If you're referring to the original Canadian Pacific Railway Route that was constructed between 1875 and 1885, you have to look at what happened between the last 140 years. They had a significant investment, but the manpower was mostly Chinese and European labour, and they were paid $1 a day in 1875 which equates to maybe $45 to $50 in 2025 dollars. That, and they had to purchase their own safety equipment and so on.
Things moved much quicker because Canada was JUST being founded through treaties, including the land which the Canadian Pacific Railway sits upon. Things also moved very quickly because we're talking about 15,000 Chinese labourers, and anywhere from 10,000 to 11,000 European labourers - Europeans on the Eastern section, Chinese on the Western section. Building out a new rail in a developed section of the country is going to present significantly more challenges, and while I do support building it out, I just don't see any Canadian company being able to do it without it taking over a decade to do. We're talking about a significant amount of manpower.
All of this to say that we are not where we were 140 years ago. If the government wants to build ALTO, they're going to have to find a company through P3 that can come up with similar manpower if they want to open it up by 2029. No law being passed is going to speed up progress. What speeds up progress is employers being willing to train people, and being able to retain talent. I mean, have you had a look at some of these job postings?
Entry level positions that are asking for 5 to 10 years of experience for a position where the wages don't make much sense in the industry unless you're somehow making passive income to make up for it.
In order to get a good quality system built within a reasonable timeframe, you need to see long term investment from construction companies in the younger and upcoming generation. This includes training both in class and on the job, certifications on equipment, constant coaching, and the ability to retain a large number of the workforce over a significant period of time. When the older generation retires and a company loses their best workers, they either go belly up, or have to battle raising wages for existing talent that won't leave their positions easily. Along with that, the bureaucratic red tape through both the provincial and federal government needs to be addressed. Bureaucratic bloat needs to be addressed. Being able to scale up and scale down bureaucratic resources to issue permits and so on needs to be solved. Essentially, the government needs to run more efficiently when a project as large as this exists. Without all of these things (and a few more that I don't know of), you'll run into issues where it takes decades longer. As a
Luxury Custom Home Builder Toronto families trust, we face similar problems in construction.
