tlittle

Work: CEO. Lawyer. Board Member.
Home: Husband. Dad. Cyclist.

[tlittle @tjlit]

@Sean_Speer is exactly right.

Glad that we get to pay for this in perpetuity now that the Liberals are doubling down on a money losing rail line (this one exists, let's not even get into Alto). The reality is that even with Carney at the helm the Liberals remain awful capital allocators. How many more deficit like projects like this are underway or planned? How will this be paid for?

The fiscal forecast is dire. Canada is in for pain due to an aging population, public sector jobs increasing and private sector jobs decreasing. The tax base is being eroded in real time.

So what's next? Watch for new initiatives to address spiralling deficits that have no hopes of being funded with the existing (already crippling) tax regime.

It will start small - a wealth transfer tax over $1M, principal residence capital gains tax for homes over $3M, etc. Measures that only affect "Those that have a little more than others." But once the structure is in those numbers will shrink so that everyday people get hit with them. You see hints of this already, for example: BC already did that in a sneaky way by removing an inflation index for its tax brackets.

We need better capital allocation decisions. Start there. And the easiest way to get more efficient is to hand those decisions to the private sector where the impact of a money burn is actually felt.

[Sean Speer @Sean_Speer]

Off the rails

Prime Minister Carney came to my hometown of Thunder Bay this week to announce that Ottawa will spend $4.7 billion on 313 new VIA Rail passenger cars manufactured by Alstom in Thunder Bay and Quebec.

The announcement was understandably well received back home. It will support nearly 700 jobs and provide a welcome shot in the arm for a community that could use it. I am glad for the workers and their families.

At some risk of offending my fellow Thunder Bayers, however, the most important question isn’t whether the trains could have been built more cheaply somewhere else, as some have raised. It’s whether Ottawa should be replacing VIA Rail’s trains at all.

Canadians have largely answered no through their own transportation choices. VIA recorded 4.4 million passenger trips in 2025, down roughly 12 percent from its 2019 peak despite significant population growth.

This shouldn’t be a huge surprise. VIA’s on-time performance was just 35 percent, and yet its prices aren’t especially competitive with air or car travel. It’s a self-evidently inferior experience.

The consequence is that the Crown corporation’s financial results are deteriorating. Last year, VIA generated $518.5 million in revenue against $894.2 million in operating expenses. Federal funding totalled $735.5 million, following more than $900 million the previous year.

Every single route fails to break even and requires an operating subsidy. In some cases, like Toronto to Ottawa, the subsidy is about $50 per passenger. In others, like Toronto to Vancouver, it’s almost $1,000 per passenger.

As explained by the government, the new cars being built in Thunder Bay are intended to serve eight long-distance, regional, and remote routes that carried only 216,000 passenger trips last year. Given the operating and capital expenses, it’s not obvious that it wouldn’t be cheaper to purchase the affected travellers their plane tickets or even cars.

Budgeting is policy. This week’s announcement therefore amounts to a long-run endorsement of VIA Rail and its current business model. The new fleet will become the justification for continuing the routes, and the continuing routes will become the justification for ongoing operating subsidies and capital funding. At no point is the institution itself required to demonstrate that Canadians actually want what it provides at anything approaching its real cost.

VIA has come to resemble the CBC in this respect. Both institutions command a kind of emotional attachment among politicians, commentators and a segment of the public. They’re treated as expressions of Canadian identity whose continuation is inherently valuable. Yet Canadians’ own choices reveal considerably far less attachment. They may like the idea of VIA Rail or the CBC without riding its trains or consuming its programming.

Public policy should take those revealed preferences seriously. Governments routinely claim to act on behalf of Canadians while discounting the clearest evidence they provide about what they actually value.

Thunder Bay can celebrate the jobs without the rest of us pretending that the real question about VIA Rail has been answered. Before spending billions to give a chronically subsidized and lightly used passenger railway several more decades of life, Ottawa should ask whether Canadians have already rendered their verdict—and whether the government simply refuses to hear it.

https://t.co/KPEidrjZtB

[tlittle @tjlit]

Completely unacceptable. What's worse is the apathy involved. Will there be consequences to this? Have we forgotten that a billion and a half dollars is a lot of money?

[BIV News @BIVnews]

Rob Shaw: B.C.’s $1.5B Excel spreadsheet screw-up leaves bigger questions for voters https://t.co/e6xJ6uz1Xa

[tlittle @tjlit]

Hardworking Canadians pay taxes and should expect proper allocation of them.

This is a glaring fail and will further undermine trust.

[Stewart Bell @StewGlobal]

EXCLUSIVE: Canada has awarded millions worth of contracts to an Edmonton resident who is the son of Iran's former VP, and is under investigation for allegedly helping the regime build its missile program & evade sanctions. https://t.co/TTsUi0blq9

[tlittle @tjlit]

Liberals are excellent at politics.

Less excellent at governing.

[tlittle @tjlit]

We also have a Parliament in Canada, in case helpful.
https://t.co/m4CPNOBxcb

[tlittle @tjlit]

If we are in fact at war, then we should enact measures commensurate with one.

These are great policy ideas for this time (and beyond).

[Pierre Poilievre @PierrePoilievre]

Just finished a call with the Prime Minister to discuss the tariff escalation.

My message: release the text of the rejected agreement, recall Parliament, and adopt an emergency Economic Action Plan to save jobs and lower costs for our people.

The plan should scrap gas taxes until Canada Day, have zero capital gains tax on reinvesting in Canada, end the industrial carbon tax, green -light the 500 projects waiting for federal permits, and have ZERO sales tax on Canadian-made cars.

As the U.S. hikes tariffs, we must lower taxes for Canadians.

Let’s all fight for our workers, our businesses, and our country.

[Pierre Poilievre @PierrePoilievre]

Just finished a call with the Prime Minister to discuss the tariff escalation.

My message: release the text of the rejected agreement, recall Parliament, and adopt an emergency Economic Action Plan to save jobs and lower costs for our people.

The plan should scrap gas taxes until Canada Day, have zero capital gains tax on reinvesting in Canada, end the industrial carbon tax, green -light the 500 projects waiting for federal permits, and have ZERO sales tax on Canadian-made cars.

As the U.S. hikes tariffs, we must lower taxes for Canadians.

Let’s all fight for our workers, our businesses, and our country.

[tlittle @tjlit]

Lurking in the background of a political climate currently dominated by external threats like Trump and nebulous global issues, is the generational divide. External threats stir emotions and provide convenient fodder for elections. The generational divide issue, however, is politically inconvenient yet starting to snowball. It will continue to gain momentum if left unchecked.

Tackling the generational divide issue is within Canada’s control today, but the question is whether the political will exists to address it.

https://t.co/S2x4dXj7Tm

[tlittle @tjlit]

@BryanH0073 Thanks for the thoughtful response. Clearly the subtext of my post was about loving Trump and not at all about the domestic political backdrop.

[tlittle @tjlit]

Agreed wholeheartedly.

The tariff issue is highly indexed to domestic politics. Our politicians cash in on Trump hate, feeding the population fantasies about how strong Canada is economically. And a large chunk of our electorate laps it up. Layer in that we have a naturally governing party where any criticism of their approach is conflated with being anti-patriotic, and you have a recipe for prolonged negotiations.

I’m personally disheartened by it all. Our Prime Minister was just vacationing in Italy a week or two ago. That’s unserious. But it isn’t just a partisan thing. Both the Liberals and Conservatives support supply management, which seems to have become a sticking point in these negotiations and highlights a need to keep Quebec votes.

I’m confident a deal will get done because it has to, but the usual story here is that those most insulated from the impacts are those out for blood while many exposed normal Canadians feel unnecessary pain.

[James E. Thorne @DrJStrategy]

Canada’s Trade-War Denial

Canada does not need “time to adjust.” It needs a political class willing to stop confusing indignation with economic policy. And it needs access to the US market.

President Trump is focused on economic sovereignty, this is not personal this is business.

I assumed Mark Carney understood that. He has spent enough time around markets and capital to know that a country cannot posture its way out of a competitiveness crisis. Yet Ottawa’s turn toward symbolism and performative retaliation suggests that faith was misplaced.

Canada does not need another era of Pierre Elliott Trudeau-style progressive theatre: moral signalling, state direction, and lofty ambition detached from the hard work of building productive capacity. It needs an adult willing to confront vested interests, make trade-offs, and put economic strength ahead of political performance. The last adult, it seems, has just left the room.

The elbows-up strategy is embarrassing and hurts Canada long term, like a teenager emotional response to the reality of the world. Carney’s use of it helps neither negotiation nor leverage, and it wounds Canada more than the U.S.

The central strategic objective is obvious: preserve access to the United States, the world’s largest and most dynamic market, Canada’s neighbour, and the foundation of its export economy. That access is not a talking point. It supports Canadian jobs, investment, supply chains, and growth.

Canada focus on China is an own goal. China cannot replace it. China is distant, strategically uncertain, and separated from Canada by geography, institutions, and infrastructure. It cannot reproduce continental integration: shared energy systems, cross-border capital, integrated factories, common standards, and decades of commercial interdependence.
Canada does not get to trade on sentiment while depending on geography.

Nor can it “win” a trade war with its largest customer. Ottawa can impose targeted costs where it has genuine leverage. It can negotiate firmly. But broad retaliation is not a strategy. It is emotional performance masquerading as economic policy.

Too many in the political and economic elite appear to believe retaliation can force the structural adjustment Canada has avoided for years. It cannot. Tariffs do not raise productivity. They do not attract investment, reduce regulatory costs, or make Canadian businesses more competitive. They raise prices for households, increase costs for manufacturers, and encourage mobile capital to locate elsewhere.
Retaliation for its own sake is an expensive expression of national frustration. Canadians pay the bill.

The deeper problem is not merely American pressure. It is Canadian failure: weak business investment, poor productivity growth, regulatory paralysis, provincial trade barriers, slow approvals, inadequate infrastructure, and a subsidy culture that protects incumbents rather than rewards builders.

Canada is rich in assets and poor in execution. It has energy, minerals, capital, skilled people, and privileged proximity to America. Yet it has made investment too slow, too risky, and too expensive.

The answer is not submission. It is reform: deregulate, accelerate approvals, remove barriers to capital and internal trade, and lower the cost of building.

Canada may need time to adjust. But first it needs to end its denial.

[tlittle @tjlit]

Was about to say…

If we are going to be technical, do we know if the Liberal Party’s nomination rules were strictly followed for this by-election?

[Alex Conconi 🇨🇦 @alexconconi]

@braedencaley TLDR Google isn't enforcing it's own advertiser rules well, Curran's vid promo'd for 2 wks, prob budget of hundreds or few thousand dollars of supporter's $

Meanwhile The Liberal Party owns the CBC, and transfer millions of taxpayer $ to all media to push anti-Cons bias.

[Alex Conconi 🇨🇦 @alexconconi]

@braedencaley TLDR Google isn't enforcing it's own advertiser rules well, Curran's vid promo'd for 2 wks, prob budget of hundreds or few thousand dollars of supporter's $

Meanwhile The Liberal Party owns the CBC, and transfer millions of taxpayer $ to all media to push anti-Cons bias.

[tlittle @tjlit]

Definition of a straw man argument.

[Theo Moudakis @TheoMoudakis]

Please enjoy my cartoon for Tuesday's @TorontoStar

[tlittle @tjlit]

Enjoyed a bottle tonight. I wonder if anyone in Ontario ever has @fordnation? Thank you Ron Kubek and Lightning Rock Winery for taking charge of a silly issue.

We should have free trade in Canada.

[Jasmin Laine @JasminLaine]

CBC may never invite him back on…

Ron Kubek calls out the “illusions” of the governments latest interprovincial trade barrier announcement.

[tlittle @tjlit]

“Seems to contradict” is doing a heavy lift here.

Carney said: “Any sharing of the toll revenue won't happen until all the debt, all of the debt, is repaid.”

Carney is smart. We all know this. That also means he understands that debt repayment is a big line item in a waterfall calculation. And being smart means the omission of that large detail wasn’t an innocent misstep.

https://t.co/9lKrtVxHQV

[tlittle @tjlit]

It’s fine to dislike Kory Tenecke. But keep private business private for the good of the party. Conservatives won’t win through infighting. What’s worse, is that this sentiment appeals to a very narrow segment of B.C. Conservatives who already support KLF so it doesn’t win any new support.

KLF is a strong leader who can stand on her own without the need to punch down. Pierre should know better.

[brittany @by__brittany]

Pierre Poilievre congratulates Kerry-Lynne Findlay for winning the BC Conservative Leadership Race

“Big win against Liberal lobbyists from out East”

😂😂😂

@PierrePoilievre @KerryLynneFindl

[tlittle @tjlit]

It’s fine to dislike Kory Tenecke. But keep private business private for the good of the party. Conservatives won’t win through infighting. What’s worse, is that this sentiment appeals to a very narrow segment of B.C. Conservatives who already support KLF so it doesn’t win any new support.

KLF is a strong leader who can stand on her own without the need to punch down. Pierre should know better.

[tlittle @tjlit]

@alexbrown17 Agreed. The path to victory won’t be paved with infighting.