Does The Former Canadian Ambassador Want A New Job

That Michael Kergin is one smart fellow and modest too. Not only is he the former Canadian Ambassador to the USA and Senior Fellow at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs of the University of Ottawa but also he was

• “Premier [McGuinty]’s Special Advisor on border issues… Kergin will work with provincial officials, the federal government and the City of Windsor to complete important projects that are now underway and to deliver a new Detroit River crossing no later than 2013.”

I see that he is modest because in that report which does deal with our Windsor/Detroit border crossing amongst other matters I do not think he mentioned his role with the Government of Ontario. I guess he was just too modest and did not want to bring attention to himself and his former job.

I say that he is smart because he was the Chair of the Canadian International Council Border Issues Working Group that prepared a report entitled “A New Bridge for Old Allies.” What a clever play on words too.

I have no idea what a Senior Fellow gets paid but I wonder if the Former Ambassador was angling for a new job when he wrote this in the report. He favoured the establishment of a “Permanent Joint Border Commission” similar to the Permanent Joint Board of Defence that has been around for 68 years. With that Board,

• “Two trusted advisors, reporting directly to the leaders, were appointed as co-chairs, presiding over military and foreign affairs officials, “to consider in the broad sense the defence of the north half of the Western Hemisphere.”

These advisers for Mr. Kergin’s Board would have so many things to do and so many committees to set up that it might take years for them to undertake their tasks. At a very nice salary I am sure and with perks to match, although Finance Minister Flaherty may be a Scrooge and take away some of them because of the economic position of the Government.

Seriously, who could be better on the Canadian side than a former Ambassador who is so familiar with border issues because of his job with Ontario.

Why Mr. Kergin is so helpful that he even prepared a press release for the new US President and our Prime Minister to issue. All that they would have to do is fill in his name in the blank and find an American for the other blank. Note the date, it would be a perfect Valentine’s Day present for him:

• “The press release we envisage:
  
  The White House Rose Garden Media Opportunity, February 14, 2009
  
  Today the President met with the Prime Minister of Canada in their first meeting as leaders, exchanging views on critical foreign policy issues, including Afghanistan and global climate change. The leaders agreed to appoint two high level Personal Representatives, Mr/Ms……, from Canada and the Honourable……, from the United States, to prepare recommendations to modernize our shared border and to secure our economic competitiveness, including devising a bi-national body to coordinate the implementation of new border measures.
  
  The Personal Representatives will report back within six months with their findings and recommendations.”

Our PJBC appointee to be did talk about the Detroit/Windsor border in his report. He also got in a plug for Canada’s Pacific Gateway project, praising it to the hilt:

• “Both countries are making significant investments to gateway corridors at our shorelines, most notably in Canada with the Pacific Gateway. Strategic planning in this area will assist in facilitating third country imports into North America and North American exports abroad.”

Surprise, surprise with respect to DRIC. Guess what it is:

• “Nevertheless, in an age of overlapping jurisdictions and competing interests among security, environmental and corporate players (not to mention differing levels of government on both sides of the border) DRIC provides a valuable case study on how to handle complex international infrastructure projects.”

I won’t be so bold as to repeat what I think it is but you, dear reader, know that already. Let’s just say that I think an awful lot of money has been wasted for a reason.

Given his former position with the Ontario Government, Mr. Kergin clearly knows what has been predetermined. In fact, he knows it even before DRIC has mentioned it to the public:

• “While the ownership of the new bridge will remain with the two governments, its construction and management will be based on a Public Private Partnership (3P).”

Of course, since he was a former Ambassador, he can call it a 3P while everyone else calls it a P3. That reversal of the letter and number would probably be one of his first contributions to the new PJBC.

What I liked about his statement though was that there were no ifs, ands or buts in what he said. I am sure that he will be able to testify about this when called as a witness in the lawsuit to set aside the DRIC for bias. He can explain how he knew all of this even before the final DRIC report. Mind you, so many Ontario and Federal politicians have already made statements giving rise to an apprehension of bias that it will be interesting to find out who specifically told him what the result would be.

This report must have been written before the economic meltdown or else the former Ambassador might not have been so effusive in his praise about P3s, ooops, 3Ps.

There was one interesting oddity in his report. There was absolutely no mention of the Ambassador Bridge. It is as if that Bridge never existed. We didn’t get even the usual stuff about how much traffic went over that one bridge.

I am sorry. The bridge did get one mention, sort of, which was the usual way that the Governments are supposed to deal with the Ambassador Bridge:

• “Encourage cross border collaboration for 3P investment into new transportation linkages (e.g. new or expanded bridge facilities).”

There, you saw the word “expanded” or was he talking about the P3, ooops, 3P of the Blue Water Bridge that the Finance Minister might want to dispose of.

I should not be so cynical about the former Ambassador. After all, in one sentence he cleared up for me the complete absurdity of the entire DRIC process and the way that the Governments are handling this. It echoed a comment made in the Canadian Senate when one of the Senators asked why people would want to invest in Canada when Canada has treated one of its partners so poorly.

Here is the comment that is so insightful about why a lawsuit may well be started:

• “As the DRIC process illustrates, governments can continue to exercise sufficient sovereign control over sensitive international crossings (e.g. Canada’s International Bridges and Tunnels Act), while partnering with the private sector in the construction and management of the facility.”

The Governments have had a private enterprise partner for almost 80 years at the Ambassador Bridge. According to the President of the Bridge Company, there are legal agreements that allow the Bridge Company to build its Enhancement Project.

It is not as if Governments did not know what the Bridge Company was doing. Just ask MDOT what they called their relationship with the Bridge Company. The US Governments and the Bridge Company have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the Ambassador Gateway project which was designed to accommodate a second span. The Governments on both sides of the river are well aware that this project has been going on for over a decade and that the Bridge Company has spent about $500 million to date on this project.

Instead of trying to do a deal with them, the Bridge Company has been ignored. The Governments have decided to bring in another private enterprise partner to take away up to about 80% of the Bridge Company’s business if the US Draft Environmental Impact Statement is correct.

The International Bridges and Tunnels Act is nothing more than an attempt to control the business of a private sector partner of the Canadian Government. It was a statute directed towards one Company in the guise of applying to all of the bridges and tunnels in Canada. It was one of the tools used by Governments to try to force the Bridge Company to sell out to them at a low price. It is hardly a model that I would put forward to the world as the former Ambassador is doing.

One final note. Do you remember the BLOG that I wrote: March 07, 2008 “Obama Issue: Canada's Ultra Secret American Playbook." This time it is being used against the new President! I am sure that no one thinks the Americans are smart enough to figure out what is going on because if they did....all hell would break loose!

The former Ambassador has been trained well in its use. He is following it to the letter in this report

• "While the bilateral relationship is too complex for a single government to “manage,” the role of providing some guidance to the increasing number of government and non-government players nonetheless remains. This role requires that practitioners of the relationship share information about the US and seek guidance from the main co-ordinators of Canada-US relations, such as the Privy Council Office, Foreign Affairs Canada, International Trade Canada and Canadian missions in the US, among others. An important motivation for co-ordination is to ensure as much as possible that Canadian actors speak with a single voice in their interactions with US officials."

But the beauty of the report is the use of the concept of a high-level Personal Representative of the leaders. It is brilliant in its execution and part of the way that the Playbook says that Canada can beat the United States every time and the Americans will not even know it:

• "As mentioned earlier, practitioners believe it is useful to keep non-contentious issues at the working level, avoiding conflict and resolving issues at the operational or regulatory level before they become matters of policy or high politics. It is also an effective means of avoiding the linkage of disparate issues in bilateral negotiations."

Let the Trusted Personal Representatives resolve everything and then the two leaders can just rubberstamp it at their next meeting. No fuss, no muss, no bother.