Excellent article Mr. Ramsey. One point though. You say "It's our railroad; we need to know what's going on." It's not our railway - it's Gordon Campbell and Gary Collin's railway. We gave it to them when we elected them, just like we gave them everything else in the province. And they're treating us and the province as a birthday gift from a least favoured aunt. They're selling it off at garage sale prices to the easiest buyers they can find. "We've got you screwed to the wall" should be the motto of the BC Liberals.

What else can we expect from a government that continually talks about enhancing services while simultaneously cutting them to the bone, about openness and transparency while making freedom of information requests as difficult as possible, and about helping communities while continuing to attack the most vulnerable without mercy? A government that has the worst performing economy with the highest provincial debt, yet claims in its endless taxpayer paid for ads that the bc economy is well and on track? It is not enough just to get rid of this government: they and their corporate supporters, and the fraser institute and martyn brown must be sued as well, in a massive class action suit after they are defeated in the next election, when we can get our hands on ALL the books and find out just what ELSE they've done to us. Anyone who still supports them is betraying human decency, themselves and their chidren and the dreams canadians have sweated and died for. SUE THE BASTARDS FOR THEIR LAST NICKEL OR FROM NOW ON ANY RIGHTWING THUGS CAN ATTACK BOTH YOU AND YOUR CHILDREN WITHOUT MERCY, WITHOUT COMPENSATION WITHOUT REDRESS!!! SEND A MESSAGE TO EVERY BACKSTABBING RIGHTWING PIMP THAT YOU HAVE HAD ENOUGH OF LIARS WHO CARE ABOUT NOTHING EXCEPT THEIR CORPORATE OWNERS.

What Paul Ramsey fails to mention is that the NDP was ready to get rid of BCRail, lock stock and barrel! At least the Liberals have the insight to retain ownership of the railbeds. The other question is why in hell should the Province be involved in the rail business. It made sense when WAC Bennett bought the beast from PGE way back when. This allowed markets to be provided with a transportation link to the heart of BC. The PGE was abandoning that initiative. But in 2004, the transportation links are strong, hence the government does not need to be involved in the operation of a railway system. Secondly, BC Rail while marginally profitable is a risk to the taxpayer as a result of a need to invest heavily in rolling stock etc. The CN deal is a good one as they are well versed in the rail business and so have a depth of rolling stock to apply in BC. Paul Ramsey is just voicing sour grapes coz he did not have the opportunity to sell the whole thing when he was Finance Minister.

sdgreen says to get rid of b.c.r. as no need to be involved in maininence but why do we have to sell and pay for it at the same time under lib's so called "best for B.C." antics not only re: BC Rail but everything else in this province that belongs to our citizens. We paid for it - let us decide whether we want to sell it. Besides the lib's lie and lie over and over concerning their election promises. It is sort of like 'outsoucing' as in it was our tax $$'s that paid for these businesses and everything of issue that is for privitizing and that includes 'grants, subsidizing and all the other perks from business line expenses to whatever they can find to write off' and I really consider this theft of our possessions. I am all for class actions. I remember when the libs backed away from the coal port rail line but wouldn't concerning BCR and my question to myself was - if there were to be a problem with fudging the rest of BCR could we then totally sue Gordo for going forward with the sale especially after publicly denying undisclosed probs with the sale And then again where are the elected who WERE ELECTED to WORK FOR BC CITRIZENS but for some reason ($$$'s) work for business's who are generally U.S.

sdgreen - "Ready to get rid of" and "conducting a feasibility study" are not the same thing no matter how you spin it. Campbell was defeated in '96 partly because he said then that if elected his government would sell BC Rail. So in 2000 he didn't say that, he said he would keep BC Rail. Now he says that a potential 990 year lease of the line is not a sale. Campbell is a two-faced liar. Period. Full stop. Other politicians may also be liars but that doesn't mean that Campbell is not one.

you are kidding right, the Province should be in the rail business for the same reason WAC bought PGE to provide affordable access to market for Northern business mines forestry etc instead of using our highways. We are picking up the bill for the trucks beating the hell out of our Northern roads, did you know the mill on the east end of Burns Lake was getting its wood from the Yukon a few years ago, hauling 128 loads a day(1200+ miles round trip) down Hwy 37 who would blame tourists for avoiding that road when it is a main haul road! Northerners need access to rail transportation that is not profit motivated, CN will only run the lines that are making them money and lay off workers in small communities to protect the bottom line for their American shareholders! Your right wing ideology or idiotoligy would have everyone in the North laid off so your pal gordo can get more money from his corporate sponsors. They are closing local mills and hauling the wood out of communities to feed super mills addressing the corporate bottom line at the expense of local workers! In 5 years it might not matter who owns the bloody railroad anyway because there might not be any Pine Trees left to harvest thanks to the Pine Beetle and years of incompetence and corruption on the part of government and industry. They have known about the beetle for over 25 years instead of burning them out forestry allowed the corporations to haul the infested wood out spreading the beetles even further and faster. Industry liked the beetle as it provided them with fibre at a reduced rate, they pay by weight and if caught soon enough the wood is basically dry having cured on the stump, oldtimers used to ring trees in the spring before they had access to kiln dried wood! Think about it if we lose our forest canopy what happens to the water table, will we not have increased flooding in the spring as more snow is exposed to the warm spring sun, hotter drier summers with no shade to protect fish bearing streams increased fire hazard with all the standing dry Pine Trees remember the tree has bled to death and all the pitch is exposed at the base of the tree. This wood will burn the soil to point that it may be years before it will sustain life if it doesn't wash away with the rains which will may blow in from the Coast! When the water table drops will farmers be able to get enough water? The scenarios are endless but for the most part they are very scary if you care about the North and the people who live there! One hot dry summer and a few scattered lightning storms in an area of dead Pines the size of Vancouver Island with as many as four out of five trees standing dead is a lot of kindling waiting to be lit!

dam the sdgreen comment above (second post) is mine I didn't notice it was in the name box instead of addressing him the idiot has me so annoyed!

The thing people myself included often forget to mention is bc rail has been profitable for the last 19 years out of twenty, revenue that kept taxes down; this year it's revenues are up millions more. Sid, old genius, these revenues paid for healthcare and other programs and kept your taxes low. How low do you think your taxes will be after the last crown corporation is given away for nothing and you can get a side of fries with your heart operation as long as you've got a big enough check book. The gordon campbell governmebt is an mindless, ideological disaster, and vick I sympathize with you because it's maddening to be given the same mindless rote arguments constantly. And rolling stock is a sound investment in a resource province like bc.

lewis swift this green must be one of gordo's paid lackies running around the Province spewing their useless rhetoric in the hopes of getting this bunch of lying parasitic scambags re-elected well I think they have their work cut out for them as not all of the people in this privince are so gullible as the media types like Mr Liberal supporter himself less lane at the Victoria Times Colonist! How do people like him sleep at night knowing they are selling our childrens future down the drain to make money? I am very grateful we have sites like thetyee where we can rant freely without being sensored by liberal pimps!

Back in the early 70`s BC Rail even had a manufacturing arm called RailWest that manufactured rolling stock, which the Socreds immediately shut down in 1975. As a former employee of the repair shops in Squamish I remember what a facility that it was, and what an excellent training ground for tradesmen that the PGE/BC Railway was. It truly is a shame that the liars currently called the BC government are intent upon selling it to the American company called Canadian National. Oops, I said that nasty word Canadian.

Why should the province be in the rail business, asks sdgreen. For the same reason old Wackie got the province involved in ferries, Hydro and a good many other things. He, like anyone else who can look past an idiology, could see that greedy capitalists were milking the province for all they could. Bennett was a businessman, but he wasn't so dumb as to think blind chance was the way to open up a province. Make excuses for Gordo if you must sdgreen, but don't trot out these tired cliches of the Fraser Institute. To be frank, the capitalists have lost confidence in their own mythical ability to ride Adam Smith's unseen hand. Riddled by scandal that can no longer be hidden, bankrupt of any new ideas since the pet-rock craze and with a surplus of investment dollars desperate for a home, is it any wonder these wizards of the bottom line now want to sell us what we already own?

I agree ,this isn't just about a railway. Now the americans will have a long steel choke chain that will traverse our province and eventually wrap itself around the neck of B.C. They'll just have to give it a little pull and we'll walk their walk and talk their talk.We'll be such a docile little creature that we will even "force" them to buy our land for one dollar in case of contamination.Campbell and crew seem to have conveniently forgotten that the responsibility for clean-up has already been written into the books . They only need to enforce it. The selling of land corridors is not necessary.Perhaps, that legislation has been tampered with as well, and is one of those details that Mr. Ramsay alludes to that has yet to be revealed.

Absolutely no good can come from this " non-sale". This travesty of a government totally abuses all factions and assets on hand. The magic hands that make anything of value disappear and then try and spin their way out of it , that is if it somehow stumbles into the mainstream media. I suspect some of these spin doctors are monitoring the good work done by the "Tyee" and that is why we occaisionally see some weak form of defense by a sympatheic or should I say some pathetic defender of " el Gordo " and his cronies. There is absolutely no reason a sane citizen of B.C. should sit by idly whilst these demons sell everything to the Great American War Machine. When they are caught in the thick of scandal , out come the scurrilous unfounded accusations of previous evil deeds allegedly done by some former government. Then again, out comes the smoke and mirrors and the spin doctors, trying to hide the fact that we have been screwed again but we don't see how bad until the morning after. I believe that the road to the" new ERA" has developed into a cruel and shallow trench, a long plastic hallway, where thieves and pimps run free and good men lie like dogs. There is also a negative side. Repave this highway in May '05.

Obviously you guys can't see beyond the rocks in the mountain! Is the government a good railway steward? No! No government is! Is BCRail being run by Americans? No, it is being run by a Canadian Railway company called CN! Does the CN Railway have experience in the operation of a railway? Yes, they have been in business for a hell of lot longer than BC Rail. Does CN have depth of rolling stock, equipment? Yes, way more! BC still owns the rail beds, alas the NDP was going to sell the whole thing! Stop crying .. BC Rail will be one hell of a lot better than before!

sdgreen, you keep repeating the same thing without bothering to use any kind of logical explanation. Sounds like ideology rather than reason to me. A quote I kind of like is "You cannot reason someone out of a belief if they weren't reasoned into it." - Jonathan Swift

sdgreen, this rail scam is just another semantic play on words (lie) in a litany of lies that this meglomaniac has done since usurping the democracy that BC once had. Absolutely nothing coming out of his mouth can be accepted on face value. From shredding contracts to provoking confrontation, this pustule on the back of decency must be removed. There are many devious acts being perpetrated on our society as a whole by Herr Gordo and his sycophants. The ones we know of may be correctable, it's the ones we don't know of that may do the greatest harm.

your idiotology is coming thru loud and clear, btw if you take the time to investigate I believe you will find that the majority of cn is now owned by american shareholders! They are not a Canadian Railway company anymore thanks to mulroney who should be tried for treason in my opinion for many reasons! It is you who cannot see for blind ideology, fool! B.C. Rail will not be better off and neither will the employees or the province this is just one more dirty deed by a corrupt bunch of not very smart people with no morals and absolutely no courage! It is my opinion that the people running this country and this province are cowards willing to sell us out to the highest bidders and line their own pockets in the process! Don't try to preach your right wing crap to me!

Sid, you're a very confused man -but just keep crawling up your own butt until you reach your private and very PERSONAL version of nirvana, where everybody's stealing from you but the rich, where those pesky inner city school children, and the disabled and the poor can't be heard, and just keep selling out your friends and neighbours, your children and yourself, for a $200 taxcut, before user fees, clawbacks, fuel tax and of course, quality of life -where you will hopefully vanish with a quiet poppibg sound. leaving only a slight stench, but withal, a better, cleaner universe....

sdgreen:You bring back memories of the Iraqic foreign minister of misinformation who kept insisting all was going well with the war.Actually, CN rail is majority-owned by american shareholders. So just like the Red Sea isn't red, it's just a name after all, so CN is not Canadian. In fact, just as C. Parkhurst said in a previous posting there has been a grand effort to remove that "canadian" word when referring to the "national railway." However, if you wanted to talk canadian railways, we did have one, owned and operated by the B.C. government since 1918 - it's name was B.C. Rail. That's just about a hundred years for a government-owned business, quite a success story.I guess a mere hundred years doesn't make the government a good steward in your books.You're right, we've still got the rail bed but it's kind of like getting a train set for Christmas, with the train missing and only a lonely set of tracks in the box.It's kind of sad , especially when you realize you'll never be able to afford to buy the train. Not in even a thousand years. While we're talking money, you may be interested, but maybe not, to find out that CN donated over 122,000 dollars between 1996 and 2003 towards Gordon Campbell's election funding.

sdgreen; Take your blinkers off. Canadian National was created out of the financial mess left behind by railroad barons of early last century. Why? Because in order to grow governments realized those ribbons of steel were crucial in a country where 95 per cent of people lived within an hour of the U.S. border. When the fat cats milked the old Grand Trunk, Canadian Northern and the other rail lines, that now make up CN, of all the dollars, (both private and public) invested into them, someone (government) had to pick up the pieces and keep the country rolling. CN was actually one hell of a company during its tenure as a crown corporation, something many Canadians were proud of. Oh, did I mention there was also the private sector CPR operating at the same time, thanks to overly generous government grants of land and tax dollars that landed old John A. in a pile of controversy. Something about successful lobbying of a drunk by greedy capitalists. (Sorry, but something about that last thought has stirred a sense a of deja vu in me). You sound very much like an apologist for those capitalists who are only too anxious for the public to create the infrastructure through tax dollars, but only if the infrastructure can be flipped to political supporters by politicians who lie to get elected and then lie when they get caught helping their buddies. You ask '' Is the government a good railway steward? But, in your haste to make your point (with absolutely nothing to back up your ideological stand), you conclude with a well thought out ''no.'' Perhaps you could elaborate a bit so that we too may see the logic behind your reasoning and while you're at it, you might explain why government should also get out of public hydro, health, education and water among other services the capitalists are now drooling over. The public (and that's most of us) are profiting quite nicely from these wise public sector investments. We certainly don't need to hand them over just because the school yard bully is demanding something for nothing. I would urge you to turn your attention to educating the young would-be barons who, armed with the MBAs etc., hope to emulate those earlier barons of industry. You might encourage them to actually think creatively and build or develop industries or services that add to the wealth of the country. Canadian have learned through trial and error that some things are simply best left in the hands of responsible people whose first priority isn't short term profits for oneself.

Well said Allan. I realise this next statement is off topic a little, but I think all it gives food for thought, as everything that is good for BC is for sale and if BC needs a product or ferry, it appears that it has to be an offshore purchase. Here are a few initials to think about : NAFTA; GATT; WTO; IMF. " Strike, the CEO's and politicians say,we'll simply move the factory to the foreign workers and if the foreign workers strike, so will the death squads."

sdgreen;I like your broken record schtick.You sound like a typical Howe St parasite who can't get beyond "government evil,Gordy&His privateering buddies good".I look forward to a cogent,well thought out argument to support your ideological rantings but I know I'll be waiting a long time for that;say about 1,000 years.

Good on you Lewis Swift

A LIAR IS A LIAR IS A LIAR. GORDON CAMPBELL IS A LIAR. Who was in the car with him in Maui anyway? The fast ferry business cost what it cost but we had an asset that worked. Liberal propaganda along with Media, Business and the spin doctors at the Fraser Institute connivance blew a deck into an election 'win. Too bad mendacity and prevarication rules Gordon's elistist 'creme de la creme' society. It seems to be getting harder and harder for Campbell apologists to make and honest defence of such a dishonest man.

Campbell claims to be a voracious reader. I wonder if he ever read Dostoyevsky : " Lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others."

So Campbell sold BC, Now we do not need him in Victoria, He gave everything away, We can manage, without the DIMWITS in Campbell Goverenment. Fire the whole buncch in Victoria, BC. Wacky got us the goodies, and this idiot, selling everything.

Obviously you guys can't see beyond the rocks in the mountain! Is the government a good railway steward? No! No government is! Is BCRail being run by Americans? No, it is being run by a Canadian Railway company called CN! Does the CN Railway have experience in the operation of a railway? Yes, they have been in business for a hell of lot longer than BC Rail. Does CN have depth of rolling stock, equipment? Yes, way more! BC still owns the rail beds, alas the NDP was going to sell the whole thing! Stop crying .. BC Rail will be one hell of a lot better than before! - end quote Ah yes SD Green the retiree on Van Isle. Seen your postings before on canada.com..the soundoffs. A Liberal apologist in the extreme. For one piece of info..that YOU DON't have SD Green...CN is NOT Canadian any longer it is owned by some American in Chicago I believe. And recently within the past few years..the owner passed a memo around to his employees ..FORBIDDING them to say the word Canadian in reference to CN or Canadian National..it is to be called CN from now on. So NO it is no longer a Canadian company. Everyone knows that ..how come you don't? Too busy reading the Lieberal website to pay attention? Thought so.

G Shuck, can you explain to me why you think BC Rail will be better run now that it is being operated by CN?

People are mad: please let start by ignoring people like sdgreen and bring about a clear cut and concise plan for maintaining the trasnportation form the heartland to the south and from the south to the heartland. Public transportation debate is a must.

I once worked for CN when it was owned by Canadians and while there were inefficiencies it was profitable and it was ours! Now E. Hunter Harrison (paid 12 million dollars last year) of Chicago is the CEO and has appointed relatives and other Americans to positions throughout the company. Money, equipment and material were diverted from the well maintained Canadian sections to shore up tracks that had fallen into disrepair when Harrison was CEO of Illinois Central where he made his rep. by achieving the best operating ratio of all railroads by running the tracks into the mud with poor maintenance. More than 50 % of revenues are now generated in the states and more than 50 % of traffic is now cross border. The culture of the company has totally changed, its all about efficiency (read return on Operating ratios, investment in US Railroads and share prices so's Mr Harrison's bonus can stay at stratospheric levels) and screw the workers in Canada until they can't take it anymore. HE has tried once and will eventually succeed in renaming the company, the only people fooled by the "Canadian" in CN are Canadians who bought and paid for the railway and the lands it traverses with their blood and sweat, but lost it all by allowing corrupt politicians to give it away. Soon all that will be left in our hands will be the highways because the provincial government subsidizes them to the tune of a billion dollars a year. Funny how quickly people rose up to retain the Coquihalla when it was for sale. But you just wait the highways will be sold off to Americans as soon as a smart company can find a way to bamboozle Campbell and Co. into paying for the sale and ongoing maintenance while they take the profits back to the states. Most canadians still sleep as our birthright is sold out from under us. We have the big business toadying mainstream media to make sure we stay asleep by liberally salting their pro big business pages, news hours and radio shows with lots of items of froth and crap.

Nice article here, and a lot of informative and entertaining comments afterwards. It's not quite on-topic, but I have to say that it seems something of a con that half the appeal of the Tyee is the readers' comments, and yet for the editor & publisher, there's no work involved there at all. Maybe Beers & Hovan can use all those spare hours we've created for them to get a paper version of the Tyee happening ... just in time for the Grand Expunging of 2005?

as a 30 yr.vet of this r/road i can tell you that it 's profits were constantly rising to a point at least close to 95 mill. last yr. to sell it so cheap is like dumping hydro because it cost you x dollars to build a dam that will contribute to your economy . most of the debt was tumbler ridge a investment for the prov. of 20 years that is still going,+ to be opened up again. if you were to apply the profits of the sale of the port sub" roberts bank' and the bc rail marine. these suppossed debts will be very little indeed. of course there will be new rolling stock to buy ,well just like buying paint for cars does gm. or ford worry about these costs. every year we've had to update our rolling stock.this is smoke and mirrors. maybe the lib. mantra of any debt at any cost in one term has somthing to do with the sale or the cn.contribution of 128 thou to the party does

It is about time that a B.C. government has stood up to the unions in this province. The legacy of Glen Clark was caving in to the demands of B.C. unions and 33 labor stoppages, the most notable of which resulted in the complete shutdown of public transit in Vancouver for several months. Placing the NDP in charge of negotiating with a public sector union is like having a fox guard the henhouse, and now the chickens have come home to roost! From eight years service in the army as a non-commissioned officer, I learned that leaders often have to make tough decisions. Leadership is not a popularity contest. A political thinker named Edmund Burke once said that, "Your representative owes you not only his industry; but his judgment, and he betrays instead of serves you if he sacrifices it to your opinion." I quickly grew tired of B.C. being an uncompetitive have-not NDP province. I am glad to see that someone is making the necessary tough decisions. Thank you Premier Gordon Campbell! At Royal Columbian Hospital in New Westminster, HEU members are paid $22.50/hour to pour coffee in the hospital coffee shop. That is outrageous. Tim Horton would turn over in his grave! By the way, I am also a union member and have never voted NDP in my life and never will. Jim Sinclair does NOT speak for me. I voted for this and I expect the B.C. Liberals to follow it through.

so if this is the open and transparency promised byt he campbell soup gang , where is the infamous agreement tht governs the terms and conditions of the agreement? Didnt gordon(pour me another ) Campbell say that the agreement would be publicized once the deal went through? and didnt he say that he and his croniers would be open and transparent and accountable. Better take a look and see what entity is gonna be put up on blocks next?