VIA Rail

[jawagord]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

Nope, never took economics. However, we have had MPs with economic degrees and that really did no good for Canada. A degree is not the same as understanding the real world applications. For example, some of the stupidest designed things have been designed by people with an engineering degree. Before you spout crap about your degree in economics I want you to look into the connection between the ring professional engineers wear and the Quebec Bridge.



Do we subsidize the air travel industry - yes.
Do we subsidize roads - yes
do we subsidize passenger service? - yes

All I am suggesting is we subsidize it more initially to get other, new services. Kinda like a new airport (Pickering) or new highways/wider highways

No we don’t! Fuel taxes alone are greater than the amount spent on roads and add in another $10 billion per year in new vehicles sales taxes and the only transportation mode fully paying its way is the private ICE passenger vehicle.

Currently, the federal and provincial governments collect $16.2 billion in gasoline and motive fuel taxes. As the GST/HST is applied to prices including the fuel tax, add on another $1.6 billion for the tax on tax. Carbon levies would also total $4 billion at $30 per CO2 tonne on fuel (including the GST/HST interactions).

Overall, if all vehicles convert to electric, federal and provincial governments would collect $22 billion less in 2019 revenue. Road transportation expenditures total roughly $20 billion in 2019.

This obviously begs the question: who will pay for roads, highways and bridges? The answer in the past is for provincial governments to levy fuel excise taxes on gasoline and motive fuels to cover transportation costs. Since vehicles cause damage to roads and highways, the fuel tax has arguably been a benefit tax to help pay for these costs — the more one drives, the more one pays.

https://business.financialpost.com/opini...-or-well-blow-a-huge-hole-in-our-budgets