Plugging Up The Bill C-3 Leakor

How scared was someone knowing that Evidence was to be given by the Ambassador Bridge Co. executives in front of the Parliamentary Committee on Bill C-3?

VERY!

It was unbelievable. At the conclusion of the hearings yesterday, it was announced that the Minister of Transport was going to hold a reception for Committee Members later in the day, right after Question Period I think. Of course that was not designed to influence the judgment of Members was it? Especially after the Bridge Co. was expected to slam Transport Canada and when it was also said that the Minister would be speaking at the hearings on Thursday.

Can you imagine the outcry if the Bridge Co. held a reception for MPs the night before the hearings in order to soften them up! I assume that the Transport Canada minions were expected to go around at the reception with drinks and trays of hot appetizers telling the MPs how nasty the session was and that those big, bad Bridge Co. people had to be taught a lesson!

But that is not all. The LEAKOR struck again!

On Monday the 29th, the day before the Bridge Co. Evidence was given, Today’s Trucking Magazine, the LEAKOR’s favourite media outlet it seems, reported that a “U.S. Senator has tabled a bill similar to proposed Canadian legislation which would attempt to give the government more control of international border crossings…Last week Senator Buzz Thomas introduced SB 1278 -- the Michigan Border Development and Protection Authority Act -- which would establish public port authorities to oversee and manage border crossings, including private spans like the Ambassador Bridge. “

I have not seen that story reported anywhere yet, not even in the Michigan media, but there it was in a Canadian publication for truckers. The world exclusive!

A key fact was wrong. Buzz Thomas was not a US Senator but a Michigan Senator. It was NOT reported that he is a member of the minority Democrats in the Michigan Senate and what he did is similar to introducing a Private Member’s Bill in Canada.

Of course all of the negatives supposedly being perpetrated by the Bridge Co. were trotted out as justification for the Bill. Comparisons with Bill C-3 were made too just in case the reader did not understand the real reason for the story.

Why Today’s Trucking? Check out what I said before [April 26, 2006 Anatomy Of A Leak: Bill C-3]

• “Huh, what, Today's Trucking--who ever heard of that before? How could that be? Why did this journal get the story and not some major media outlet like CBC or CTV news or the Toronto Star or Globe and Mail or National Post or even the Windsor Star?
  
  With the online world these days, if one wants key people to read something, one does not have to ensure that it goes on the frontpage of the Toronto Star but that it gets reported somewhere and online so that a search tool or a media service picks it up for distribution to clients. The leakor suspected that he/she would never get caught since no one would care.”
  
  

Obviously, the story would be picked up by the clippings service or media or PR people for the various political parties, for the various Ministries involved and other stakeholders. Clearly, the expectation was that MPs who were members of the Committee would receive it, read it and be prejudiced against the Bridge Co. in advance of the hearing so that questions would be awkward and difficult.

And then the Minister’s reception would help stroke their bruised egos after the expected Bridge Co. attacks and make it easy for the Minister on Thursday!

It did not work out as planned I am afraid. I listened to the WEBCAST of the hearings and all I can say was that it was a replay of the Lansing hearings when Dan Stamper spoke. It was a hearing that was respectful, orderly, informative and serious.

It was pretty clear to me that Members had read in advance the Presentation from the Bridge Co. distributed by the Committee Clerk. Just as in Lansing, they “got it” and very quickly too! Just as in Lansing, my belief is that the Canadian Legislators—perhaps even the new Conservative Transport Minister and the Prime Minister’s Office--may now understand that they were sold a bill of goods by their own Bureaucrats. Why I’ll wager that the Minister and perhaps even the PM were told, as a justification, that if Canada passes Bill C-3, then Canada can demonstrate to the US President at the Harper/Bush meeting in July how serious Canada is about border issues. Why we don’t want those National Guardsmen patrolling our border---let them patrol Mexico instead.

Transport Canada’s claim that they talked with stakeholders was shot down in flames. Several MPs dealt with that issue and were rather shocked about what they heard. In fact, the Bridge Co. offered to take the MPs on a tour of their facilities on both sides of the border.

The MPs finally realized what the issue with the Bridge Co. was in a personal sense, especially, since it was made clear that they really are the only private bridge operator and the real target of this legislation. Matthew Moroun explained that under the Act he and his children might not get approval to become owners one day! I think that one statement on its own gave Members pause and there were several comments made, the gist of which was that it was not the intention of the Legislation to punish the Company.

The Bridge Co. made it clear that their objections were not “health, safety and security” issues but “ownership” issues and “micro-management” issues of a bureaucrats telling them how to operate their business on a day-to-day basis. It was also galling to them to have to deal with bureaucrats who were not only their regulator but their competitor as well.

The actions by the Michigan Legislators in passing Budget amendments to take away funding from DRIC was discussed. Again, to me it meant that someone did their homework since that never came out in other hearings.

There was a lot more but one other matter that intrigued the Members (and probably they did not know about it before) was that the Government and the Bridge Co. had fought for about a dozen years over ownership of the bridge during the Foreign Investment Review Act days and that the parties had reached a settlement to end the litigation. The view put forward was that the Government, in effect, was trying to set aside this settlement and bringing back the FIRA issue but in a new guise.

Finally, Brian Masse was there although he was not a Member of the Committee (I think he took someone’s place for the session) but did ask several questions. I was intrigued by what I heard over the WEBCAST when Matthew Moroun introduced himself to Masse while the hearing was in progress. Masse apparently said that they had met once at the Cleary but Moroun said he did not remember that.

And here, silly me, I thought that Brian knew everything and everyone involved in the border! I wonder if the other Members were just as surprised as I to find that this did not appear to be true.

If MPs stand firm in what they were saying, then the Transport Canada bureaucrats, like those at MDOT, have been stopped in their tracks. It was easy for them when they had no opposition but when confronted in a professional manner by the “demonized” Bridge Co., and as the real facts emerged, their tales fell apart.

It really is not the end for Bill C-3. There is a solution that meets the needs of everyone if only people will start talking to each other finally. Certain provisions are non-controversial and can be dealt with as the Bridge Co. pointed out several times. The others need conversation to accommodate the needs of both parties. Perhaps if the parties try, then there might even be an Agreement for Bush and Harper to sign.

Now if only those darn roads in Windsor could be fixed up!