High-speed rail is a high-speed money sucker

If you told me that the federal government was planning on spending $50,000 on a home refrigerator, I would be outraged. I understand the value of $50,000. I know the cost of a refrigerator.

But the federal government doesn’t spend money in amounts most people can understand. It spends in the billions of dollars. $1 billion is a lot of money. It’s 1,000-million dollars. What can you get for $1,000-million? Unless you sit down to do the math, no one knows the answer to that question. It’s far too much to imagine.

But politicians can imagine spending much more than that because it’s not their money. The federal government plans to build a high-speed train line that no one asked for and most Canadians won’t use and plans to spend $90 billion or more to get it done. That’s 90,000-million dollars.

That’s 90-million refrigerators. $90 billion is more than the GDP of at least 70 countries, that is, more than how much 70 countries produce in one year. $90 billion is more than the GDP of Jordan or Paraguay and about twice the GDP of Lebanon.

For $90 billion, you can build a big house for every man, woman and child living in the city of Kingston. Instead, the federal government wants to build a bullet train from Quebec City to Toronto with only three Ontario stops (North of Toronto’s Hwy 401, Peterborough and Ottawa). Thousands of farmers will be affected.

But let’s go with the official tally of affected farms. According to Minister of Agriculture Heath MacDonald, he doesn’t know how many farms will be affected by a “Berlin Wall” that will carve Eastern Ontario in half. He is the farmer’s advocate. Yet he doesn’t know. Conservative MP Scott Reid says 5,000 farms could be affected along the entire route.

Rural Eastern Ontario was delighted, I’m sure, when they learned that this gargantuan project is the biggest capital venture by the federal government in the country’s history. It’s more than five times more expensive than the second biggest project — the 2015 hydroelectric dam in the northern British Columbia.

Compare this sink hole project to the Canadian-Pacific railway that linked Eastern Canada to British Columbia by rail in 1885. Add in $10 billion for the over-budget costs and The Alto train line will cost about $9 million per kilometre. On the other hand, the 1885 rail line that is 4,700 kilometres long and snaked through the Rocky Mountains cost, in 2026 numbers (and adjusted for inflation), just under $2 million per kilometre (of which 50 % to 60 % was paid for by the private sector).

What percentage of the Alto high speed train is being paid for by the private sector? Zilch, zero. Why? This is a money loser. We live in a car culture and far too few people want to drive to a train station to head to Quebec City or be stranded one hour north of the CN Tower. The private sector isn’t in business to go bankrupt. But it’s okay to fleece the taxpayers who will fund this project for years to come .

The federal government is so drunk on our money, public servants’ expense accounts and bonuses alone for this project would make a pirate jealous.

The Fraser Institute has a team of economists and thinkers who advise against spending $90 billion on any new government programs or initiatives. As a pro-market, limited-government think tank, they consistently argue that higher government spending, deficits, and taxes have contributed to Canada’s declining living standards and affordability crisis.

The think tank argues that instead of sucking money out of Canadians, the government should give the money back to Canadians and each Canadian taxpaying household would save $6,000 to $9,000 in one year. The Fraser Institute says the best way to improve average Canadians’ lives is letting families and businesses decide how to spend their own money.

But it never works that way. The federal government always agrees that Canadians know better how to manage their own money but then spends like a drunk with entitlement issues.

Here’s one way to test this project. Tie it to a bonus. Vote on it in the House of Commons. Each MP who votes for this project will get the bonus they deserve each year when the train line makes money. On the other hand, those same MPs will pay a tax to cover project costs each year it loses money. This would shut down the project faster than you can say cost over-run.

Patrick Meagher is editor of Farmers Forum and can be reached at editor@farmersforum.com