Good history. It seems clear that the 1990 cuts, under right-winger Brian Mulroney, were the most brutal, hostile anti-passenger cuts in Canada's history. They specifically ripped the heart out of the system; most of the previous, and most of the subsequent, cuts had been to weaker branch lines or related to damaged track or bridges (with some exceptions) -- while the Mulroney axe wrecked all service to any province other than Ontario and Quebec. And Ontario and Quebec were really only preserved by provincial takeover of a lot of the services. It really looks like an attempt to kill the system entirely.
In North America, only Mexico's destruction of its entire passenger train network under President Zedillo is worse. US cuts were bad, but never this bad.
It's particularly notable that these attacks were done during the time when passenger rail demand was starting a long, and sustained, upturn; rail demand rose continuously, and quickly, during the 1990s. I consider the Mulroney cuts to be sabotage.
Amtrak took advantage of the rising demand despite attacks from some sectors of government and the moronic "Mercer Consulting cuts" of 1996 which were reversed within a year. VIA couldn't, because Mulroney had sabotaged VIA.
Zedillo was President of Mexico in 1995; his sabotage of the Mexican system also stuck.
So there were concerted sabotage attempts against the passenger rail systems in Canada, the US, and Mexico all at around the same time. We were lucky to have Clinton as President when the sabotage attempt against Amtrak came; it got reversed as a result. Mexico and Canada were not so lucky.
