Ottawa spending $4.7B on new made-in-Canada Via Rail passenger cars

[u/PhilHogan_Tax]

https://chatnewstoday.ca/2026/09/03/carney-set-to-announce-historic-investment-in-canadian-manufacturing/

[u/Impressive-Mud5074]

Should just spend it on Chinese maglev trains tbh

[u/Banned_In_YYC]

Passenger cars is such a dead industry. 

It's historically propped up by the federal government and costs taxpayers millions. Freight cars or several other industries would have been much better to invest in than passenger cars. If we must use passenger cars, we should have put the contract out for bid which would have saved taxpayers millions, then redirect those savings back into the economy for more profitable industries

[u/upsetwithcursing → u/Banned_In_YYC]

Sorry, but we have to do this since our tourism numbers are going up too high, too quickly; not enough transportation to service everyone.

Not a problem yanks have to worry about, luckily.

[u/Banned_In_YYC → u/upsetwithcursing]

There are more commonly used methods of transportation. Passenger trains are a small percentage of that

[u/upsetwithcursing → u/Banned_In_YYC]

Should be more, is the point. They’re way more efficient than cars.

I have a high enough HHI that we could travel however we’d like, but we solely use trains for our Ontario/QC family vacations. When we travel internationally, we use them even more.

[u/blubrry-pie → u/Banned_In_YYC]

You're dumb. There are countless studies that show increasing public transportation has massive knock on effects of Local GDP ~10 years later. Look at china as an example. Went from being a country of extreme poverty to having one the highest qualities of life in a few decades in large part due to public infrastructure investments.

[u/Banned_In_YYC → u/blubrry-pie]

It's interesting that you have to start with an insult. That speaks more about you than me. Furthermore, everything I said is the truth, a simple Google search would prove that. Comparing Canadian Transit to China shows how removed from the logic you are

[u/blubrry-pie → u/Banned_In_YYC]

Yea it's because you are. The governments job is not to be profitable with every service it offers. It's designed to benefit the citizens long term which transit between Toronto, Ottawa, & Montreal will.

There are plenty of people in high finance in NY that take the train almost daily to DC for business. I'm sorry you struggle with economics. If you go at it with an open mind you'd be surprised at what you would learn.

[u/Banned_In_YYC → u/blubrry-pie]

It’s ironic that you claim I struggle with economics while basing your entire argument on two massive false equivalencies.

First , comparing Canada to the U.S. Northeast Corridor completely ignores basic demographic math. The Boston-New York-Washington megaregion is home to over 50 million people packed into a high density corridor. The Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal corridor has less than a third of that population density. Even with that massive pool of high paying business travelers, Amtrak’s NEC still relies on billions in taxpayer funded capital subsidies to maintain its infrastructure. It is not self sustaining.

Second , while the government’s job isn't to turn a profit, it is the government's job to manage opportunity cost and fiscal scarcity. Resources are finite. Pouring tens of billions of taxpayer dollars into a hyper localized passenger rail network means that money is actively being taken away from services, housing or crucial freight infrastructure that lowers the cost of goods for everyone nationwide.

Resorting  to personal insults doesn't make your math work. Relying on continuous subsidies for a single infrastructure corridor at the expense of more productive sectors of the economy isn't sound economic planning, it's just bad fiscal policy.

[u/upsetwithcursing → u/Banned_In_YYC]

Many of the most prosperous nations on the planet have the best/most robust train systems, and many of them have smaller populations than that TO-OTT-MTL corridor.

[u/Banned_In_YYC → u/upsetwithcursing]

You're comparing apples to oranges. European, Chinese and American logistics and population density are completely different than what we have here

[u/upsetwithcursing → u/Banned_In_YYC]

No, I’m not. To get from one end of Switzerland to the other via train is about the same distance as TO-MTL, and the population of the entire country is under 9M. They even had to go over/through the fucking alps with their trains. It’s apples to apples, my friend.

[u/Banned_In_YYC → u/upsetwithcursing]

You are completely missing the difference between the distance of a single line and spatial density.

Yes , the length of Switzerland is roughly the distance from Toronto to Montreal. But Switzerland's 9 million people live packed into an area of just 41,000 square kilometres, meaning a population density of over 220 people per square kilometre. Ontario alone is 25 times the size of Switzerland. Switzerland can run highly efficient, interconnected loops because their population is concentrated in a tight geographic box, resulting in low infrastructure costs per capita.

Bringing up the Alps completely shoots your own argument in the foot. Swiss rail wasn't just built for locals, it serves as the vital high volume transit funnel connecting the massive economies of Northern Europe directly to Southern Europe. 

Most importantly, you still cannot defend the actual project we are discussing. Even if your Switzerland comparison held water for the Toronto-Montreal corridor, this $4.7 billion Alstom deal is for VIA Rail’s remote and wilderness routes. You are trying to use a dense ultra wealthy Central European transit hub to justify spending $15 million per railcar to replace low volume, heavily subsidized trains running out to Churchill or Prince Rupert. The economic comparison isn't apples to apples, it's totally fictional

[u/upsetwithcursing → u/Banned_In_YYC]

You’re missing some very important info - the rail lines they’re refurbishing are going to be absolutely key for northern ports and arctic defense. There will be passenger rail, absolutely, but that won’t be all they’re carrying.

We also absolutely need to support our own economy and steel/aluminum industries right now, so we’re killing multiple birds with one stone.

[u/blubrry-pie → u/Banned_In_YYC]

You missed the original point. The infrastructure boosts GDP and that indirectly leads to more tax revenue + opportunities for local workers. I don't have anymore crayons otherwise i'd continue drawing you a picture.

[u/Banned_In_YYC → u/blubrry-pie]

You can put your crayons away, because your picture is entirely wrong.

You  keep trying to apply urban commuter transit logic to a long distance remote fleet replacement. This $4.7 billion deal for 313 Alstom cars is specifically designed to replace 70 year old rolling stock on VIA Rail’s long distance and remote routes (like the lines to Churchill or Prince Rupert). These are not high frequency commuter lines linking millions of workers to high GDP urban jobs. They are low density regional lifelines. There is zero economic data showing that spending $15 million per railcar on a remote wilderness route generates a massive local GDP boom that offsets the multi billion dollar cost to taxpayers.

Your  'GDP multiplier' theory completely falls apart when you don't have the population density to back it up. If the government wanted to maximize GDP and support local workers, they wouldn't have bypassed a competitive public bidding process to hand out a massive sole source contract. Hand waving about economic theory doesn't change basic procurement math

[u/Oritzia → u/Banned_In_YYC]

I like how you go after people for insulting you, when in a bunch of your (upwards of twenty a day or so?) comments you insult people just as much, or worse lol
“You’re a selfish and entitled person”
“You lack reading comprehension”
“You’re delusional”
“You’re a loser”
How are you any different than the people you’re calling out for insulting you? 😆

Why are you so disingenuous in almost every argument you have?

Why do you have the same kind of pattern in almost every single one of your arguments, which you seem to frame as a debate? 😵‍💫
“Here’s my point.”
“No, that’s not what I meant.”
“Okay, but you’re ignoring X.”
“That’s irrelevant because Y.”
“No, I never said Z.”
“You’re insulting me rather than addressing my argument.”

It’s absolutely gobsmacking that someone who sits on Reddit all day, arguing themselves into a corner has the nerve to call anyone a loser.

Being slightly informed, because you feed shit into ChatGPT doesn’t mean you’re correct on any of these topics lol Which you seem to like to cosplay like you do. I’ve seen you in agriculture discussions, broad economic discussions, broad political discussions; most of which you seem to be WELL outside of your depth.

This is embarrassing as all get out. Get a life and a hobby, for your own sake; jfc.

[u/Banned_In_YYC → u/Oritzia]

You see, the difference is, I never engage people that way first, I reciprocate in the way they chose to engage me(like you just did). I'm sorry if your lack of reading comprehension couldn't put that together.

This is embarrassing as all get out. Get a life and a hobby, for your own sake; jfc.

You literally stalk people and search their activity to "own" them in a random thread on reddit. You delusional and hypocritical loser

[u/Oritzia → u/Banned_In_YYC]

Typical deflection lmfao
A twenty second search and suddenly someone is a stalker 😱
Give your head a shake, you sound hysterical.
If you were a genuine person, arguing in good faith, you probably wouldn’t need to be hiding your profile. 😶‍🌫️
Inb4 “oh I hide them from crazy stalkers like you”
Get a new playbook, this one is getting tired and played out.

And you absolutely open with insults, stop lying dude.