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1911
It was the age of the railway and the CPR
had brought prosperity, immigrants, business and
progress on it's tracks. The spur lines were shooting
off from he main line and spreading the bounty with
their expansion. Laurier and his government had
benefited from the railway as the world wide economic
recession of the early 1890's ended and the settlers
from eastern Canada, the US, Britain, and Europe arrived
in the west, establishing farms, building cities and
producing prosperity.
When Laurier was
approached by Charles Hay of the Grand Trunk Railway
about building a second line across the country, he was
not opposed to the idea and in fact was willing to
support this enterprise. Railways seemed to be the key
to development and the Canadian public was ready for
another national project by 1903 expected that it would
re-ignite the excitement and growth of the 1880-1885
period when the CPR pushed it's way to the Pacific
Ocean. Laurier felt that the building of the railway
could be used as a key plank in an election and
instructed his administration to get a deal done.
The Grand Trunk was expected to build the
western section of the railway with the backing by the
Government of the bonds issued to pay for the
construction. The line would go from Moncton New
Brunswick to Prince Rupert British Columbia and would
follow a more northern route on the Prairies. The cost
of the western section was estimated to be about $60
million. The eastern section would be built by the
Canadian Government and then leased to the Gran Trunk
for free for 7 years. They could then lease the line for
an additional 43 years at the cost of 3% of the initial
cost to build it per year.
Laurier took the deal
and the project and went to the electorate in 1904. He
won a resounding victory picking up 139 seats to the
Conservatives 55 and the construction began. When the
line was finished the western section had gone from $60
million to $160 million and the eastern section had cost
$140 million instead of the expected $85 million.
Northern Ontario was opened up and the settlers began to
fill the northern farmlands of the Prairies. Over 1200
miles of spur lines flooded into the newly occupied
lands. In 1914
the line reached Prince Rupert and the mining, forestry
and fishery riches of Northern British Columbia began to
flow out to the world. Like the CP the Grand Trunk built
hotels, ships, mining operations, support industries and
spawned business all along the line. In 1915, hoping to
get a better deal, the Grand Trunk decided not to renew
their lease for the eastern section of the railway and
the government took over the lines. This gamble did not
pay off for the Grand Trunk and the greed of the
directors drove it quickly into bankruptcy with the
government taking over the rest of the operation.
The third railway
enterprise, the Canadian Northern Transcontinental,
started in a modest fashion in 1896 as a short line in
Manitoba which Mackenzie and Mann slowly built into
another railway empire through the use of government
backed bonds and subsidies. They managed to secure over
$66 million in subsidies from the Canadian Government
for the line they built along the Yellowhead route from
Edmonton to Vancouver. They also built hotels and
shipping lines and exploited every business opportunity
they could in connection to the railway business and
they boomed for years.
One the war started in
1914 and business tightened fro all three railways, the
Canadian Northern Transcontinental, like the Grand Trunk
faced hard times and once the cards of their house of
cards began to fall they also ended up in bankruptcy and
out of the process the Canadian government took the two
defunked railways and formed the Canadian National
Railway, a government run operation.
Although the war marked the end off the
golden age of railways in Canada, they were still the
main transportation mode for another 35 years and still
play an important role in the freight industry in Canada
today. |
