New Democrat MP Taylor Bachrach (Skeena-Bulkley Valley, BC) took a transcontinental train ride of 4,500 kilometres to return home for Christmas. According to Blacklock’s Reporter, Bachrach is using this journey to promote his bill to improve VIA Rail services.“It’s six days from Toronto to Smithers,” Bachrach told reporters.“We’re going to talk about passenger rail on the way and how Canada is falling behind the rest of the world. That’s the goal.”Bachrach last Wednesday introduced Bill C-371 An Act to Amend the Canada Transportation Act mandating that “railway companies must give priority to passenger rail service.”The MP estimated that approximately 97% of the rail lines used by VIA Rail are owned by Canadian National and Canadian Pacific Railways, and these companies give the right of way to more profitable freight traffic over passenger services, contributing to the delays experienced by VIA Rail.During his testimony on January 26 at the Commons Transport committee, VIA Rail's CEO Martin Landry said the frequent delays in passenger service were issues related to freight traffic.“Railways dictate the priority,” said Landry.“We deal in an environment where the host railways dictate the priorities of the trains. They do provide an essential service to Canadians, moving a significant amount of goods and key contributors to the supply chain.”“There is always this fine balance about who will ultimately win out,” said Landry. “As long as we live in this environment where there is mixed traffic and the host dictates the priorities, we are unlikely to be able to provide the level of customer service we would like to provide.”In 1978, the Parliament created VIA Rail as a passenger service, taking over from the Canadian National Railway, which was previously a Crown corporation responsible for passenger rail services.CN Rail went private in 1995 through the Canadian National Commercialization Act.VIA Rail's trains have experienced frequent delays, leading the railway to change its definition of "on-time performance" to improve its statistics.In 2019, VIA Rail redefined their definition of "on-time" to mean arriving within 15 minutes of the scheduled time, while the United States, United Kingdom, and Japan use a 10-minute standard.In Germany, "on-time" is defined as arriving within six minutes of the scheduled time, while in Italy, it's within five minutes.In its most recent Annual Report to Parliament, VIA Rail acknowledged that their trains are usually delayed about 40% of the time and reported operating losses of $354.3 million for the past year.In a Summary of the 2018-2022 Corporate Plan, management expressed their concern about delays, describing them as a “terrible” issue for train services like the transcontinental Canadian route from Vancouver to Toronto.“During the peak 2017 season, 53% of all Canadian arrivals in Toronto were more than eight hours late,” said the Corporate Plan. “Without improvement in on-time performance, VIA Rail cannot effectively provide mandatory services as the service is no longer a viable travel alternative in between and around Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Jasper and Vancouver.”
