Categories: Andrew Coyne, Capital Read

And if you believe that, I've got a bridge to sell you

by Andrew Coyne on Monday, February 8, 2010 11:50pm - 6 Comments

Actually, it’s true: Ottawa mulls buying Windsor-Detroit Ambassador Bridge

Tags: irony

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burlivespipe

Well, I doubt the new bridge is part of the scenario if we're buying the old one. Although it would just be like Harper to create a second, partisan bridge to attack the old one from.
http://intensedebate.com/people/DerekPearce DerekPearce

The new bridge needs to be built regardless. The Ambassador is mostly a backed up traffic nightmare and a new bridge with customs plazas would streamline trade more efficiently.

Janet

There are problems with backups on the Ambassador bridge, but they're nowhere near as bad as stated here – it's certainly better than, say, the Gardiner on a Friday afternoon. A new bridge is needed but I doubt that we'll see the end of Ambassador unless governments make it so. Anyone who has watched traffic over the bridge since Sept 11 can see that backups have far more to do with the number of customs booths available – and how intrusive border agents are – than it does with the number of spans or the age of the Bridge.

If Harper's government wanted another bridge in addition to the public one already in the works they could try to facilitate the second span of the Ambassador Bridge that Maroun wants to build (using private dollars) but is being held up by red tape. (Maroun's request that another span of the river be blocked should be ignored, though.) Instead Harper is looking to eliminate Canada's only private border crossing, apparently simply for the sake of nationalizing it.

Trillium

A bridge near the end of it's useful life, with it's revenues about to be cut in half by a new one…and the benefit to Canada in all this?

You need an emoticon on here for :rolls eyes:.
Dot

This requires some background music:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83bmsluWHZc

Tags: irony (well, they were both for better flow of goods)
JoeBlog

Harper personally has tried at least 3 times to discuss the Windsor/Detroit border with US Presidents Bush and Obama and has been rebuffed.

If this story is true, it makes a mockery of the Government's position that it should spend billions to build a new bridge a mile downriver!

It is absolutely clear now that their whole Detroit River International Crossing exercise was nothing more than trying to take over the Ambassador Bridge cheaply by threatening to bankrupt Moroun's business.

This all started in 2002 and we are no further ahead and in fact we are worse off since there have been lawsuits started that will take a decade to finish.

By the time this is over, the bridge will become a symbol of our worsening relationship with the US–remember NAFTAgate— and could become our next softwood lumber dispute.

Check out windsorcityblog's latest BLOG on "Border Vindication" to understand what is going on

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