They also helped production companies win the government subsidies needed to please the accountants.
Instead, the vast subsidies needed to persuade potential investors bankroll a host of new low-carbon electricity generators in the coming years will be largely financed by slapping £95 a year on the average household bill by 2020.
VIA was formed in the hope that it would permit an economy of scale not possible when the CN and CP railroads ran independent passenger services, thereby reducing the subsidies needed to support Canada's rail-passenger system.
Without enough trust in government, the changes to the systems of taxes or subsidies needed to reduce the deficit could easily stir new unrest in the streets, just as such moves have in the past.
The speech comes after David Cameron told a committee of MPs recently that his enthusiasm for the scheme had been "reduced" by concerns over the high subsidies needed to make the project commercial.
It is one in which firms are able to offer competitively priced renewable power without the hefty government subsidies needed to encourage investment elsewhere, such as solar parks in cloudy Germany or offshore wind farms in the rough waters of the North Sea.
