Disregard For The Rule of Law

"It's a symbol of the short-sighted damage that this administration is doing to the world's most important bilateral trading relationship."

"Businesses in Ontario are angry. My American business friends and partners, they say the same thing. They're angry about unacceptable delays in the opening of infrastructure that is essential to their economy and to ours."

"It yet again appears the private interest is being prioritized over the public interest of both 
Americans and Canadians."

"What will be really sad here is if there is any significant delay in getting this infrastructure open at the exact time that businesses in both countries are struggling and trying to invest in their own growth." 

Daniel Tisch, president, Ontario chamber of Commerce

The Gordie Howe International Bridge is silhouetted against an orange sky over the Detroit River between Windsor and Detroit. (Pratyush Dayal/CBC)

 

Ottawa and Michigan signed an agreement in 2012 over plans to build a new bridge linking Michigan with Ontario for transport purposes. It was mutually agreed that Canada would have sole responsibility for the design, construction and financing of the project, the new international trade crossing bridge to be named in memory of storied Canadian hockey player Gordie Howe. Toll revenues from the Gordie Howe International Bridge, it was agreed, would be evenly shared between Canada and the State of Michigan, once Canada had recovered construction costs through initial revenues.

 

The bridge's time had come. The existing bridge, the almost-century-old Ambassador Bridge, no longer has the capacity to handle the volume of trade between Canada and the U.S. "If you think about all the automotive parts that come from Canadian plants, the border should not be a bottleneck in the transportation process", explained supply chain expert Professor Fraser Johnson of the Ivey Business School, Western University. 

 

The Ambassador Bridge stretches between Windsor, Ont. and Detroit. (Patrick Morrell/CBC)

 

Each day, the Ambassador Bridge sees over $390 million of trade passing through between the two trading partners, which represents 26 percent of Canadian exports by road, according to Transport Canada's 2021 data. Built in 1929, the bridge lacks the handling capacity relative to the volume of trade between Canada and the United States. "Everybody gets hurt whenever there's a disruption" of the supply chain that links Windsor and Detroit, reflecting the level of integration, remarked mechanical engineering professor Peter Frise at the University of Windsor.

 

Truckers have good reason to look forward to new efficiencies with the bridge opening, alleviating congestion and diverting Ontario's Highway 401 and Interstate 75 heavy truck traffic away from city streets in Windsor. Truckers and businesses making use of the existing corridor means higher toll costs for each day of delay, time lost in congestion on the limited four-lane width of the Ambassador Bridge. Bridge crews place orange traffic cones by hand to change traffic direction before the evening traffic rush.

 

The six-lane deck of the Gordie Howe International Bridge stretches across the Detroit River between Windsor, Ont., and Detroit. A federal briefing note obtained by CBC News says the crossing has been 'essentially complete' since February. (Submitted by the Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority)

 

A level of frustrated controversy erupted in February when Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that the bridge would not be opened until the U.S. was "fully compensated". Just a week ago, Michigan Republican House Speaker Matt Hall stated that the U.S. should receive half of the new bridge's toll revenue, presumably even before Canada recouped the $6.4 billion it spend building the bridge. Leading Daniel Tisch to observe this would be a "disregard for the rule of law" to place an agreement already signed back on the table.

 

The Ambassador Bridge owners, the Moroun family, spent years through lawsuits fighting the construction of another bridge to take traffic between the two countries, which would disturb their monopoly. They had been major contributors to President Trump's election campaign, and had his ear, lobbying for some kind of intervention. And so, Mr. Trump listened, and he made his position known, evidently believing that Canada owed the U.S. something for having built a bridge with Canadian tax funding, as though this entitles him to belittle the enterprise and extract financial concessions over an imagined imbalance. 

 

U.S. President Donald Trump said Canada would not be permitted to proceed with the Gordie Howe International Bridge 'unless America got a piece of it, too,' despite the bridge being financed and built by Canada. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)