Putting Canadian Passenger Rail Back on Track: A Multiple Streams Framework Analysis

Presenter: Matthew Boulden, McGill University While Canada has lagged behind European and eastern Asian countries in advancing passenger rail infrastructure, such as High-Speed Rail, the 2019 announcement of the federal government’s commitment to assessing VIA Rail’s High-Frequency Rail [HFR] proposal demonstrates a noteworthy shift in federal transportation policy priorities. Given the growing influence of environmental concerns on Canadian politics and public policy, could this phenomenon play a crucial role in explaining the place of HFR on the government’s policy agenda? By conducting elite-level interviews and document analysis, this research seeks to answer this question by utilizing the Multiple Streams Framework which examines the inner-workings of the problem, policy and politics streams. In doing so, the influence of a multitude of factors are considered in order to understand what caused a policy window to open for the HFR project, thus leading to the opportunity for VIA Rail (the policy entrepreneur) to couple the streams and push this proposal onto the government’s decision agenda. Through this holistic analysis of the agenda-setting process, the role of environmental politics - including its prominence within the problem stream and its influence on actors within the politics stream - is examined. Ultimately, this research finds the influence of environmental considerations and political incentives, along with a combination of other critical factors, enabled the HFR proposal to enter the government’s agenda. Our discussion continues the debate regarding the role of environment in this policy process by questioning whether this factor was essential for the project’s appeal or merely utilized as lip-service for political opportunism. — — — Matthew is a second-year Political Science Masters student at McGill University with a specialization in Canadian Politics and Public Policy. Matthew is completing his Masters' thesis on Canadian passenger rail policy this spring and will be starting Law school at McGill University in the fall.