ThisVille
After he read Rod Nickel's recent Reuter's story that starts like this...
Canada‘s two major railways are rationing space on trains traveling to the country’s biggest port and recently prioritized some commodities over others to deal with congestion, the latest indication of their struggle to meet demand from new trade deals.
That move prompted Canada‘s transport regulator last week to start an investigation into rail services around Port Metro Vancouver, after shippers complained of “discriminatory treatment of certain commodities” by Canadian National Railway (CN) and Canadian Pacific Railway (CP)....
Friend of the blog Bob Fedderly posited the following on his Twittmachine feed:
"Its almost like we could do better if we had something like BC Rail to move our resources more effectively. What was that reasoning behind dumping that asset again?"
Well, while we don't know the exact 'reasoning', we do happen to recall approximately 500,000 reasons that may or may not have helped Mr. Gordon Campbell decide dump said asset.
The following is from a post from the spring of 2010, which was still a few months before the six million dollar deal that stopped Railgate, cold:
In recent posts we have established that two of British Columbia's private Railway Tycoons, David McLean of CN Railand Peter Armstrong of Rocky Mountaineer Railtours each gave, either personally, or through their companies, at least $250,000, each, to the BC Liberal Party of Mr. Gordon Campbell since the latter became leader way, way, way back in 1993.
And, on the flipside, both private Rail Tycoons have done very well, indeed, in the wake of Gordon Campbell promise-busting dismantling of a very public Railway soon after he became the Premier of British Columbia in 2001.
Specifically, with the destruction of a 90 year-old statute that required BC Rail to run a public passenger service, followed shortly thereafter by the tainted/not tainted/sale/not sale of BC Rail to CN Rail, Mess'rs McLean and Armstrong ultimately came up aces by any and all financial measures one could choose to use and/or trumpet...
Imagine that!
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8 comments:
It sure would be nice to have that rail road back. Perhaps a corruption inquiry could take a peak at that. if it was the result of corruption perhaps we could get it back. It would be a great help if we did have it back and even a bigger message to looters of the province, we can take back "ill" gotten gains.
I want an inquiry
Note that the same guy that whitewashed the Basi/Virk illegal payoff worked on this gem that informs us everything is fine in our BC Rail “investment partnership.”
“A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.” -Theodore Roosevelt
I believe Gordon Campbell has a university education.
Switching Tracks: A Review of the BC Rail Investment Partnership | Auditor General of British ...www.bcauditor.com › Publications
I've extended my "best before date" by a decade, just in case someone/thing would come along and shed some light on this injustice.
Would I be amiss in asking for an extension so that I could die a 'Happy Man', knowing that 'the evil that man does' is NOT interred with his bones.
BC Rail passenger service would be great, especially now that we don't have Greyhound.
eaf--
Some jurisdictions have commercial entities that are 'too big to fail'.
Here in Lotusland, we seem to have entities that are 'too big to inquire'
Or some such thing.
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Lew--
That is some track switch, that <a href="http://www.bcauditor.com/pubs/2007/report12/switching-tracks-review-bc-rail-audit>Auditor General track switch.</a>
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John--
You be neither be amiss or remiss in hoping that we can root out such evil from all mineralized skeletal organs everywhere.
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Hugh--
Say what?
Are you suggesting that the good Mr. Armstrong's hotels on rails won't take care of that problem?
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Reliable, reasonably priced rail service with Trailer On Flat Car to deliver goods purchased from lower mainland merchants not only made shipping resource products easier, it added to the revenue of southern based businesses. Supported jobs in both ends of the province. Most goods now come by truck from the East via the non PST zone. The reasons for the giftaway of BCRail rank right up there with the ones for continuing the money waste at the Site C dam after the facts presented at the Inquiry pointed clearly at termination.
Ironically, even that project's cost is increased due to the lack of flexibility shown by the new carrier/owner.
cfvua--
Well...
As long as the right people are reaping the benefits of all those costs, why should we, the people, paying for it matter.
After all we are the proud owners of brand new....errrrr....slightly used wood splitter.
Or some such thing.
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as a tax paying citizens who likes "toys", I'd rather own a nice railway than a log splitter. Playing with a railway is so much more fun than a log splitter. anyhow the fire place is natural gas.
I WANT MY RAIL WAY BACK. YOU CAN KEEP THE LOG SPLITTER. SEND IT TO EL GORDO AND HIS BUDDY.
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