Canada is at growing risk of derailing the best chance in a generation to develop electrified, high-speed rail. Losing this opportunity for high-speed rail would be a travesty for a country whose past is so intertwined with railways and whose climate change-shaped future will necessitate its renaissance.

To avoid this outcome, the federal government should be making a compelling public argument in favour and do so as part of a larger plan to build a truly national, sustainable transportation network. Sadly, the government is not doing this. It is left, then, to big city mayors, environmental groups, labour unions, transportation advocates, small businesses and Canadian travellers to champion high-speed rail. 

Over the past several months, stories critical of the Alto high-speed rail project that would serve the densely populated Toronto–Quebec City corridor have dominated news coverage on the subject, including one recent headline seemingly presented to startle, yet not fully inform, readers about the economics behind the initiative. The Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer released a report last week that analyzed the project's economic impact. 

Opposing voices, meanwhile, are shaping the discourse. Critics range from politicians like federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and provincial Parti Québécois leader and presumptive premier Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, to local farmers and rural landowners, as well as Canadian think tanks with links to the American fossil fuel industry. 

Any involvement of US oil and gas interests in this debate, however opaque, is particularly galling for a country simultaneously fighting apocalyptic wildfires while guarding a fragile sovereignty. Such voices, however, are becoming louder.

It is increasingly clear that Mark Carney's Liberals are unable or unwilling to effectively advocate........

© National Observer