Question: When is a five-year, $700 million funding plan not a five-year $700 million plan Answer: When your name is David Collenette and you work in a lame-duck, scandal plagued, and ethically bankrupt Jean Chretien government.

Transport Minister Collenette has announced a $692.5 million gift to VIA Rail for new cars, station and track upgrades. This spending spree is the latest chapter in a series of continuing and incremental moves to lay the tracks for high-speed rail - a la France or Japan - in the Quebec City to Windsor corridor.

Yet a spokesman for Prime-Minister-in-waiting Paul Martin, did his best TGV imitation (that's France's high-speed train) and derailed the champagne corking party at VIA Rail HQ in record time stating that the announcement would be reviewed by Mr. Martin and orders for new train cars should wait.

While cautionary words from the Martin camp are welcome, some fundamental issues with respect to the viability of high-speed rail, the operations of VIA Rail, and the balance that one must strike in setting federal transportation policy - a balance Mr. Collenette is incapable of finding after seven painful years as Minster - deserve exploration.

High Speed Rail: Canadian rail buffs have lobbied for the mythical 3-hour Toronto to Montreal trip for over 30 years. They dream of "civilized", downtown to downtown relaxing travel in spacious rail cars as opposed to traffic-jammed highways and frustrating airport to airport commutes. It's a lovely dream, but a public policy nightmare.

Simply put, this proposal makes no economic sense. Population density ensures that this high-speed rail corridor will never make enough money to justify the costs. Not even the TGV is economically sustainable. Only Japan's bullet trains which serve a corridor of 60 million people (as opposed to 8 million in the Ontario-Quebec jaunt) recoup their costs operational costs with start-up costs being written off.

Track changes, rolling stock purchases and a signal upgrades put the bill for high-speed rail in Canada at $3 billion to start before operational costs are even included.

Via Rail: Which brings us to VIA Rail - a red ink stained Crown Corporation. Saddled with a high union wage bill and speckled on-time performance, VIA lost $158 million on operations in 2000, $143 million in 2001 and another $172 million in 2002. As well, reports indicate the acquisition of its new Renaissance cars is $110 million over budget.

Based on previous announcements and a first phase $400 million bailout in 2000, taxpayers now subsidize VIA to the tune of a quarter of a billion dollars annually. In any rationale analysis, such consistently abysmal performance would never merit an additional $700 million of taxpayer cash. But then again, Conductor Collenette is in charge.

Federal Policy: So official Ottawa is now committed to throwing $1.1 billion ($400 million in Y2K plus $700 million in 2K3) of good taxpayer money after bad for a Cuckoo Choo Choo. Yet it continues to gouge Canada's eight largest airports to the tune of $250 million annually in rent payments.

It's a great slumlord scheme. The feds neglected airport investment for the better part of two decades then devolved responsibility for these aging facilities to local authorities in the 1994 National Airports Policy. Airports then charged improvement fees to passengers to repair decaying facilities but continued and continue to pay Ottawa unjustifiable rent for crumbling buildings.

Then there is Paul Martin's post 9-11 flying tax, aviation fuel taxes, etc. and restrictive ownership rules that have battered our aviation sector. Sadly, Mr. Collenette's $700 million scheme is just the latest station stop on an expensive Cuckoo Choo Choo ride and taxpayers want off, now!