Jean Chretien And The Border

Former Prime Ministers never die. They join law firms instead.

Brian Mulroney is a Senior Partner in Montréal’s Ogilvy Renault and John Turner is with Toronto’s Miller Thomson. Why, even Pierre Trudeau did that. He joined the Montréal law firm Heenan Blaikie as Counsel. Former Ontario Premiers Rae and Peterson also joined law firms as have other Premiers.

It hardly is a surprise then that M. Chretien also joined a law firm when he left office. Interestingly, that firm is Trudeau’s old firm Heenan Blaikie.

As you may recall, the former Prime Minister was deeply involved in the border file. After all, he and former Ontario Premier Ernie Eves were responsible for the $300 million Border Infrastructure Fund and the setting up of the Joint Management Committee.

Interestingly, BIF was set up so that

• “action that can be taken in the near term to address congestion issues on the Windsor side of the Windsor - Detroit Gateway…
  
  Eligible projects for the new program fall into three distinct categories:
  
  1. Physical Infrastructure: Projects for the improvement of physical infrastructure at or around border crossings include dedicated lanes, local access roads and other transportation infrastructure leading to and from a crossing; additional lanes and approaches; and Canadian highways that provide direct access to a border. These improvements to infrastructure will better facilitate the free flow of people and goods across the border. "

One of the criteria in choosing projects included

• “Co-ordination with adjacent U.S. border facility and road access network"

That sure sounded to me like building a road on the Canadian side that would link up to the Ambassador Gateway project on the American side. After all, the projects were for existing crossings such as the $20 million that the Federal and Provincial Governments offered to the Detroit/Windsor Tunnel for improvements.

As we know now, nothing was done to build that road. I always wondered why not if it was so important to take interim steps. The answer has become clear. If that road had been built to the Ambassador Bridge as it should have been done under the BIF program, then there would be no need for a DRIC bridge.

Accordingly, that road would never have been built unless the Bridge Company had sold out. If that happened, we still never would have seen the DRIC bridge either but rather a twinned bridge would have been propsed as teh ideal solution to tie into the Ambassador Gateway project.

What has Chretien’s joining with a Montréal law firm have to do with the border file now you might think. Take a look at this:

• “Billions promised for projects
  Needed Boost
  
  Kathryn Leger, Financial Post
  
  Enthusiastic talk about infrastructure spending by political parties in the federal election campaign represents stability in the midst of deepening market turmoil and expected economic fallout facing corporate Canada…
  
  Infrastructure lawyers say they see little real difference between the Conservative or Liberal infrastructure spending plans, nor do they see much of a change in direction following the Oct. 14 election...
  
  Those plans include infrastructure framework agreements between the federal government and Ontario (Ottawa is putting up more than $3-billion with matching funding by the province for the $6.2-billion accord) and smaller, similar cofunding agreements with Quebec and Manitoba.
  
  "They are doing lots of talking about infrastructure, and whether one plan is better than another is hard to say," Mr. Younger said. "Ultimately, it is a question of what the federal budget can afford."
  
  Michael Ledgett, a Toronto partner in Heenan Blaikie's infrastructure and public-private partnerships group, shares the view. "I think the Conservatives inherited and adopted to a large extent the point of view of the Liberals, and they have expanded that and they have gone along the same trajectory," said Mr. Ledgett, who is acting for the federal government for the proposed (since 2004) Windsor-Detroit bridge and border crossing, a project eventually expected to top $1-billion.
  
  "I don't think that the positioning of either party is much different," he said. "They have both adopted the point of view that infrastructure is decaying and needs to be replaced and renewed, and that one of the primary tools for doing that is public-private partnerships."

Is this just a mere coincidence or something more? It would be interesting to find out when Michael Ledgett was retained and by whom since it appears that he is involved in the P3 side of the issue. It would also be interesting to know if the former Prime Minister is still involved as well.

Depending on the date that he was hired, it may make a mockery of the suggestion that the DRIC was looking seriously at the Governance issue. If it was done early on, then the entire DRIC process is suspect as far as I’m concerned. It means to me that the decision had already been made as to what was to happen at our border crossing and that the DRIC process was designed to accomplish what had already been decided. It was mere window dressing to make us believe that we had a voice in the process.

Our infrastructure lawyers are such political geniuses as well

• "nor do they see much of a change in direction following the Oct. 14 election"

Look at Windsor. There are enough infrastructure projects to go around for everyone so that there is no need to bicker. I find it fascinating that a law firm with such “Liberal” ties is still working on a file for the Conservative Government. It was just as fascinating to me that the Conservatives as one of their first pieces of legislation introduced Bill C-3 which was effectively the Bill that the Liberals introduced previously.

Then again, why should it change with the bureaucrats in control. They have their "slam dunk" Plan which they have sold to the Politicians.

It does not matter that the Bridge Company helped make this area economically successful by making its bridge the number one border crossing in North America at its expense. It does not matter that the Company virtually ended truck backups by opening up Customs booths at its costs while Governments would have invested hundreds of millions of taxpayers dollars and accomplished little with silly ideas like Eddie’s Horseshoe Road. That does not count for anything. Heaven forbid, they made money on their investment.

In the end then, all this may be exactly what many suspected years and years ago. This border crossing issue is nothing more than an anti-Bridge Company exercise in return on investment in the guise of political economic nationalism with money as the guiding principle for its proponents.

Really, how can anyone take this file seriously when one of the key advisers to ex-Prime Minister Martin, Richard Mahoney, was also in a senior management position with Borealis Capital, one of the competitors to the Bridge Company with its DRTP project.

It is as simple as that when one considers that under the Government policy on both sides of the river if it comes into being, the P3 will be operated by a private interest for 75 to 99 years. Forcing out one private enterprise operator for another just raises a lot of questions that may one day be litigated before we find out the real answer to them. It may be exactly what Gord Henderson allowed to slip out back in February, deliberately or not, I am not certain:

• “How can Canada call itself an independent, self-respecting nation when it allows a privately owned firm, headquartered in another country, to arbitrarily determine how and where visitors get to enter this country from the U.S.? Where is our legitimacy as a country when one billionaire, 80-year-old American transportation tycoon Matty Moroun, and his supporting cast, can call the shots in determining whether motorists arriving in Canada are allowed to use a key artery, northbound Huron Church Road, to reach city destinations…
  
  We didn't make much of it at the time. But we surely understand now why Herb Gray moved heaven and earth, as Liberal minister responsible for FIRA (Foreign Investment Review Agency) in the early 1980s, in a failed effort to prevent Moroun's trucking empire from acquiring the Canadian half of the bridge. That battle was lost in the federal courts and ended with an out-of-court settlement following a marathon legal struggle.
  
  Gray understood what was at stake. An economic nationalist, he recognized that having the nation's most critical border crossing owned and operated by a private company, a foreign controlled one at that, would not be in Canada's best interests. He knew that real countries, serious countries, don't let private companies run their borders.”

It is a shame that so many people have been suckered so easily. Will our economic nationalists be happier if the new DRIC bridge is run by the "Australians" that the MDOT people talked about at the Cropsey hearings. I wonder if they are the same ones as the group who used to run the Tunnel. Perhaps they should ask Windsor Mayors/WTC Chairs what they think of that idea.

As I said before, this border file has many twists and turns. Add this one to the list as well. Its significance...your guess is as good as mine. But I am certain we will find out one day soon.