Pages

Saturday, November 06, 2010

Pension Plans own High Speed Rail

The Ontario Teachers Pension Plan and Borealis teamed up to buy the high speed rail link between London and the Channel tunnel. They now get to operate the link for thirty years. Of course, this changes nothing about the situation in Canada. We still don't have high speed rail. It's a bit ironic that Canadian investors are investing in high speed rail in foreign countries, but politicians are still unwilling to accept that high speed rail does make money and will help us. High speed rail should come to Canada and fast. It should be part of Canada's plan for the future.
The Channel tunnel rail link has become the latest piece of British infrastructure to be snapped up by acquisitive Canadian pension funds.
Two of Canada's largest pension funds, the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan and Borealis, the infrastructure investment arm of the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (Omers), have paid £2.1bn to operate Britain's only high-speed railway line for the next 30 years. It is the first privatisation deal done by the coalition government as it sets about slashing Britain's record debt.
Read more at the Guardian.

Enhanced by Zemanta

1 comment:

Any highly offensive matter will be deleted whether it be solid, water, gas or plasma. No comments from outsiders represent the opinions of Owner and Doggy or vanillaman. We reserve the right to delete any comments without explanation.