delays and cost overruns. There's a good chance of it never being completed. In Finland, which I would imagine has similar winters to our own, has it's own problems with the snow and the ice, and rarely ever in the coldest months reaches the speeds it was designed to run at. In my opinion, if you wanted to try high speed rail in this country (with our winters) then start small and learn from your mistakes.

Edited April 9 by suds

[suds]

37 minutes ago, Zeitgeist said:

At least with infrastructure we get something usable at the end that expands economic capacity or productivity, allowing us to do more and add value.

Again, there are priorities on the type of infrastructure that would best achieve that goal. All infrastructure is not equal. Short term stimulus would be putting more money into people's pockets as quickly as possible to have immediate economic effect. Longer term stimulus, would be building or upgrading existing infrastructure to make it easier and less costly for business to get its products to market, or by drastically increasing electrical power generation which would attract new business and investment. But this of course takes considerable more time and effort. And that's where we're failing, because governments are far more willing to spend money if it buys them votes at election time.

[Zeitgeist]

2 hours ago, suds said:

Just how many people do you figure 'daily commute' between Toronto and Quebec city? Or for that matter between Ottawa and Quebec city, or Ottawa and Toronto? Would high speed rail  make local rapid transit any more efficient? I have looked at the pros and cons and have come across nothing that indicates it would, or certainly nothing to justify the cost. Local rapid transit isn't designed to run at 200 mph due to the number of stops it has to make. In California, their attempt at high speed rail has so far been nothing but a legacy of delays and cost overruns. There's a good chance of it never being completed. In Finland, which I would imagine has similar winters to our own, has it's own problems with the snow and the ice, and rarely ever in the coldest months reaches the speeds it was designed to run at. In my opinion, if you wanted to try high speed rail in this country (with our winters) then start small and learn from your mistakes.

Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal deserve HSR, and the justification for it will only grow.  It’s going to take decades to complete, so we might as well get on it.  Having a station on each side of Toronto (Peterborough, and inevitably K-W, which was part of an Ontario HSR plan for Toronto to London), followed eventually by a spur to the north in Barrie make a lot of sense.  The current routing through Peterborough is using an old rail right of way, but some rerouting will be necessary to reach proposed speeds.  Get the expropriations done before it gets even harder to do once millions more settle in these areas.

It comes back to changing what’s possible for citizens in both provinces. We saw this happen with the Chunnel train between London and Paris.  Investments and partnerships become easier between major centres when it’s quick and easy to travel between them.  

Edited April 9 by Zeitgeist

[herbie]

You'd think they were trying to build HSR along the old BCR line to Prince George or swomething.....
Toronto - Ottawa= Quebec City is about the only place it makes any sense.

Quite surprised Danielle isn't pushing HSR between Edmonton = Calgary. 

[suds]

Alberta is considering (or was) high speed rail travelling at 1000 km/h.  With that in mind.....

 

[eyeball]

28 minutes ago, suds said:

Alberta is considering (or was) high speed rail travelling at 1000 km/h.  With that in mind.....

I bet operators of these things wear their brown pants to work.

My brother operated subway trains for the TTC. The stress drove him back to driving 18 wheelers around town instead.

Edited April 9 by eyeball

[CdnFox]

6 hours ago, Zeitgeist said:

A lot of our financial problems are related to Trudeau increasing the size of government and adding dubious programs. At least with infrastructure we get something usable at the end that expands economic capacity or productivity, allowing us to do more and add value.

Trudeau spent hundreds of billions on "investing" in "infrastructure". 

Let me share a secret with you that those who follow politics and economies know.  Very TARGETED infrastructure spending that is based on a larger plan and sound economic models can be worth it's weight in gold, but the vast majority of such gov't 'investments" are based on neither.  They're instead based on popularity and how the electorate in very specific areas will react.  And in such cases they are anchors that hold back the economy. 

This is not based on a larger plan, this is not grounded in sound economical growth, this is a vanity project that appeals to quebec and ontario ridings that will get voted on this  Monday.

This is every bit as bad as any of trudeaus' Dubious programs". And at a hundred billion or more it will do more harm to canada than any of his overspending has to date.  

THINK about it 

Not that it matters i guess.  Carney will get his majority Monday and he'll spend the next 4 years blowing billions on this while lining his pockets and you still won't have a train but our economy will be that much worse off.  Well done 

 

[Zeitgeist]

23 hours ago, CdnFox said:

Trudeau spent hundreds of billions on "investing" in "infrastructure". 

Let me share a secret with you that those who follow politics and economies know.  Very TARGETED infrastructure spending that is based on a larger plan and sound economic models can be worth it's weight in gold, but the vast majority of such gov't 'investments" are based on neither.  They're instead based on popularity and how the electorate in very specific areas will react.  And in such cases they are anchors that hold back the economy. 

This is not based on a larger plan, this is not grounded in sound economical growth, this is a vanity project that appeals to quebec and ontario ridings that will get voted on this  Monday.

This is every bit as bad as any of trudeaus' Dubious programs". And at a hundred billion or more it will do more harm to canada than any of his overspending has to date.  

THINK about it 

Not that it matters i guess.  Carney will get his majority Monday and he'll spend the next 4 years blowing billions on this while lining his pockets and you still won't have a train but our economy will be that much worse off.  Well done 

 

Well we disagree on the merits of HSR.  With regard to the Liberal Party of Canada, I just think they’re a fundamentally lost party.  Call me traditional, but I think the fact that Carney has maintained Trudeau’s requirement that you must support abortion to be a party member tells you exactly why the Liberals are bad and why Canada has declined: If you can no longer follow your conscience and speak out against morally dubious or downright wrong practices, whether that’s MAID or unlimited abortion rights up to the expected baby delivery date, well, you’ve lost the plot morally.

We’ve lost our medical ethics in Canada, which has made life cheaper.  We’ve been told by the Liberals and the Liberal-bought media that only a select basket of beliefs that didn’t exist 50 years ago and that are against the Christian morality upon which Canada’s institutions were founded must be embraced by all Canadians: same-sex marriage, non-biological genders, assisted suicide, and unlimited abortion rights.

As far as I’m concerned, Canada is lost on that basis alone, because if I don’t agree with the values that my government tells me I should have, and if laws are being created to enforce those beliefs, Canada might as well be China.  The Conservatives might be able to correct course on this slightly, but Canada’s mainstream parties have basically embraced this immorality.  Anyone who opposes it publicly is ridiculed.  The only reason I have any regard for the Republicans in the US is because they’re the last mainstream political party that still respects people’s right to oppose these creepy worldviews as our birth rates continue to free fall.

At least infrastructure has nothing to do with that, generally. I want government to get out of the business of telling people how they should raise and confuse their kids, including teaching new generations to embrace infertile lifestyles and forms of killing.

So I’m no fan of the Liberals. I do want citizens to be able to move more quickly to destinations, so that they can have more family time and create more wealth to be able to afford homes and have some semblance of the American Dream.

Edited April 11 by Zeitgeist

[CdnFox]

1 minute ago, Zeitgeist said:

Well we disagree on the merits of HSR.  With regard to the Liberal Party of Canada, I just think they’re a fundamentally lost party.  Call me traditional, but I think the fact that Carney has maintained Trudeau’s requirement that you must support abortion to be a party member tells you exactly why the Liberals are bad and why Canada has declined: If you can no longer follow your conscience and speak out against morally dubious or downright wrong practices, whether that’s MAID or unlimited abortion rights up to the expected baby delivery date, well, you’ve lost the plot morally.

We’ve lost our medical ethics in Canada, which has made life cheaper.  We’ve been told by the Liberals and the Liberal-bought media that only a select basket of beliefs that didn’t exist 50 years ago and that are against the Christian morality upon which Canada’s were founded must be embraced by all Canadians: same-sex marriage, non-biological genders, assisted suicide, and unlimited abortion rights.

As far as I’m concerned, Canada is lost on that basis alone, because if I don’t agree with the values that my government tells me I should have, and if laws are being created to enforce those beliefs, Canada might as well be China.  The Conservatives might be able to correct course on this slightly, but Canada’s mainstream parties have basically embraced this immorality.  Anyone who opposes it publicly is ridiculed.  The only reason I have any regard for the Republicans in the US is because they’re the last mainstream political party that still respects people’s right to oppose this creepy worldview.

At least infrastructure has nothing to do with that, generally. I want government to get out of the business of telling people how they should raise and confuse their kids, including teaching new generations to embrace infertile lifestyles and forms of killing.

So I’m no fan of the Liberals. I do want citizens to be able to move more quickly to destinations, so that they can have more family time and create more wealth to be able to afford homes and have some semblance of the American Dream.

Well he's going to have his majority on Monday, and there's actually a rumor that Sunday he's going to appear on stage with yet another floor Crosser.

So it looks like you're going to get your train, or at least they're going to pretend you're going to get your train. But I'm afraid you're probably going to get a hell of a lot of baggage with it as well

[Zeitgeist]

1 minute ago, CdnFox said:

Well he's going to have his majority on Monday, and there's actually a rumor that Sunday he's going to appear on stage with yet another floor Crosser.

So it looks like you're going to get your train, or at least they're going to pretend you're going to get your train. But I'm afraid you're probably going to get a hell of a lot of baggage with it as well

Look, if it’s Conservatives and no train or Liberals and train, I’ll take Conservatives and no train.  I just happen to want Conservatives and train.  

[August1991]

On 2/24/2025 at 7:22 PM, 500channelsurfer said:

https://apnews.com/article/canada-trudeau-highspeed-rail-network-4c50007bc8e9bf5bbec9a4add9ac88fe

Trudeau is trying to push forward a high speed rail link connecting Toronto, Peterborough, Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec City.

...

Federal Liberals are pushing this.

===

Harper/Fortier managed to build our new Champlain Bridge.

Edited April 12 by August1991