DRTP Green Solution: It's All About Our Money

It had to happen finally. Gord Henderson and I agree on something. We are on the same side on one big issue in town: the DRTP Tunnel just won't cut it.

I just can't help my feeling that DRTP are just a bunch af cry-babies and whiners. All that they have done for months is demand that others help them. Why don't they just do something already themselves. You know private enterprise initiative and all of that.

The Green Solution wanted to be the new border crossing. Then they wanted to link up their corridor to the Ambassador Bridge (Hmmmm I wonder whatever happened to that idea). Now they are back promoting themselves as a border crossing again.

They want to be part of the DRIC process again---why??? That process kicked them out and wants them out. Why just the other night at the DRIC CCG meeting, DRIC again said that they had no interest in looking at DRTP again since the project below ground also does not work. Why keep banging your head against a brick wall? When Minister Cansfield says that you are done, shouldn't you get the message?

The Ambassador Bridge, a private enterprise proponent, is in exactly the same position. The difference is that they have not gone into creating pretty artist' renditions, new websites and Powerpoint presentations but actually moved forward on their own to get their project built. They are going through the environmental process on both sides of the river. Being the only party that does not need a US Presidential permit probably helps as well. Even DRIC needs one and based on a US Department of State letter, they may never be able to get one either.

Why doesn't DRTP just do the same? They can thumb their nose at DRIC and go forward. DRIC have said countless times that private parties are free to work outside of the process to get their project approved. Didn't Mike Hurst hear that yet? The Bridge people did.

Hurst is spending the $$$ again as he did before on the massive billboard campaign. This time around it is one-on-one sessions with candidates for Council and Councillors, influential decision-makers in town and Government people. We see again the 3/4 page Star ads and the flyers being mailed to households. It is all very attractive if you do not know the facts and want something that superficially seems to meet the needs of the people. But didn't we have that years before with the old above-ground DRTP project?

The DRTP Green Solution is a joke. Read again my BLOG on Tuesday, May 23, 2006: "Understanding DRTP." DRTP's lawyer at the Rail By-law hearing did not concede that one inch of the corridor needed tunnelling. Where are the "sensitive lands?" Frankly, why should anything be tunnelled if one accepts what the DRTP lawyer says? Tunnelling becomes a huge waste of taxpayer money.

Money: that is the key. DRTP cannot afford the billions needed to tunnel especially when they know that diesel pollution within the decade will be a thing of the past with the changes to diesel truck technology and fuels. Governments know this since they wrote the laws. Minister Cansfield mentioned that in her speech to the Chamber. Heck, DRTP needed $150M of taxpayer money with their old project.

This Green Solution exercise is Mike's last attempt to try and get someone to buy the DRTP corridor. OMERS and CP have invested too much money into it and need to write it off or write it down. They dare not do so before the Financial Services Commission of Ontario completes its investigation into OMERS. It would help them greatly if someone took it off their hands right now.

The "Green" Solution---it is about the "green." The green colour of money!

PS. Councillor Dave Brister must be in big trouble in Ward One or thinks he is. Gord says "Brister... can't afford sprawling, full-colour ads to make his case" and so gives him a nice plug.

But Dave may be lucking out. One opponent of his who is running a very good campaign is Greg Baggio. He obviously supports "A Tunneled Border Solution" as he states on his website. However, did he make a fatal mistake? His mobile signs are located on DRTP property on Dougall. Did Mike give him permission to do so? Is Greg a DRTP-supporter? One can support a tunnel but NOT support DRTP. Will South Windsor take out on Greg his seeming DRTP relationship such that it will cost him votes?