Mike Hurst'll Turn Off The Light For You!

Remember Tom Bodet's famous tagline for Motel 6 in their radio and TV ads. Well I changed it a bit to celebrate the death of DRTP. Well, it's unofficial end anyway.

It has been pretty clear that DRTP was finished. The Bi-national Engineers' criteria of a 6-lane truck expressway through Windsor leading to a new 6-lane tunnel under or a 6-lane bridge over the river was the final nail in its coffin as far as I was concerned. Something that would destroy Windsor's heart or that might negatively impact Detroit's waterfront ambitions is just NOT going to happen. Never mind the huge cost.

Of course, OMERS cannot kill off DRTP until after the Financial Services Commission of Ontario issues its report respecting its review "with regard to some of OMERS investment practices, specifically in relation to Borealis Infrastructure. FSCO has indicated that it is reviewing this material to determine whether certain OMERS investments are consistent with the requirements of the Pension Benefits Act."

If DRTP were written down or written off, then such action in itself might well provide the basis of a very negative FSCO Report. So DRTP is still around in name.

As you will recall, FSCO started its review over a year ago and has still not issued a report. That it should take so long is shocking since OMERS keeps increasing its contributions rates.

The delay is especially shameful since the OMERS Act is also in the process of being changed. I recently wrote to the Minister of Finance about this stating:

• "Recently, your colleague, Minister Gerretsen proposed a new Governance model for OMERS. How that can be suggested at a time when OMERS is being investigated is astounding.
  
  Your colleague stated:
  
  "Certainly the whole intent of referring this legislation to a legislative committee after first reading is so that there can be full and very open and very frank discussions between all the stakeholders, whether they're employers or employees. We intend to do that through the legislative process… We want to give OMERS full autonomy, just like all the other public pension plans in Ontario. We intend to do that, and the legislative process has been set up to, in effect, allow that to happen."
  
  I do not understand how there can be such discussions until stakeholders, especially the taxpayers of this Province who contribute to the Plan through their municipalities, know what errors have been made, if any, and what actions need to be taken to correct them."

Why do I make the bold assertion that DRTP is dead?

I recently went to the OMERS site http://www.omers.com and saw its new design. I think it is quite attractive and a nice use of taxpayer and pensioner money. I clicked on "Infrastructure" to see what was new with DRTP. It was not identified on the main page as a key asset while the PEI Confederation Bridge was.

Next I clicked on "Assets" and read about the "Detroit River Rail Tunnel." That was described as the the 8,5OO-foot Detroit River Rail Tunnel that links Windsor and Detroit that OMERS jointly owns with Canadian Pacific Railway.

I thought that was peculiar. I hadn’t seen the OMERS/CP Rail Windsor asset being described that way before. There was a reference to "Additionally, a $600 million new rail tunnel and high-speed truck route are proposed for completion within five years" and a direction to the DRTP website.

The use of the word "additionally" in corporate-speak seemed to downplay the importance of DRTP. Clearly some genius at OMERS/Borealis/CP Rail figured out that to save face, they better talk about the existing rail tunnel and not the DRTP.

The mystery was deepening so next I clicked on the Borealis Infrastructure website itself http://www.borealisinfrastructure.com Nothing at all about DRTP on the "Snapshot" page. Then there was something strange called "the Detroit River Tradeway Tunnel" on the "Investment Criteria" page. [That seemed like the rail tunnel and DRTP rolled into one since Tradeway was the DRTP name before "The Jobs Tunnel"]. I suspected I would find something under "Assets." And I did: the "Detroit River Rail Tunnel" language again.

I was very confused now so I quickly went to the "News Releases" page to find how DRTP morphed into the Detroit River Rail Tunnel/Detroit River Tradeway Tunnel. Lo and behold, not a word about the Windsor/Detroit project!

I was desperate by now. I went to their "SEARCH" page and typed in lowercase for searching "detroit river tunnel partnership" and "drtp" and received the answer: "no results found"

This made no sense to me at all. What happened to DRTP? Where had it gone? Why was it being de-emphasized and the almost 100 year-old rail tunnels given such prominent attention? And then it hit me. I knew the answer. I went to the DRTP page http://www.thejobstunnel.com and there was the solution, staring me right in the face.

DRTP HEARS COMMUNITY:
Offers Enhancements to Make Project

Near Invisible.

Ex-Mayor and DRTP CEO Mike Hurst succeeded brilliantly in carrying out his second last function at DRTP.

Unlike Tom Bodet, now it’s time he carry out the last job since he will be the last one out of the door.