Trudeau transportation minister SLAMMED over commuter train disaster

Under the Trudeau Liberals, Canada's travel woes continue to worsen, with commuter trains being the latest victim of government mismanagement.

From the outside looking in, you'd likely be surprised to learn that Canada is a country that's own charter guarantees its citizens the right to travel, live, and work freely across its provinces and territories. But in recent months, just getting from point A to point B has become a headache.

Put aside the international embarrassment that is Canada's airports—with Pearson recently being ranked the world's worst airport for flight days—and forget about the imbroglio at passport offices. Canadians are now having trouble simply commuting to work without their own vehicle, made worse when Trudeau decided to hike the carbon tax during one of the worst periods of inflation in Canadian history. Many aren't willing to or can't afford to make the costly trip to their offices.

As the Liberals are making car travel nearly impossible, you'd think they'd want to incentivize train travel, but now VIA is flat-out refusing to take workers to their offices. Ontario Environment Minister David Piccini recently drew attention to this in a video posted to social media. In this, Piccini raises a good point: how can commuters get to work if the Liberals have butchered every form of public transportation, and have made car travel unaffordable.

From an Ontario train station, Piccini states: "Before COVID, this station was packed early in the morning as residents from across our community and region boarded Train 651 to head into the city or elsewhere in Durham Region before 9 am." He states that the once viable and reliable community service is now unavailable.

"This service is no longer here," he says, due to VIA's cancelling of the service "without any explanation why."

At the beginning of the pandemic, VIA decided to cut all their commuter trains into the city. Now as Ontario, and Canada, open up again, VIA still has not resumed these services, and won't provide an explanation to the Canadian public.

Pressure could be relieved by the Trudeau government, but that simply isn't on the cards. The Liberals recently increased the gas tax—something they intend to do every year until 2030—and Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson has said on repeated occasions that Canada is not considering a gas tax holiday, something that many of our G7 allies have already done.

Those without cars or who are simply not willing to sit in traffic for hours to make it into the city are out of luck.

The issue falls on the lap of Minister Omar Alghabra, who has not made the grade once during his tenure as the transportation czar.

The Kermit-voiced minister has had a rough year. For months he was forced to defend irrational policies that led to some of the more floundering political interviews you'll see in your lifetime. Then, he put the blame back on travelers for being slow at getting their laptops out of their bags and into bins in time while going through airport security.

Canada's rail transport is in such a poor state that it has even caused embarrassment for Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault, who promised that he would spread the good word of climate activism by taking the train across Canada. That plan has since been put on ice, as the minister's office admitted that it was not possible due to the lack of service.