MP Bachrach concerned rail privatization will cut VIA Rail in Skeena

Our article today is concerning an article posted in the Interior News yesterday.

The NDP’s Transportation Critic is pushing back against the Liberal’s plans to privatize rail.

Let’s have a look at closer look. “The NDP’s Transportation Critic is pushing back against the Liberal’s plans to privatize rail.” yet Taylor voted 3x in the last year to keep the NDP/Liberal coalition in power. So just how is he pushing back? By writing in the Interior News?

 

“VIA Rail operates the national passenger rail service on behalf of the Government of Canada, providing inter-city service and regional and essential remote rail transportation,” the plan says, listing the Jasper-Prince Rupert line among its regional and remote services.

“While not intended to be commercially viable, these train services operate in hard-to-reach areas where travel options are limited…. In some areas, roads were built providing access (permanent or seasonal) by car or truck and passenger trains became a complementary but essential service for a customer segment without car access or other means to transport supplies to their communities.”

According to VIA’s most recent annual report, fare revenue covered about one-sixth of the cost to operate the route in 2018, leaving a shortfall of more than $8 million. For each passenger who travels the route the government provides a $500 subsidy. In urban areas like southern Ontario, the subsidy can be as low as $23 per passenger.

Skeena-Bulkley Valley MP Taylor Bachrach said governments may need to reconsider how VIA’s funding is allocated.

“I think the train occupies an important place in the culture of the northwest and I would like to see it remain in place for as long as possible. That’s going to require investment,” he says, noting that most of VIA’s subsidy goes toward operating costs rather than capital upgrades.

“That can only continue for so long until we see stations and rolling stock start to really show their age,” he says. “I do think that if cancelling the train altogether was put on the table there would be a strong reaction from communities in our region.”

 

Did I read that right? Skeena-Bulkley Valley MP Taylor Bachrach said “the train occupies an important place in the culture of the northwest” so we are funding it to a tune of 9 million a year? Has anyone ever concerned themselves with how large that carbon footprint is? You would have thought saving the planet was much more important than keeping via for cultural significance? But if culture is so important, why would you not say the same for cars and trucks? The last number I could find was 2022 and in that year Via Rail used 46,587,000 liters of diesel fuel.

So we are talking about a passenger service run at a dead loss, and funded by hard working citizens who more than likely never use rail transportation. Also unavailable is the number of people actually on a train between Prince George and Prince Rupert. When you talk to people getting off most times the train is near void of having any passenger. It is not even unusual to have no passengers at all between Smithers and Prince Rupert.

Sp lets go back to the latest line given by Taylor Bachrach “The NDP’s Transportation Critic is pushing back against the Liberal’s plans to privatize rail“

In the last session of parliament Taylor Bachrach had 3 opportunities to terminate the NDP/Liberal Goverment and in all 3 votes, voted with the Liberal Goverment of the day.

 

 

Who does he think he is fooling?

 

Is Taylor Bachrach interested in saving our environment, or saving tax payer funded free rides?

 

Now going back to what Taylor Bachrach said. Clearly there is absolutely no concern about using fossil fuels at a dead loss. How incredibly green of him to keep burning fossil fuels for “cultural” reasons.

Bachrach asked passenger rail experts, if this privatization scheme goes ahead, where would that leave routes like the Skeena?

“They told me very bluntly that the government would end up cutting service and eventually eliminating it on some of the lower traffic long distance routes. Of course, the government won’t confirm that, but just looking at the numbers, it’s hard to imagine how VIA Rail would continue to persist with so much of their revenue handed over to the private sector.”

“I talked to so many people who are hanging on to this vision of passenger rail being a viable everyday transportation option in our region, and it would be really nice to have a federal government that shares that vision,” he said. “The train is a great way to travel, and there are a lot of ways that the service we have to be improved, but it requires vision and requires leadership and it requires investors.”

 

Seriously people, if Taylor were seriously concerned about burning fossil fuels, would it not make sense to eliminate all fossil fuels that provide little to no return to the public? Its clear to me that Taylor Bachrach is only concerned with getting re-elected and the environment be damned, who cares how much of the fossil fuels is burned for nothing. Taylor Bachrach’s green scheme is just a ways and means to suck wages out of your pockets to fund deadbeats. And while you pay for his electric car, he wants you to park yours to save the planet.