Tabled Tuesday, the budget says legislative changes will streamline approvals and reduce regulatory uncertainty for the planned high-speed rail line between Toronto and Quebec City.
Prime Minister Mark Carney announced in September that the government would speed up engineering and regulatory work on the project to get construction underway within four years.
We are well past the conceptual stage, and into design. i.e. the government has stopped asking “should we?” and over the last couple years has started asking “how?”
Good point, though it feels like there’s already uncertainty being stoked in the media questioning how much longer this government will last in power. I don’t think that was even the case under Trudeau when he got his last minority government with much fewer seats than Carney.
Suffice to say, I really want to see some ground breaking on the project but I won’t hold high hopes until we get to that point.
We are already decades behind on rail. Given Canada’s track record on this, we will probably debate and delay the project until it is significantly outdated by the time it is completed.