Jim Wickware

Dad, Husband, and Miltonian. lover of BBQ 🏳️‍🌈🇨🇦

[Jim Wickware @Jwick10dad]

@VinnysCorner1 I’d slide Lafleur ahead of Mikita

[Jim Wickware @Jwick10dad]

@marissenmark I’m not a bot and I am vehemently against this project.

[Melanie In Saskatchewan @saskatchewan_in]

Just going to leave this little 'Fun Fact' here for all the High Speed Rail enthusiasts. This was brought to my attention, so therefore I must bring it to yours if you didnt already know...

Liberals serve themselves first and foremost.
This is another case in point.

Anne-Marie Gaudet, is the
spouse of François-Philippe Champagne

She holds a senior executive role as Vice President, Environment at Alto and works within the organization responsible for advancing Canada’s proposed high-speed rail project (Quebec City to Toronto corridor)

Under her:
• Environmental strategy and compliance
• Regulatory approvals and impact assessments
• Sustainability frameworks tied to the rail project

Gaudet is positioned inside an entity that is:
• Federally backed
• Dependent on government policy, approvals, and funding

Her role is directly connected to this major national infrastructure initiative currently being shaped and eventually financed at the federal level.

So maybe when Liberals, their friends and families stop personally benefitting off the backs of hard working Canadians who keep falling behind then conservatives might not be so upset and against this.

Because from where I sit, this whole thing reads like a closed-loop favour factory. The Liberals want to expropriate land to serve a narrow slice of the country in one corridor, then hand the bill to everyone else, including millions who will never set foot on that train. Meanwhile, the government’s financing brain is tied at home to the environmental arm of Alto, and it all conveniently lines up with the climate sermonizing of Green Jesus Mark Carney.

Call it policy if you like. From here, it looks a lot more like insiders taking care of their own while the rest of the country gets the invoice..

👇🏻
https://t.co/tDnNO0nTyE
👇🏻
https://t.co/JAgiokkwuc

[Jim Wickware @Jwick10dad]

@foolishyangban In the meantime, my parents will have been cut off from any close healthcare options, multi- generational farms destroyed, precious habitat destroyed, communities divided in half. But hey, save 90 minutes for a select few. All good.

[Jim Wickware @Jwick10dad]

@cultmtl No chance! Many oppose and see no need for the proposed routes. If it’s to move forward, it has to follow existing cp lines along 401

[Jim Wickware @Jwick10dad]

@georgebell You giving up your property?

[Liam Out Loud @liam_out_loud]

Pierre Poilievre opposing the $90 billion Liberal high-speed rail project has caused quite the controversy.

Likely because the Laurentian Elite who loot Canadian taxpayers stand to gain BILLIONS and they want major backlash against anyone who threatens their impending goldmine of corruption.

Let's do the math they don't want you to see....

The Base Cost:

According to Joe Carson's "Diagnosis Red Tape," for every dollar paid in federal taxes, 26.72% never re-enters the private economy. It's consumed by bureaucracy.

That means a $90B public project carries roughly $24B in administrative overhead.

True taxpayer burden: ~$114B.

There are roughly 20 million taxpayers in Canada.

That's ~$5,700 per taxpayer, so that 12 million people in the Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal corridor can have access to rail.

EXCEPT THINGS NEVER GO ACCORDING TO PLAN

Bent Flyvbjerg's database of 16,000+ megaprojects across 136 countries finds that 91.5% go over budget, over schedule, or both.

The mean cost overrun is 62%.

Rail projects specifically (according to Liberal friends McKinsey & Company) go over budget by an average of 44.7%, and their demand is overestimated by 51.4%.

Applied to Alto:
$114B × 1.447 = ~$165B.
That's ~$8,250 per taxpayer.

Meanwhile, the Liberals' projected $35B yearly GDP increase? If demand is overestimated by half, that's closer to $17B.

Now, consider the recent Eglinton subway line in Toronto.

The Eglinton Crosstown LRT was originally projected at ~$5B.

Final cost: $13B and it took 15 years.

The Eglinton Crosstown is 19km long.

Alto is ~1,000km. That's 53× longer.

The Eglinton Crosstown cost $684M per kilometre.

If Alto hit a similar per-km cost, you'd be looking at $684B.

That's obviously absurd but the point stands: Canada just proved it cannot build 19km of light rail on time or on budget.

The answer is to build 1,000km of high-speed rail?

The Eglinton's cost multiplied by 2.6×.

Apply that same factor to Alto:
$114B × 2.6 = ~$296B.
That's ~$14,800 per taxpayer.

But it gets EVEN WORSE.

Now add corruption...

The Charbonneau Commission established that mafia-linked cartels inflated Montreal public contract prices by up to 30%.

A whistleblower told the Globe and Mail in 2009 that the Mafia controlled roughly 80% of road contracts, with prices inflated up to 35%.

Then there's the "Green Slush Fund" scandal: the Auditor General found 186 conflicts of interest at SDTC, with an estimated $150-390M in misappropriated funds.

That's roughly 17-45% of the fund's total approvals funnelled to insiders.

Applied to Alto's $90B base: $15-40B in corruption.

Applied to the Eglinton-style $296B scenario: $50-133B in corruption.

Let's summarize, shall we?

Best case (on budget, on time... which never happens): ~$114B total. ~$5,700 per taxpayer.

Realistic case (Flyvbjerg's average rail overrun):
~$165B total. ~$8,250 per taxpayer.
With half the promised GDP benefit.

Eglinton case (2.6× cost escalation):
~$296B total. ~$14,800 per taxpayer.

With corruption layered on top: $15-133B more (depending on the scenario) vanishing into the pockets of the politically connected.

Also, don't forget: VIA Rail, the organization that would operate this system, currently can't run its existing trains on time.

And that, my friends, is how you market corruption and economic insanity as "infrastructure investment."

[Jim Wickware @Jwick10dad]

@liam_out_loud Excellent summation! This stinks to high heaven!

[Jim Wickware @Jwick10dad]

@rupasubramanya So you think destroying communities, multi-generational farms, sensitive habitat, and putting seniors lives at risk because they are cut off from current roads to healthcare is something we should invest $90 Billion on?? Really? #liberalboondoggle

[Jim Wickware @Jwick10dad]

@mobinfiltrator I couldn’t agree more. So many legitimate reasons to cancel this project. It’s deemed “nation-building”, but tell me how anyone outside of Ont & QC benefit? Every Canadian should be against this

[Jim Wickware @Jwick10dad]

@stevenmackinnon You should be ashamed of yourself, disguising this so called nation-building project as anything but but a huge graft of the Canadian taxpayers. You will destroy generational farms, UNESO recognized natural habitat, cut communities in half, all for the benefit of former SNC

[Jim Wickware @Jwick10dad]

@DarrenDreger An exceptional young man and great teammate. Sincere condolences to the Wintertons, and Jacob’s huge group of friends. #f@ckcancer

[Jim Wickware @Jwick10dad]

@MayMayspeaks Elevator

[Jim Wickware @Jwick10dad]

@MayMayspeaks I have 2

[Jim Wickware @Jwick10dad]

@AfiaDimple_ 45

[Jim Wickware @Jwick10dad]

@JoeStablishment @Zoidbort @CalltoActivism Go fuck yourself! 🖕

[Mario Zelaya @mario4thenorth]

Ronald Reagan perfectly sums up tariffs.

The logic is sound.