Unnecessary at any speed
By Andrew Coyne - Wednesday, July 15, 2009 - 84 Comments
The dream never dies, writes Andrew Coyne, because those pushing high-speed rail are impervious to reality
It is a special kind of boondoggle that even a politician can resist. People who spend other people’s money for a living aren’t in the habit of asking too many questions at the best of times, still less when even the most colossal waste of funds can be justified as “stimulus.” But when a project promises not only the usual thousands of jobs and billions in spinoff benefits, but to save the earth in the bargain, you’d think they’d be falling over themselves to sign on. But some ideas, it seems, are just too insane.
Hence the latest act in the ongoing, 30-year farce known as high-speed rail. The setting this time is Alberta, but the action is always the same. A consulting firm reports, after many months and millions of dollars, that the latest scheme to link city A to city B by high-speed rail—in this case, Calgary and Edmonton—will cost billions of dollars, in fact billions more than was previously estimated. The politicians take a look at the numbers, blanch, and thank the consultants for their work. The project does not proceed. It never does. Continue…
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Less than zero
By Andrew Coyne - Wednesday, March 11, 2009 at 2:23 PM - 59 Comments
Great news! After many years, sales of Bombardier’s much-vaunted — and much-more-subsidized — C-Series regional passenger jet are finally off the ground, with Lufthansa finally commiting to buy the first 30 of the planes.
So let’s see. Governments have put, what is it, $780-million into the project? That means as of now Bombardier is into the taxpayer for roughly $26-million per plane sold, or just over half the sticker price. But it’s all right: it’s a “repayable loan.” Bombardier only needs to sell several hundred of the things and we get all of our money back, ie we earn a zero per cent rate of return. Until that day, we’re in negative territory.
So it’s not quite true, even now, to say that Lufthansa has “bought” 30 jets from Bombardier. More like: the taxpayers of Canada have paid Lufthansa to take them. And Lufthansa has, after much deliberation, accepted.
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Stretching the truth about stretch limos
By Brian D. Johnson - Wednesday, September 24, 2008 at 10:42 AM - 9 Comments
Odd to see arts and culture making even a slight dent in the federal election campaign, even if only in Quebec. Gotta love this bit of sweater-vest populism from Harper, attacking all those fat-cat arts folk: “I think when ordinary working people come home, turn on the TV and see a gala of a bunch of people, you know, at a rich gala all subsidized by taxpayers claiming their subsidies aren’t high enough when they know those subsidies have actually gone up – I’m not sure that’s something that resonates with ordinary people…Ordinary people understand we have to live within a budget.” (Canadian Press, September 23, 2008)
The Liberals were quick to pounce on it with this reality check:
“Is that the same budget that his then Heritage Minister Bev Oda lived within when she sent back the mini van that had been rented for her and ordered limos for her and her staff at the Junos gala in 2006? She even used the $1,000-a-day limos two days before the Junos even began. What is worse is that she tried to stick the taxpayers with the entire bill, even for the limos she took to partisan Conservative Party events. Ironically, the hotel she was staying at is connected by underground tunnel to the Metro Centre where the Junos took place.”
