Mr. Nault: "Yes, I have one question about the American railroad you own, the Grand Trunk. Is any real estate going to be siphoned off that particular railroad when the decision is made? (to privatize.) Are non-rail assets included with that portion of CN's business?"
Mr. Tellier: "No, it's basically rail assets."( From: A Wednesday May 17 1995 House of Commons Committee.)
2.) Thousands of people in Quebec did not want the Quebec Bridge that connects Laval and Quebec City to be part of a $1 real estate deal. The Federal Order-in-Council transferring federal government property to CN Rail was signed on July 22, 1993. In 1992 discussions were well underway to denationalize Canada's oldest Crown corporation.
Quebec politicians were concerned that a company run by foreign investors would not maintain the bridge. Their concerns were justified:
House of Commons Debates Ottawa December 1, 2009.
Mr. Thomas Mulcair (Outremont-NDP). "CN got infrastructure and projects worth billions of dollars in exchange for $1 dollar and a few undertakings, including maintaining and repairing the Quebec Bridge, which it did not do. Now it has the nerve to drag this matter through the courts...We in the NDP have always maintained that we cannot trust private enterprise and give it control over assets that once belonged to the Crown."
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The Americans call the Pont de Quebec "the eighth wonder of the world."
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The $1 dollar real estate deal that transferred billions of dollars of property to the Crown corporation CN, two years before it was privatized:
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 lands entrusted to CN."
CGR subsidiaries were:
Intercolonial Railway of Canada.
Hudson's Bay Railway.
National Transcontinental Railway.
Prince Edward Island Railway.
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3.) The federal government corporation Via paid CN $50 million to $55 million dollars a year to use railway tracks that were built and paid for by Canadian taxpayers:
Mr. Tellier: "Privatization should have no effect on our relationship with Via. Via is a good customer of ours. Year in, year out, Via gives us between $50 million and $55 million of revenue." Via also has to pay CP to use their tracks, and freight trains have priority over passenger trains. CP Rail was supposed to be a passenger operator in perpetuity.
If CN was still owned by the citizens of Canada:
--A compromise would have been worked out, permitting Via to use the tracks for $1 dollar a year perhaps, because passenger transport is an essential public service. How could a publicly-funded Crown corporation be so greedy, that they would charge millions of dollars a year for the use of infrastructure.
--The CN Headquarters in Montreal would never have been sold to Homberg Investments.
--1,000's of miles of railway tracks would never have been abandoned or sold-for example, the Hudson's Bay line was divested to a Denver-based company during the 1990's. The company left the inhabitants of Churchill, Manitoba stranded after they refused to repair washed-out tracks. The government of Canada eventually nationalized the tracks and bought a few railway cars.
--Canadians would still own CN Towers in Toronto; Edmonton, Alberta; London, Ontario and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan; more than 6,000 bridges (see my January 17, 2020 blog.); tunnels; thousands of stations that automatically lost all heritage protection and designation in 1995---the Heritage Railway Stations Protection Act only applies to buildings that are still under federal control.
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