OTTAWA -- A gradual reduction of the number of Via Rail routes would have drawn as much complaint as the more abrupt cut of services planned, Transport Minister Jean-Luc Pepin said this weekend.
Pepin defended the federal cabinet's decision to prune 20 percent of lightly used routes to save $100 million and buy new equipment during a weekend interview with Standard Broadcast News.
The cabinet bypassed public hearings and ordered Via Rail last week to cut services by mid-November. The move would affect some 1,600 employees.
Railway unions immediately vowed to stage rotating strikes and Conservative leader Joe Clark charged Pepin had violated the spirit of the law and was cutting Canada's transportation links.
The Tories said they would hold a series of townhall meetings this summer and ask Via Rail officials to prove the cuts were necessary.
Pepin said the cuts had been considered for a long time and were crucial.
'The only originality we have here is that instead of doing the 20-percent reduction over a period of four or five years, we are doing it in one shot in order to save the money to help ... Via out of its predicament,' Pepin said.
'Were we not to do something rather dramatic, like we are doing now, Via might crumble ... only by pruning we can help Via,' he said.
'Some people would have preferred to do it progressively over a period of time and by way of hearings. But cabinet and I agreed ... we were going to be damned anyway. So if we were going to be damned, we might as well be damned saving $100 million and begin to cut the vicious circle in which Via is.'
Via has been struggling to reduce a deficit which totalled $300 million in 1980 and was expected to hit $500 million by the end of 1981.
Pepin said the reductions would have taken place even if there had been public hearings. He debunked as a 'myth' claims Via is energy efficent.
'Railways are one of the least energy efficient, energy economic methods, if not the least,' he said. 'Why? Simply because it is not energy economic to drag an empty car and that is the situation now.'
Most of the savings would be used to buy new equipment, and some $30 million would be allocated to re-train and relocate 1,600 employees affected by the reductions, Pepin said.
