The Petition to fund the restoration and enhancement of Vancouver Island's Railway Corridor just reached 800 signatures!
I want to personally thank our generous promoters Greg Boulter, Jim Pilcher, Brian Warrington, David Stocks, Lorna Beecroft, Sam Brownlee, Harvey Burian, Janice Reed, Leah Taylor, Judy Atcheson, Jason Beddows, Faye Fergusson, Lynn Hickey, Trevor Morris, and Evelyn Lepin for the collective $402.91 that added 216 signatures!
Remember to share the link with friends, family, or colleagues you know would love to travel by train on our magnificent island.
https://chng.it/7QZXncKjY8
Promoting the petition puts it front of more and more Canadian eyes. So many of them visit, tour, and even move here, so they may not understand what is at stake. People living on the island may not even know this is a new petition with a specific outcome, so many have been done before. Let them know this is a 2023 Petition to get it funded.
The last petition reached over 10,000 signatures and from that the B.C. Government and Federal Government engaged.
They are now deep in dialogue with First Nations, Regional Districts, and the Island Corridor Foundation trying to figure it out, but without a fund ready to go, how do they know what is in the art of the possible?
Having a $1 billion fund allocated to handle any mitigations required for First Nations concerns and to add other enhancements like additional safety equipment will go a long way toward getting this railway back up and operational.
Today, there are over $108 billion in rail projects going on throughout Canada. The Vancouver Island share based on a population of $40 million people is $2.4 billion! It's our turn, and time is not on our side.
We desperately need this railway, because if it’s cut up into pieces and the Right-of-way is lost, so is Vancouver Island’s chance at ever having a railway.
I've written OPED letters you can read that have a lot of details about the situation as I've uncovered it. There are lots of topics in the "Vancouver Island Rail Challenges" piece. Big media would never publish them, so I hosted them.
https://restoreislandrail.com/opinion-pieces
Thanks again,
Warren Skaalrud