(This Letter was sent to the Times Colonist on November 7 2025 – It was published on November 11, 2025)
Dear Editor,
140 years ago today (November 7th, 2025) the last spike was driven near Revelstoke BC, completing what is now known as the Canadian Pacific Kansas City railway. It took just 4 years for government and private railway tycoons to complete that cross-continental railway. Today, we have endured 20 years of dithering, broken promises, and outright denial trying to reinvigorate the railway just on this Island alone. Similar efforts span the country and have been just as unsuccessful.
Our Prime Minister talks of “big and bold” budgets and nation building projects yet Canadians have less ability to get from one town to another without a car in Canada today than they did 100 years ago. Private bus networks seem to rise and fall like the tides. Flying is either expensive or soul sucking, but usually both.
A quick glance to nearly every other G20 nation should make it clear. Successful nations connect their people together.
Canadians deserve a public transportation system across all provinces and territories that is accessible, reliable, and affordable for all. We seem to have handed over that legacy to corporations who are less and less of the nation we built and incapable of delivering a cohesive network. All Canadians, First Nations and Immigrants alike, should have a hand in rebuilding these connections. It is time to rebuild a public rail and bus transportation network for all.
At the end of the line in Port Alberni,
Chris Alemany
@chrisblog @chris There is another way of looking at this, though. What did labour, worker safety, environmental and indigenous land rights look like 140 years ago? What kinds of profit motivations were in place for the private interests involved and what kind of regulatory oversight was placed on them to profit off public lands? We’re not exactly apples-to-apples with that time, and that’s almost entirely a good thing.
You are absolutely right. I was going to expand on that on this post.. as the word limit for your run of the mill letter to the editor is not quite expansive enough. I was trying to have an opening for that conversation in the last sentence about First Nations and Immigrants.
One of the most interesting things about just such a nation building project like restoring a comprehensive public land transportation network would exactly be how it was done in a modern human-rights respecting way.
@chrisblog It’s an interesting exploration and I look forward to it!
140 years ago there wasn’t a trucking industry complete with publicly-funded highways for drivers. There was no air industry. Building rail was a no-lose proposition. And they built what was essentially a private railway for what would only be about $2B in today’s money on the backs of that exploited labour and free land given to them by the government. The government also gave them half of the money and covered the massive cost overruns, which brought their total injection of money to 2/3 of the project.
Edit: Took out a bit questioning that it only took 4 years because it turns out it rather depends on how you measure it.
Yes! It did depend on when you start counting. Four years is the time it took from when the CPR company was created and took over the construction of the line from northern Ontario to BC.