A privatized CN Rail wasted little time selling off a subsidiary.

Canada's first Crown corporation was established to serve the people of this nation. Foreign investors do not care about serving the public or preserving our history.
A July 22, 1993 Privy Council Order-in-Council gave the Crown corporation CN the title to all of the the Canadian Government Railways for $1 dollar. Subsidiaries of the Canadian Government Railways were:

1.)  Intercolonial Railway of Canada.

2.)  Hudson's Bay Railway.

3.)  National Transcontinental Railway.

4.)  Prince Edward Island Railway.

"The People's Railway" was denationalized two years after an Order-in-Council was signed by the Governor General of Canada:
PRIVY COUNCIL ORDER-IN-COUNCIL
PC NUMBER 1993-1603.
Date: 1993-07-22
Precis  " Authority to enter into an agreement with CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS COMPANY and to dispose of all rights, title and interest in the Canadian Government Railways lands to the Canadian National Railway Company and termination of the management and lands entrusted to CN."

The route of the Hudson's Bay Railway is defined in black. The Hudson's Bay Railway was sold to a Denver, Colorado based company called OmniTRAX in 1996. Residents of Churchill, Manitoba were left stranded for almost a year after a flood washed out some tracks and the tracks were not repaired.

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The Intercolonial Railway Line was abandoned in 1989:

Why was CN Rail given all the Crown property of Canadian Government Railways.

Privy Council Order-in-Council - PC Number 1993-1603
Date: 1993-07-22,
Precis   Authority to enter into an Agreement with CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAY COMPANY  and to dispose of all rights, title and interest in the Canadian Government Railways lands to the Canadian National Railway Company and termination of the management and operations of the lands entrusted to CN.
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A Quebec City, Quebec exhibition in 1918. CGR was a federal government agency that operated in Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, Ontario and Manitoba.

Canadian Government Railways owned and managed:
1.)  Intercolonial Railway of Canada (IRC).
2.)  National Transcontinental Railway (NTR).
3.)  Prince Edward Island Railway (PEIR).
4.)  Hudson's Bay Railway (HBR).
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The Cote St-Luc railyards, Montreal in 1981. The CPR and CN are interested in removing the tracks and buildings and selling the land for residential/commercial use, "New study hopes to do away with Cote St Luc railyards" by Tim Sargeant, Global News, October 14, 2016.

                                      

An inventory of CNR bridges.

Paris, Ontario, 1918.

Fredericton, New Brunswick.

Prince of Wales, Ottawa..

Prince Albert, Saskatchewan.

Kamloops, British Columbia.

Weston, Toronto, Ontario.

Etchemin, Province of Quebec.

This bridge links Burnaby with Richmond, BC and crosses the Fraser River. Owned by CN Rail, and one of the billion dollars worth of Crown assets that were sold to CN for $1 dollar in July 1993, two years before it was privatized.

Rimouski, Quebec.

   

Canadian landmarks that never should have been privatized.

Prison for Women -40 Sir John A. Macdonald Boulevard, Kingston, Ontario.
The Portsmouth Olympic Harbour - Kingston, Ontario.
Almost 200 acres of the Central Experimental Farm - 960 Carling Avenue, Ottawa. See the YouTube video "Ottawa prepares to hand over Historic Federal Farmland to Corporate Developers."

1,000 Department of Fisheries and Oceans Lighthouses including Peggy's Cove.
All of the Canadian Pacific Railway hotels.
All of the Canadian National Railway hotels.
Grain elevators in Western Canada and Northern Ontario.
The Quebec Bridge that spans the St. Lawrence River - called "the eighth wonder of the world."

Endangered landmarks.
The decommissioned Kingston Penitentiary.
Collins Bay Institution.
Martello Towers.
The Rideau Canal locks and lock stations. Parks Canada cannot afford to maintain $8 billion dollars worth of infrastructure in Canada's National Parks.
The Dominion Observatory Campus on the Experimental Farm in Ottawa. The Civic is building a mega-hospital and auxiliary buildings on 50 acres of the Farm. The Observatory, Photo Equatorial Building, South Azimuth and many other structures will either be moved or demolished, because Maple Lane has to be widened and the health care facility does not want "irregularly- shaped" parcels of land.

More than 500 mature trees on the Experimental Farm, read the letter that former Ottawa mayors Jacquelin Holzman and Jim Durrell sent to the National Capital Commission.

Proposed Sale of CN Tower.

House of Commons Debates, Ottawa      December 7, 1987
Neil Young, New Democratic Party (Beaches).

Mr. Neil Young:
     "Can you imagine, Mr. Speaker, the Government of Egypt selling off the Pyramids, the Chinese people placing the Great Wall on the auction block, or the Eiffel Tower turned over to the private sector? Only in Canada we say "sell the CN Tower".
     "And what is the CN Tower to be called; Alpo Dog Food Heights, Loblaws Skyscraper, Pizza Pizza Peak or perhaps Ronald Reagan Lookout?"
     "The Tower was built with $57 million of Canadian money. It does serve 15 media centres. It does accommodate two million visitors a year, and it does bring a sense of pride to Canadians. All of this, and the Tower turned a tidy $5 million profit last year."
     "If the Government insists on bequeathing the CN Tower to the private sector, it should at least attempt to secure a guarantee that the purchaser will find a small place for the Government's epitaph to be displayed for all Canadians to see."

The Brockville, Ontario railway tunnel was donated to the city in 1982. Wikipedia photo.

The Prince of Wales Bridge linked Ottawa and Gatineau, Quebec. An Archives of Canada photo from 1928.

The Canadian Pacific Railway has received nearly 44 million acres of free land.

House of Commons Debates, Ottawa    October 31, 1983
Douglas Keith Anguish, New Democratic Party

Mr. Anguish:
     "If one looks at the land history of the rail companies in this country, particularly Canadian Pacific, one will see that over the period of time it has been in existence (it has received) some 43,962, 546 acres of land...It has also received hundreds of millions of dollars to invest in the transportation system of this country...It was part of the Confederation agreement to hold this country together."
     "But they did not reinvest that money, they decided to expand:
Canadian Pacific Limited subsidiaries
CP AirLines Ltd,
CP Steamships Ltd.
CP Express and Transport Ltd.
Can Pac International Freight Services
Soo Line Railroad Company
CP Telecommunications
CP Enterprises
Pan Canadian Petroleum Ltd.
Cominco Ltd.
Fording Coal Ltd.
CIP Inc.
Pacific Forest Products Ltd.
Great Lakes Forest Products Ltd.
Algoma Steel Ltd.
Maple Leaf Mills Ltd.
Marathon Realty Corporation - Marathon Realty was interested in selling off a great amount of that 43,962,546 acres of land in order to reap more profits for Canadian Pacific."
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In 1996 Canadian Pacific sold Marathon Realty to the American conglomerate General Electric and to Oxford Properties. The deal was worth almost a billion dollars. I am sure that GE and Oxford would not have paid a billion dollars if they did not acquire the air rights; rights-of-way; drilling rights; timber rights; mineral rights and water rights. A subsidiary of General Electric is GE Oil and Gas.
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A 1985 Supreme Court of Canada decision ordered Canadian Pacific Limited to return reversionary land (land that is not needed for railway purposes) to the people of Canada. We are talking about millions of acres of Canadian land that General Electric, the CPR and Oxford Realty are selling.
There should be a moratorium on the sale of former railway property such as:
The Arbutus Corridor in Vancouver.
A Corridor in Calgary, Alberta that is currently on the market.

A call for the nationalization of the Canadian Pacific Railway.

House of Commons Debates, Ottawa     February 16, 1981.
Leslie Gordon Benjamin, New Democratic Party.

Mr. Les Benjamin (Regina).
     "Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 to remind the House that this is the one hundredth birthday of Canadian Pacific. In view of the fact that Canadian Pacific Limited made $582 million profit last year resulting from assets given to it by the Canadian people, and since the CPR claims that its side of the bargain, including the Crowsnest Pass agreement is a burden too onerous, I moved, seconded by the hon. member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow):
 That this House wishes Canadian Pacific Limited unhappy birthday and calls upon the government to bring Canadian Pacific Limited under public ownership, return its assets to the people of Canada, and retire its board of directors, including old blue eyes."

Jeanne Sauve (Speaker of the House of Commons) Liberal.
Madam Speaker:
     "Is there unanimous consent for this motion?"

Some Hon. Members:
     "Agreed".

Some Hon. Members:
     "No".
CALL FOR NATIONALIZATION ON OCCASION OF CENTENNIAL,  STANDING ORDER 43.
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The 1984 Report of the Auditor General of Canada, Section 6.90.

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Canadian Pacific Limited subsidiaries:
Marathon Realty
Canadian Pacific Hotels
Cominco
Fording Coal
CNCP Telecommunications-a joint venture between the CNR and CPR.
CP Oil and Gas Company
CP Airlines
CP Express Company (Trucking.)
CP Ships
The MacMillan Bloedel Timber Company
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Real estate holdings of the CPR
Land beneath the Husky Tower/Calgary Tower in Alberta.
Land beneath an office tower called Metro Hall (City Hall) in Toronto.
Land beneath the Dufferin Mall in Toronto and Place d"Orleans shopping malls.

Spiral Tunnels
The tunnel located at Kicking Horse Pass in Yoho National Park, British Columbia.
A tunnel in Brockville, Ontario that was donated to the city.

The CPR has drilling, mining, timber and water rights on land it received as a grant from the federal government.
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Books written about the railway:
"The National Dream" (1970) and "The Last Spike" by Pierre Berton.
"A History of the Canadian Pacific Railway" (1923) by H.A. Innis.
"History of the Canadian Pacific Railway" (1977) by W. Kaye Lamb.
"Canadian Pacific: A Brief History" (1968) by J.L. McDougall.

My mother, niece and a friend are walking towards the High Level Bridge in Lethbridge, Alberta. I took the photo during the early 1990's.

An update - Summerhill Station located at 10 Scrivener, Toronto.

Summerhill Station. The CPR owned the building and 18 acres of land to the east until 2001. Wikipedia photo.

The former CPR Station is a private asset.

The property outlined in blue is  TTC or Toronto Transit Commission real estate. 

Harbourfront.

Harbourfront was a Crown corporation created in 1972, to ensure that 247 acres of waterfront land in Toronto would remain a greenspace "in perpetuity." Harbourfront Centre now encompasses 10 acres,
The federal government spent millions of dollars cleaning up an industrial wasteland.
House of Commons Debates  Ottawa  May 23, 1991.

John V. Nunziata - Liberal.
Mr. Nunziata:
     "The Conservative member opposite says there is nothing wrong with the federal government selling public land in order to benefit the rich and wealthy. There are a lot of poor and not so poor people in metropolitan Toronto who cannot escape to Roscoe Lake on the hot summer weekends in order to boat at their cottage. A lot of residents of metropolitan Toronto have the waterfront as their recreation during the summer months."
     "This government is proposing to sell that very valuable asset. Why? Not to reduce the deficit. We know that the government has gone to extremes in order to reduce the deficit, but it says it wants to sell part of the land in order to create a trust fund so that Harbourfront can be financed in perpetuity."
     "In other words, sell public parkland to developers. Let them make hundreds of millions of dollars building luxury condominiums or luxury hotels on the waterfront. The revenue from the sale of this land will go into a little trust fund and the interest will be used to carry on these very useful activities."
     "It is penny wise and pound foolish for the government to be selling assets in order to create trust funds in order to carry on certain activities. Then why does it not sell the House of Commons? Why does it not sell the lawn in front of the Peace Tower to private interests."
     "Future generations, our children and grandchildren, will look back on the decisions of this particular Conservative government.

Canadian landmarks that were sold or demolished.

The London, Ontario CN Tower. To see a YouTube video of the demolition Google:" CN implosion London, Ontario" and you can hear the fools cheering and clapping in the background. The other CN Towers are located in Toronto, Edmonton and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

A Globe and Mail newspaper ad . Windsor station was divested via a Privy Council Order-in-Council: January 28, 1993-Heritage Railway Stations Act-Canadian Pacific Limited to sell Windsor Station and land in Montreal." In 1970 Marathon Realty, the real estate subsidiary of the CPR wanted to demolish the entire train station.

A 2007 Globe and Mail newspaper ad. One year after Bill Gates became the main CNR investor he decided to sell the property. The Government of  Canada lifted restrictions on the ownership of CN investments; Bill Gates owns 25% of the former Crown corporation, despite a stipulation by the "CN Commercialization Act of 1995" that banned one individual, especially a foreigner, from investing in more than 15% of the company.

The Outer Station on Montreal Street, Kingston, Ontario. CN refused to repair the station:

Princess Elizabeth at the Outer Station.

                   

Is the Ontario government selling the former Summerhill train station?

A provincial Crown corporation called the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) operates out of the former Summerhill train station, located at 10 Scrivener. It is a heritage property protected by Part 1V of the Ontario Heritage Act. A few years ago the Ontario government sold an LCBO property on LakeShore Boulevard in Toronto:

The 11-acre LCBO Head Office and auxiliary buildings are located on 55 LakeShore Boulevard East.

The former CPR train station has a tower modeled after St. Mark's Campanile in the Piazza San Marco, Venice, Italy. St. Mark's Campanile was a prominent feature in the 1955 Katharine Hepburn/Rossano Brazzi movie "Summertime." 

Ontario government properties are privatized via a Crown corporation called the Ontario Realty Corporation/Infrastructure Ontario. ORC holdings that are currently on the market or already divested:

Rockwood Hospital, Kingston.(for sale right now.)

Bowmanville POW Camp.

Rideau Regional Centre, Smiths Falls.

London Psychiatric Hospital.
The Hearn OPG Station, 440 Unwin, Toronto.(now)
Perth Jail
Windsor Jail
Former Guelph Correctional Centre
305 Bremner Avenue, Toronto - A Rogers Centre parking lot. (now)
27 Grosvenor Street, Toronto and 26 Grenville Avenue, Toronto.
Spadina Corridor - 203 Ava Road, Toronto. (now.)
Spadina Corridor Rear Residential Lands, Toronto - 24 (now.)
Spadina Corridor-Spadina Road Properties - 17. (now.)
(Information is from the Infrastructure Ontario website - 243 surplus properties for sale.)

Railway stations in Ottawa and Toronto faced demolition during the 1960's and 1970's.

CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS

Metro Development Centre, Toronto-Alleged Agreement to Demolish Union Station.

House of Commons Debates, Ottawa   November 16, 1971.

Mr. John Gilbert, New Democratic Party (Broadview).

Mr. Gilbert:

     "Has Canadian National Railways entered into an agreement with Metro Development Centre to sell Union Station in Toronto and, if so, does the government agree with the demolition of Union Station?"

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The connection between Metro Centre and the Spadina Expressway.

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Summerhill Station, Yonge Street, Toronto.

In 1971 residents of Marlborough Street in Toronto fought the CPR's plan to flatten Summerhill Station and build hundreds of houses on the grounds of the station and surrounding land. The book "Marlborough Marathon-One Street Against a Developer" can be purchased on Amazon. (Amazon.ca photo.)
  

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Union Station, Ottawa
During the early 1950's an urban planner named Jacques Greber suggested that the CNR train station in Ottawa should be decommissioned and all the train tracks should be removed. The suggestion was controversial:
House of Commons Debates   Ottawa  June 23, 1951

Mr. Jean-Francois Pouliot, Liberal"
     "I understand that the federal district commission is trying to follow the suggestion of Mr. Greber, the architect, who comes from Paris.  In Paris there are many railway stations. There is the Gare du Nord, the Gare de Lyon, and there are others right in the heart of Paris which is a beautiful city."
     "In London there is the same thing. Waterloo is right in the middle of the city, and there are others which are in the middle of the city. Montreal is a beautiful city. There is the central station of the Canadian National Hallways near the Windsor station of the Canadian Pacific Railway right in the heart of the city."
     "I do not understand Mr. Greber's idea of having a railway station four miles from the centre of Ottawa, especially now that we have diesel engines that make no smoke and are not an inconvenience to the people. I do not know how he can beautify the city of Ottawa by removing the railway from the centre of downtown."
(Note: Mr. Greber advised the federal district commission, which today is known as the National Capital Commission.)
National Capital Commission plans in 1966.
 (The following information is from the Internet website NCC Watch.)
     "One of North America's first monumental railway stations, the Grand Trunk Railway Union Station opened in 1912 and served passengers until 1966. It was closed for the sake of the National Capital Commission's monumental plans-after all, it was the sixties and who needed trains anymore? So the valuable rail transit corridor that ran through the heart of the city was replaced with the Nicholas Street expressway and Colonel By Drive and the station moved out to the suburbs against the wishes of the railroads. Incredibly the plan called for the former station's demolition as it would impede traffic."
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Expo 67 Montreal. Archives of Canada photos.

Princess Irene of Greece.

The American Pavilion.

Princess Paola of Belgium.

Prince Albert and Princess Paola of Belgium.

Expo theatre.

Korean dancers.

Canadian Olympic ski champion Nancy Greene flying above Dolphin Lake.

Carol Channing performing in "Hello Dolly" at the Expo Theatre.

HM Queen Elizabeth 11.

The Beggar's Opera Group from England.

Fort Edmonton Pioneerland at La Ronde.

   

A 1985 Supreme Court of Canada decision ordered the CPR to return property to the Crown.

     "As the lands were no longer necessary for the use of the railway and thus were not used for the purposes of the railway, the lands must be  restored to the Crown." 
(Attorney General of Canada v Canadian Pacific Limited and Marathon Realty Company Ltd. February 1985.)

More CPR history.

1.)  During the 1970's a Calgary newspaper called The Albertan and Mount Royal College converted a CPR building into a printing plant. I was a journalism student at MRC during that time and I visited the printing plant. Marathon Realty Assistant General Manager Rod Sykes raised the rent from $ 900 dollars a year to $20,000 dollars a year. (From:" Canadian Pacific-A Portrait of Power" by Susan Goldenberg, Page 14.) Rod Sykes became a mayor of Calgary.

2.)  The Regina, Saskatchewan train station.

House of Commons Debates Ottawa.

3.)  Marathon Realty wanted to demolish the Summerhill train station at Marlborough and Yonge Streets in Toronto, in order to build 700 houses. See the Macleans Magazine article "These nice people just won a street fight" March 1971. Canadian author J.L. Granatstein wrote a book about the battle between the community and the developer:

 4.)  Ian Tyson lived in a rooming house near Marlborough station during the 1960's and he wrote a song about that experience. The song "Marlborough Street Blues" is on YouTube.

5.)  Marathon Realty director Dufferin (Duff) Roblin planned to redevelop land in downtown Ottawa after the CN and CPR tracks were removed. Eventually CP land was sold to the Westin Hotel. (From: "Canadian Pacific-A Portrait of Power" - Page 134.) Many shopping centres were built on railway land:
Dufferin Mall - Toronto.
Place d'Orleans
Orchard Park - Kelowna, British Columbia.
Northland Village - Calgary, Alberta.
Park Place Mall - Lethbridge, Alberta - The shopping centre is 2 minutes away from the former CPR train station, now a health care facility. Children receive their vaccinations there, I know, I visited this health care facility many times.

The Westin Hotel Ottawa can be seen in this photograph.

Marathon Realty and the CPR.

Canadian Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald gave the CPR 25 million acres of land. The SUBSIDIARY LANDS were given to the company to deal with as they saw fit. The REVERSIONARY LANDS were granted solely for railway purposes, and reverted to the Crown should they cease to be used for those purposes. Instead of returning millions of acres of land, the railway created a real estate subsidiary called Marathon Realty.
The CPR recently sold:
The Arbutus Corridor - Vancouver.
Obico Yard - 74 acres on Kipling Avenue in Etobicoke (Toronto.)
Lucien L'Allier - 3 acres in Montreal.
The Strathcona Yards - 94 acres in Edmonton, Alberta.

The Gare du Palais in Quebec City is still a Crown asset , VIA Rail is a Crown corporation. Wikipedia photo.

Former CPR properties.
Montreal
Adirondack Subdivision
Angus Shops
Cremazie
Dorval Station Grounds
Drummond and Laugauchetiere Street - Land and Buildings.
Hochelaga Yards
Jean-Talon Train Station - sold to the City of Montreal in 1984.
Le Chateau Champlain Hotel
Mile End Yard (Village of Cote St. Louis).
Papineau Yard
Place Viger
Place du Canada and the IBM/Marathon Tower were built on railway land.
St. Denis Yard
Pointe Claire - Pt. Valois Station.
Wentworth Golf Course - Ville St. Pierre and City of Lachine.
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Toronto
Dufferin Mall Shopping Centre was built on CPR land.
Bathurst North of Lakeshore.
Cherry Street Yard fronting Mill Street.
Fez City Yards, Bathurst.
Parkdale Yards, fronting King Street. - The Parkdale train station can be seen in the Stompin' Tom Connors YouTube video "Movin' In (from Montreal by Train.)"
Land North of King Street East and Dufferin Street and South of Queen Street, Mile 1.83, Galt Subdivision.
Fronting Yonge Street and Shaftesbury Avenue with Land and Buildings.
Front and Beachell Streets.
Fronting on Front Street and Spadina Avenue.
Mile 4.03 - North Toronto, Shaw Street.
North Toronto Subdivision fronting Birch Avenue.
A parcel of land of irregular feature fronting Marlborough Avenue and Yonge Street.
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 The railway owned several lucrative properties in Vancouver and Victoria:
Coal Harbour
False Creek
Hotel Vancouver
Empress Hotel
Yaletown
The book value of  12.837 acres of False Creek was $1 dollar. Taxpayers of British Columbia paid Marathon $60 million dollars for False Creek, the site of Expo 86.

Gordon Campbell and the sale of a profitable BC Crown corporation called BC Rail to CN.

The possible devolution of all National Parks in British Columbia to the BC provincial government.

My friends and I are in the Calgary Tower during the year 1973.

The Fairmont Palliser Hotel can be seen in the distance.The Calgary, Alberta Tower, or the Husky Tower was built on the grounds of the demolished train station. A tunnel connected the Palliser Hotel to the station. (Archives of Canada photo.)