After weeks of political drama and years of construction and anticipation, there is finally a new opening day for the Gordie Howe International Bridge connecting Windsor, Ontario, to Detroit. According to CBC News, Ottawa says a deal to open the long awaited crossing is now done, and the federal government says the bridge will open on July 27th, more than a month after its last scheduled date.
The project had been in limbo for several weeks. According to the account, the opening had been on pause since June at the request of the United States, and the new date was confirmed after a series of media reports, including from CBC News. Sources say the agreement was reached between Canada and Michigan, with the support of the U.S. government, and was finalized on Thursday after negotiations that had been ongoing for about a month.
The delay came at the last possible moment earlier this summer. According to CBC News, the bridge had been set to open in June, but the day before the scheduled ribbon cutting ceremony, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced the opening would be delayed at the request of the U.S. so that the two sides could have the necessary time to resolve outstanding issues before the crossing went into service.
At the heart of the friction was a dispute over who paid and who benefits. According to the account, the bridge is jointly owned by Canada and Michigan, and it was initially proposed to ease a projected increase in traffic between Windsor and Detroit and specifically to help the flow of trade. Canada financed the entire 6.4 billion dollar project and plans to recoup the money through tolls collected once the bridge is open.
President Donald Trump had repeatedly taken issue with the arrangement. According to CBC News, in February Trump threatened to stop the opening unless the United States was, in his words, fully compensated, and just last week the U.S. ambassador to Canada said on a podcast that it is a big myth that Canada paid for the project, emphasizing that the bridge generates revenue through tolls and so will actually be paid for by those who use it.
Ottawa has signaled it is willing to keep talking on the financial details. According to the account, the Canadian side said it would work with the United States on toll rate adjustments, while on the American side the Republican candidate for Senate in Michigan said he had spoken with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who indicated the U.S. would get a better financial deal out of the arrangement.
The federal government's statement on Friday evening put some structure to the arrangement. It said the two countries had agreed to a series of cooperative measures focused on toll governance and transparency, along with a 15-year economic development fund tied to a portion of the profits from the bridge's operations. Housing and Infrastructure Minister Gregor Robertson said Canada will continue to collect all toll revenue, with half of the net profits directed to local economic development over 15 years.
Exactly what those terms mean remains unclear. It is not spelled out what the local economic development will consist of, nor what net profits refers to, and the minister's office declined to provide further details. Under the original deal signed in 2012, tolls were meant to pay off the 6.4 billion dollar cost of the bridge, and co-owner Michigan would only receive half the revenue once that debt was cleared, something likely to take decades.
That ambiguity has left local officials wanting answers, including some who paid for the bridge in the first place. The local member of Parliament said he was happy the crossing was opening but frustrated by the lack of information, noting that more had been heard from candidates running for office on the American side than from Canada's own government. Windsor's mayor offered a blunt theory, suspecting there will be very little net profit over the first 15 years, an outcome that he said allowed the president to step back and claim he had extracted more from Canada, even if little money actually changes hands.
For the communities on either side of the border, the priority is simply getting the bridge open. According to CBC News, Windsor's mayor said the crossing needs to open for the good of both countries, describing the Windsor-Detroit link as a key economic and tourism route, with the hope that it will ease congestion at the bridge and tunnel that already connect the two cities.