When Is the DRIC Bridge Announcement Date

Expect a number of announcements from DRIC over the next several weeks.

Clearly, there has to be an announcement of Public Information Open Houses for the DRIC road project so that the public can provide input for "refinements" for the project.

However, the big day will be the day that the location of the new bridge and plaza will be announced. As you may recall, DRIC said that the announcement would come in spring, 2008. Timing is running out since summer begins on June 21.

Accordingly, my guess is that there is a very strong probability that the announcement date will be June 18! That date may change depending on what happens in meetings taking place in Ottawa and Meech Lake yesterday and today.

The virtue of deductive reasoning! It is on the last Wednesday before summer starts, almost the last possible minute, so there will be several days of publicity in the media perhaps culminating in a big advertising blitz for the weekend Windsor Star.

Why is there an urgency for June 18? Obviously, DRIC is very sensitive of the charges by our Mayor that they are delaying. (That is like the pot calling the kettle black with respect to delays and stalling). Accordingly, they want to be able to say that they have met their deadline.

More importantly, they want to be in a position to undercut Senator Cropsey's hearings in Lansing with respect to DRIC and MDOT's role in the process. They want to put the Senator on the defensive by saying that the project is effectively completed and why not move forward with it after spending about $60 million on both sides of the river. They are trying to make Senator Cropsey and his colleagues look like they are the ones who are wasting taxpayer money rather than MDOT who let this Megaproject run wild.

If the Globe and Mail is correct, expect to see Senator Fortier's financial fingerprints all over the announcement and the background information. There is no doubt that what will be disclosed will show how this project is so advantageous for Michigan that the State would be foolish not to go forward with the DRIC project.

Naturally, my expectation is that the announcement will be full of support for a P3-type project. Again, that is designed to show Michigan how they can support the project without it costing them very much money.

One final note. I'm sure that all the materials are ready by now for the bridge and plaza location announcements and the decisions made. However nothing will be done until after June 10 to give Transport Canada Minister Cannon time to meet with US transportation Secretary Mary Peters at the Trilateral Transportation Meeting “Sustaining the North American Transportation Advantage – Enhancing System Safety, Efficiency, and Integration” on June 9 and 10. The timing of the conference is very coincidental given the DRIC Bridge announcement.

It appears to me that no one has sent Minister Cannon a copy the transcript of former US Secretary of Commerce, Mickey Kantor, where he said clearly that the US cannot make a decision now legally. Doesn't Canada care or is Canada so desperate that it is trying to force a bridge location down Secretary Peters' throat no matter what the US President said through the Department of State re the rejection of the DRIC Central Crossing. As Kantor said:

• "It looks as though our Canadian friends, I believe, they’re trying to shove and push. Last time I looked, a sovereign country, the United States into doing something that we are not even close to making a decision on.
  
  The Draft Environmental Impact process under the National Environmental Policy Act is still going on, has not been completed. Then you need a final Draft Environmental Impact statement to be approved by Transportation.
  
  The White House has made no such decision – no one has – nor could they under the law.
  
  And so our Canadian friends are trying to push us into spending a billion and half dollars from the US and Michigan for a bridge that is not necessary with traffic flows going down every year since 1999 – the existing Bluewater, the Ambassador Bridge, the Detroit-Windsor tunnel and other are adequate – more than adequate and can handle what’s happening now and far into the future.
  
  So, as much as our Canadian friends would like us to spend our good money after we’ve invested so much in the Gateway project to link up the Ambassador Bridge to the 75, which you’re well aware of, it seems a bit premature – it’s almost silly at this point."

Note as well that the Mexican Secretary of Communications and Transportation will be in attendance. It is almost a mini Three Amigos SPP isn't it.

I would hardly think that the US Secretary would reverse what President Bush said in New Orleans, or rather did not say, about the Windsor/Detroit border. And she certainly has to take her cue from his failure to mention Canada in any meaningful way at the Conference on the Americas.

But we Canadians never give up. Minister Cannon has 2 tasks at the sessions:

1. to get Secretary Peters to agree to Minister Fortier's P3 structure so that Michigan will be pressured by the US Federal Government to pass Legislation to allow P3s


2. to get Secretary Peters to agree that Fortier's structure is eligible for $2B in matching funds so that the Bridge Co. project no longer has a financial advantage.

If this is accomplished, then Canada would be able to say, as was said in the Radio-Canada news story, that effectively Prime Minister Harper and U.S. President Bush have agreed on a border deal, subject of course to regulatory approvals.

Let's see what happens. I expect, given the mention of the Tijuana border crossing at the SPP meeting, that a good part of the session will not be about the Windsor crossing. Rather it will be comparing Windsor and Tijuana and determining which city is the best place for Americans to party!