Via's Strike.. and who cares west of Winnepeg?

Via Rail - the darling of central Canada, has been on strike, but apparently, the strike is now over as the parties have agreed to binding arbitration regarding their dispute. And those west of Winnipeg say, "who cares?"

Other than as a rare nostalgic experience of days gone by, for the most part, Via Rail has no relevance to Western Canadians - and yet, our Federal government has already poured millions of our tax dollars into this venture, which, essentially, is of practical use only in Central Canada.

What I found particularly curious as I casually followed this non-event, is the extent to which central Canadian newspapers treated this as a significant problem.

The Globe and Mail reported, for example, that "The strike had paralyzed train passenger traffic across the country and forced Via to issue ticket refunds to thousands of customers."

Well, not really. To suggest this has had any broad effect outside of Central Canada is disingenuous. According to a CTV report, "up to 85 per cent of its business is between Quebec City and Windsor." And we in Alberta should care about this strike, why?

Consider for the moment, as reported on CNEWS,

Via Rail's finances are dependent on federal subsidies. Ottawa provides an average of $170 million a year in operating funding to Via. Last year's total increased to $214.2 million.

Ottawa also earmarked more than $400 million in this year's budget for capital upgrades and station improvements..

So, as a taxpayer outside of the Quebec/Windsor corridor, I'm supposed to continue subsidizing this white elephant? Why? If it's not a truly "national" program, sell it to the private sector - or, if it's not truly saleable, hand it off to Ontario and Quebec and let the citizens who use it, pay for it.

No - I'm not another Western Canadian complaining about being alienated from Canada's power centre - if I wanted to live in Montreal or Toronto, or Ottawa, I could. And I'm not another conservative using this as an opportunity to criticize the union. I'm just illustrating that there is a massive, federally funded enterprise, which really, is not in any sense a "national" organization.

So, as Via resolves it's current labor issues, I say, sell it. The idea was broached earlier this year, to some consternation from certain NDP and Liberal supporters complaining of us "selling off" our identity. My $.02 Mr. Harper - Via has nothing to do with my sense of Canada - so sell it. Let private business worry about the Via engineers. A true "conservative" government knows that government has no place doing business, particularly where it is in no way a "necessity" to Canadians on a broad basis.