All of corporate Canada is like five oligopolies in a trench coat. But their apologists live to pretend that this is free market capitalism while hiding behind the government's skirt.
CN and CP are great companies.... For their shareholders. Just like Bell, Telus, Rogers, Air Canada, WestJet, Loblaws, Sobeys, Metro, TD, RBC, BMO, Scotiabank, etc. They do shit all to build the country though. And with the exception of a few banks they are so poorly managed, they wouldn't survive a day in an actually competitive market so they never leave Canada. Just milk Canadians. It's great for my RRSP. But as a citizen I'd actually like better public services.....
Again, you're posting misleading and ignorant stories and throwaway lines as if you know what you're talking about, which is why I finally made a disparaging remark upthread about the quality of the information you provided. You make a lot of claims about what you know about tech, but if I assume you know as much about that as what you just wrote, I have to assume you know next to nothing useful. Gell-Mann beckons to you.
Telecom is vital infrastructure in Canada, and the companies compete openly, practicing definitional capitalism: reinvestment of capital in the means of production. Not only is the country "built" in respect of their turf, but they "rebuild" it every few years with each new generation of tech. "I heard from a X subscriber" stories don't count.
Grocery stores are vital; the big chains' profit margins are typically 2% to 4% - that's not evidence of a non-competitive market, nor is any location where you can stand and see four or five big chain stores within a half-mile.
All the corporations work within the frameworks governments in this country impose - governments are, as pretty much everywhere, a prime cause of market distortions; and, the things governments do are heavily driven by the desires of politicians to please voters. There isn't really an army of brilliant technocrats working under green lampshades to design a more perfect society, although undoubtedly there are people who think of themselves that way.
HSR isn't going to build the country. I'm confident that it will be a boondoggle, and that when the calls for more money start coming in, "defence" is likely to be the first place the federal government will prune unless it just decides to borrow more (and even then, "defence" will still be the most likely victim if restraint is imposed just to cover the costs of servicing the additional debt). I'd rather have the defence spending than an over budget, over schedule, underutilized, perpetually subsidized piece of bespoke railway architecture to satisfy Europhiles.
