Border Entrepreneur

I posted earlier today a BLOG on public authorities. Perhaps you understand why I am leery of them. My 3 1/2 year border involvement makes me even more leery of what bureaucrats and politicians are trying to achieve. Do these smart people actually believe that they can defeat a determined private enterprise opponent?

Lets go back about 2 years ago. You have to admit, it could not have been any better for Windsor. We had the Prime Minister, Premier, and US Ambassador all eating out of our hands. The Mayor of Detroit was our friend calling us more important to Detroit than his own suburbs. Citizens groups were at their highest strength ever with politicans afraid to come out against us. Even the almighty Windsor Star had changed its postion on backing DRTP.

And we accomplished what?

Marko Paranosic's decision to leave town confirmed what we all know: our Mayor and Council blew it. The Schwartz Report was dead and there was nothing to replace it other than "quality of life" arguments and demanding a tunnel. The brilliant solution to our problems just could not succeed. [In a fascinating academic paper I read, three University of Windsor Professors and another colleague using their model of conflict resolution predicted almost immediately after the Report was introduced "that it is most likely that nothing will happen, at least in the short term" and that Eddie's pitch "to give Windsor what it “deserved...” contributes nothing to the likelihood of the City getting its way."]

Instead, the City's approach rebounded against us. Windsor, through the Mayor's actions, was now the problem by not building the road to the border notwithstanding that there is $300 million available (for how much longer, who knows!). If the City had a solution that worked, then obviously the Schwartz office would be getting the project and Marko would be at the centre of it. His leaving tells you all you need to know.

In the same way, the increase in tolls at the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel signals to me that Eddie has failed in his Grand Ambition concerning leasing and/or operating the Tunnel. He is desperate for revenues now even if he loses traffic.

Will anyone on Council publicly admit that they and our Mayor has failed us? Don't be silly. How can they when they backed the Mayor on Schwartz? How can they when they risk being slaughtered by the only newspaper in town if they dare criticize the Mayor? How can they when they have to pretend they did something on the border in an election year?

Talk about chaos. DRIC kicks out the two main private enterprise proponents on criteria that DRIC itself determined suggesting that "public oversight" of a new bridge really means "public ownership." Bill C-3, legislation that is clearly anti-private enterprise, goes through the House of Commons in a blur of speed and action sponsored by a supposedly pro-business Conservative Party.

DRIC itself may have a short life as Michigan Legisaltors and the Detroit Mayor at least see little value in its continued functioning. The Michigan Governor will be under intense pressure to kill DRIC if she wants to gain the Mayor's support for her re-election and to prevent the Republicans from painting her as someone who cost the Michigan Treasury up to $3.5 billion. Notwithstanding all of this, multi-million dollar spending programs are being started now by DRIC on both sides of the border. It's as if they do not care what the Legislators say.

DRIC's solution suggests that either Delray or Sandwich or both will be faced with a new bridge even though the US Department of State has not given its concurrence for a new DRIC crossing in the central area even though asked to do so.

Opponents of the Ambassador Bridge on both sides of the border seem to welcome a new bridge in their area as their economic salvation. In what startles me, they work with the people who want to place a bridge in their community rather than fighting them. Somehow a "public" bridge in their community is better than a "private" bridge that would not touch their community at all.

Talk about about-face, the WALTS/Schwartz/Windsor road to the border has now been opposed by the City when DRIC adopted most of it. It was replaced by who knows what.

We go through exercises on road building and locations and demand tunnels when all we have to do is read the Letters to the Editor section of the Windsor Star where the Executive Director, Windsor Gateway Project of Transport Canada tells us what will be done and where.

DRTP really has dropped its plans to be a border crossing without admitting it and offers up its corridor as a Green Solution for trucks to the Ambassador Bridge in the hope of convincing someone to buy them out. After all, Borealis needs some more money to help pay for the bidding war price of nearly 2.8 billion pounds it has agreed to pay out as part of the Associated British Ports cash offer in an auction.

With all of this confusion, can anyone figure out what is going on? How can all of this mess be created by such smart people? Where is the logic to all of this? Where is it all leading?

Would it surprise you if I said that none of this matters? That it is all irrelevant. That nothing has changed other than millions of taxpayer dollars have been and are being wasted by these smart people.

It will hardly be a shock to you what I think if you have been reading my BLOGs. I have been saying for about three years now that someone has to bite the bullet and deal with the Bridge Co. because, like it or not, they are there now and "own" the border traffic. Hasn't this whole exercise been nothing more than an attempt by envious, smart people to try and put them out of business or to force them to sell out at bargain basement prices?

It does not matter to them. The Bridge Co. just keeps on moving forward. In spite of everything, they are the party to beat and everyone is trying to do it. We know that on the US side, they do not need a Presidential permit to build their enhancement project and on the Canadian side, it seems that "at this point, there seem to be no roadblocks to the second span proposal from a federal or provincial perspective."

Why then has the Bridge Co. been so successful in spite of opposition from other proponents and from Government? DRTP has a lot more money than the Bridge Co. The Government money supply is limitless and they make the rules, even retroactively. Our Mayor has a PLAN for everything.

In the end it comes down to whose money is at stake and who is accountable!

OMERS/Borealis/DRTP---they are nothing more than managers of other people's money. Government bureuacrats use taxpayer money. The Mayor wants to be a border operator using Windsorites' funds. None of these parties exposes their personal assets to a business risk. If they guess wrongly, they still get a salary and benefits.

If OMERS has problems, as they did with $600 million of write-downs a few years ago, well they just tell municipalities and contributors that their contributions are increased. When was the last time you heard about a bureaucrat being fired for a SNAFU like the gun registry. In Windsor, who even knows what is going on. To date, the media has not even reported Marko's departure since, heaven forbid, some might start asking questions.

The Bridge Co. is different. Matty Moroun is using his money and not that of some pensioner or taxpayer. If he "writes-down" assets, it comes out of his pocket and he cannot just ask someone to pick up the tab. He has to be right or he is in trouble financially.

Moroun is certainly not as smart all of these politicians and bureaucrats who have intellectualized a model of the world that looks good on paper but bears little relationship to reality. His "business model" is based on years of experience as the owner of trucking companies, dealing with and understanding the needs of shippers and operating for over 25 years the Number 1 border crossing in North America.

I am amazed at the arrogance of some who think they understand how to operate a border crossing better than he does or who think that he has not considered before what they want to do and where they want to build. None of them are real entrepreneurs. None of them have built a business from nothing to a multi-billion dollar enterprise

Does anyone believe that he is going to sit idly by as some money manager or bureaucrat tries to take away his business? He has fought and defeated Government before. Do they think he is a push-over?

The question to ask is: why are these smart people so afraid of him that they will not sit down and deal with him?

I have quoted Gord Henderson before: "I’m in awe of Moroun and his hired hands. These folks are the masters. They’re always two or three cunning moves ahead of the other players…"

Really, do they have any other choice?