Unshared Border Management--Why Canada Had To Kill The Bridge Company Tunnel Deal To Save DRIC

Seriously, it is becoming scary how accurate my musings on here are becoming.

Remember the proposed Tunnel deal between the Bridge Company and Detroit and the fact that it was killed.

• "The Canadian government has threatened Detroit with legal action if it approves the Ambassador bridge's bid to take over the U.S. side of the Windsor-Detroit tunnel. Mark Butler, spokesman for Transport Canada, said the single inspection facility proposed by the bridge has raised fears over border security…"

I believe I have a better explanation now about why that happened. And it is NOT just because Canada had to control the Tunnel for a P3 operator. It was a lot more than that.

It went right to the heart of whether the DRIC Bridge would be built at all and whether the Bridge Company could be forced to sell out at a cheap price or risk bankruptcy.

Check again my BLOG October 27, 2008 "Border Crossings Chaos" where I outlined that at the time that Canada was opposing the shared border management initiative of the Bridge Company in Detroit respecting their 200 booth plan, the Government was moving forward with the same concept in Fort Erie until they killed it there.

I Blogged:

• "You see, if Canada could have shared border management on its side in Fort Erie then they could hardly oppose what the Bridge Company wanted to do in Detroit. It would have killed the DRIC project too and Canada could not allow that. Now you see how the Bureaucrats' hatred for the Bridge Company is ruining our economy and that of Buffalo!"

Patting myself on the back, but modestly of course, I read in the Buffalo News:

• "Bridge plaza issue sticky, despite new Clinton role
  ‘Shared border’ idea making no progress
  
  By Jerry Zremski, News Washington Bureau Chief
  
  WASHINGTON — One of the strongest supporters of moving the Peace Bridge customs plaza to Canada has been nominated as secretary of state — but that doesn’t mean the long-stalled proposal for the border will quickly regain traction.
  
  That’s the consensus of border experts in the wake of New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s nomination this week as the nation’s top diplomat...
  
  “There were fundamental differences that couldn’t be resolved” between Canada and the United States, said Richard M. Stana, director of homeland security and justice issues at the Government Accountability Office, which issued a report in September detailing those differences...
  
  “Those issues wouldn’t go away simply because the secretary of state might be personally involved,” Stana said.
  
  Some experts think that creative diplomacy could overcome the obstacles confronting the shared border proposal.
  
  The government auditors noted the possibility of an international “land swap” in which some territory on the Canadian side would become part of the United States.
  
  Christopher M. Sands, an expert in U. S.-Canadian relations at the Washington- based Hudson Institute, said the United States could get that Fort Erie land in exchange for American land at the Detroit-Windsor border crossing...
  
  Shared border management would mean that the Peace Bridge Authority would not have to build a huge truck-inspection plaza in a historic Buffalo neighborhood, but even one of the longtime advocates of shifting more border operations to Canada — former Rep. John J. LaFalce, D-Town of Tonawanda — isn’t so sure about it anymore"

Exchanging land in Detroit.....now where could that be...say how about at the Ambasador Bridge Company's land at the Ambassador Gateway project or:

• "The opportunity to accelerate these efforts is triggered by proposed purchase of about 25 acres of city-owned land that will allow Ambassador Port to move existing Customs inspections booths from both sides of the Detroit River into a huge 200-acre site he called the International Center."

It is now clear that the Canadian officials who came down here to threaten Detroit to force them to kill their Tunnel deal with the Bridge Company had little interest in the Tunnel as its property at the time. They had to kill the deal or the DRIC bridge would never get built!

If all the Canadian and US Customs booth would be in the Bridge Company's plaza, who would need the DRIC plaza in the US! There would be NO NEED for a plaza in Brighton Beach either. With no new plazas on either side of the river, there would be no excuse for not building the Enhancement Project.

Therefore, there would be no need for a DRIC bridge.

If Detroit wants someone to blame for its financial woes, it now has the Government of Canada as the target! Canadian intervention killed a deal with someone who had real money, not with someone like our Mayor who has to borrow money so he could loan it out and who may have been offered less than the $75M Detroit thought he was going to loan them.

One other thing...with shared border management in Fort Erie to save historic Buffalo, Canada might generously offer that in Port Huron/Sarnia so as not to disrupt Port Huron and in Windsor/Detroit at Brighton Beach so as not to destroy Delray. After all, DRTP was offering a golf-course sized joint plaza in Canada in the heart of Windsor.

In this way, Canada will have control over key border crossings and the Transport Canada Corridors and Gateways policy will be that much closer to complete fruition. The good part is this: the Americans would not have understood the full consequences to them until after it was too late! Wow, is our Ottawa Government ever smart.