I find it strange that Canada could complete the Canada Pacific Railway in 1881 with a population of 4 million and the Trans Canada Highway in 1962 with a population of 18 million but such a national project in 2024 with a population of 40 million is impossible. More like, ever since the funding strategy for infrastructure moved over to the P3 model primarily, infrastructure investments can only happen if a private organization can profit from them in the relatively short term. And this makes the investment costs of such mega projects too high for private interests to want to take on. But no one points at the CPR or the Trans Canada Highway and frets about the costs now. The value of the investments are apparent. They built the country we live in. A trans national hsr network would do the same.
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It's amazing what you can accomplish by exploiting Chinese immigrants to do the most dangerous work for $1/day (half of what white Canadians were paid for less dangerous work) (source).
So building a high performance rail network in the 21st century will cost a lot more, but it will still be worth it.
That of course is a sad fact of our history. However, the productivity of the average worker is also much greater than it was back then. We aren't exactly laying down large infrastructure projects with gangs of guys using hand tools anymore, or at least not nearly to the same degree. So I think we can keep production costs down (relative to inflationary differences between then and now) minus the racial oppression and awful working conditions.
It's not a question of productivity now, it's a question of organization. Our governing institutions are too full of rent seekers and mafias now to do the kinds of things it did post WW2. Nobody can do anything big anymore because the system fights them. We can't even stop daylight savings time, which basically nobody wants to keep doing
Canada today is almost certainly less corrupt and rent seeking than the literal Gilded Age, when the country was founded! In fact, the Pacific Scandal was our first major political scandal, involving political bribery by railroad investors and leading to the resignation of John A Macdonald.
I really have to push back against this pessimism about government. It only serves conservative pro-privatization interests to push that narrative. The problem is political will. Voters easily approve major new highways in ON. We would get rail if voters demanded it. So letβs start a movement!