this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2024
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Wasn't it originally a huge public undertaking? It was my understanding that the rails and CN began their lives in public ownership before being privatized.
Did I misunderstand things?
No, it was typical land grants and bond guarantees like the US did, where there were massive bailouts of private firms that lost their shirts putting in rail across Canada. But it was all done privately (except a short line in the Maritimes), with land along the right of ways granted to the companies being sold off to partially pay for the railways, along with bond guarantees that they typically reneged on. The Canadian government never owned any of the freight lines, and started up Via as a heavily subsidized crown corp for passenger rail out east when the rail lines gave up trying to make that profitable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_in_Canada#History