Festival Epicure Makes Strange Bedfellows

Can you imagine, a photo of Dan Stamper of the Bridge Co. and Mike Hurst of DRTP standing together and doing something co-operatively together for the City of Windsor. Who would have thought it possible.

The two companies announced that they were going to co-sponsor the Festival Epicure after its sponsor of a dozen years, the Detroit/Windsor Tunnel, pulled out just a few months before the start of the festival.

Clearly Windsorites should be pleased that the festival will be saved by the two foes who decided to bury the hatchet for gaining the new crossing temporarily and who worked together on this deal. They should be congratulated for doing so since this is a prime event for many tourist businesses in the City who can use the exposure and who can make some money during the festival.

It will be interesting to see how the Mayor plays it. Will he thank the two companies for "stepping up to the plate, doing what needs to be done" since they appeared to be Windsor's "enemies" or will he be angry they did. I have to say that he almost seemed to want the Festival to fail and be taken over by someone else:

• "Although Windsor's popular Festival Epicure may be cancelled this summer due to lack of sponsorship, some residents and local businesses have expressed an interest in creating a "new and different" food festival, Mayor Eddie Francis said Sunday.
  
  Francis said he wasn't overly concerned that the spirit of the successful food and drink festival won't be revived in some other form since Epicure's executive producer, Ken Brandes, announced Friday the withdrawal of the event's title sponsor, the Windsor- Detroit Tunnel.
  
  "I've received several indications from people who are interested in stepping in to do some type of similar festival," Francis said."

Now the interesting part---what does this co-sponsorship really mean? Is it nothing more than helping out an important City festival at a time when the City is suffering from one economic shock after another or is it something else?

Is this the beginning of a beautiful friendship between the two companies, who were formerly bitter enemies? Do they have a deal or are they working on one and if so what could it be?

Let's speculate:

1) DRTP is dead and has been for a long time. However, OMERS/CP Rail have spent a ton of money on it and need to recoup that amount. Will the Bridge Co. buy their corridor or help DRTP convince the Governments to buy it to use as a road, whether tunnelled or not, to the Ambassador Bridge? It would make some Talbot Road and West enders happy but not the people in South Windsor living beside the corridor.

2) Is OMERS to become the Canadian financial source in the Bridge Co. enhancement project? Five hundred million dollars or so are needed and pension fund money may be cheaper than bank money or bondholder money.

3) Does OMERS want to buy the bridge outright or become the Canadian partner in a 50/50 split with the Bridge Co. or get involved in a long-term lease? That would certainly give Governments here pause to reconsider a "public" bridge when one of their key financial sources has a partnership with the Bridge Co. or is the new owner. After all, infrastructure financiers are chasing projects to put their money and bidding up prices. Something has happened at the Tunnel---I wish Eddie would tell us what---so why shouldn't something happen at the Bridge too.

4) And then there is the Blue Water Bridge. Did DRTP take me seriously about bidding to take it over to help Michigan (and Ontario) out of their financial miseries and are they trying to take over the Ambassador Bridge too (and perhaps the Tunnel) so that they control all of the crossings. Sure it gives them a "monopoly" over the crossings but financiers in infrastructure do not like competition when a lot of their money is at risk.

5) Is this the start of a new business for OMERS in the infrastrucutre area (and for Michael Nobrega to make his mark) with the Ambassador Bridge being the prize jewel, a financing dream that OMERS will point to in the future to attract more business?

I wish I knew the answer to all of this. My only hope is that it is not #1. I carried around a picket sign once in my life with STOPDRTP. I really do not want to do it again!

I am going to have to digest all of this new information to try and figure out what is going on. In the meantime, bon appetit!