Mail Call

More letters from readers. I have still not received yours yet:

1) Come on, Ed, you're a big boy. You know perfectly well why Thomas Sowell and Jack Lessenberry appear instead of local writers. Those guys provide cheap copy. At one time the Star actually did investigative reporting. Not any more. Why pay local people to write columns about Windsor when you can pull stuff off the wire on the cheap about places and events that Windsorites couldn't care less about? Fewer scribes, lower cost. [Note: I was told to expect the Page 3 columns to start again in the next few days]

2) compromise is changing a six-lane, at-grade facility costing about $160 million dollars to a partially tunnelled, $1.6 billion dollar facility.

3) Councillor "X" won't talk to me, Councillor "Y" tells me to ask staffer "Z", "Z" won't reply to my E-Mail : so much for the City motto of working with the public !

4) Do you think Windsor is ever going to learn the lessons like Toronto!!! STOP BITCHING AND STOP RUNNING THE BIG GUYS AND GAL DOWN EVERY TIME IN TORONTO AND OTTAWA JUST BECAUSE IT DID NOT GO YOUR WAY. TORONTO PULLS IN 6-8 BILLION FOR A SUBWAY AND ALL THESE CLOWNS DO HERE IN WINDSOR IS BITCH......MARK MY WORDS THE JAIL WILL BE RELOCATED TO LAKESHORE OR CHATHAM KENT MAYBE PUCE. TALK ABOUT BEING OUTRIGHT STUPID I HAVE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE THIS BULL CRAP...IN ALL THE YEARS I HAVE BEEN IN WINDSOR (I CAME HERE IN THE 50's) IT IS BEYOND BELIEF...

YOU DO NOT NEED EXPENSIVE LAWYERS JUST SOME COMMON SENSE.

THOUGHT GORD HENDERSON HAD SEEN THE LIGHT BUT AFTER SATURDAYS WINDSOR STAR I WAS WRONG. SAME OLD SAME OLD... HE RETIRES FROM THE STAR GOD!!WHY DID HE NOT STAY RETIRED

5) Thanks Ed for posting the CIBPA meeting. This initiative should start some accountability within the sectors involved. I pray CIBPA gets this committee formed and moving quickly.

Your interview was impressive - you are a natural. Are you sure you don't want to run for Mayor? Come on, just one term? You have more knowledge on this border file than anyone else. Windsor/Essex needs you.

6) I was down in New Orleans in January - my first time there - little
did i know that i would find post-katrina new orleans in better shape
than Windsor. Check out this story to find out why:

http://www.nowpublic.com/world/new-orleans-now-0

7) Seems to me Eddie has zero experience in difficult times.
He's trying to come up with mega projects that will make the
public think he is accomplishing something.
He's falling apart...

By the way I went across the bridge yesterday on the new section on the
US side.
How long before the Canadian side realizes the twin bridge is happening?

8) As a HOME OWNER on [Name of street] where I have spent over $40,000 RESTORING my house and one who was promised by Ron Jon[Name of councillor] that an urban village was going to be built in the CCW lands ( I went to various meetings before I purchased the house).

I thought that the small village of original homes (where little crime and a tight-knit community exists) was going to be a part of the new urban village and thus thought I would be a pioneer of sorts to start to transform our downtown neighbourhoods and our downtown into a place where people would want to live and shop.

Never did I think that I may one day lose my house because of some hair-brained scheme by a pathetic mayor who only, once again, wants to leave yet another "legacy" project as a testament to his mayoral past.

I will say one thing. There are a few home owners that live in their houses, like me in the area that are willing to stand up to this (some of the landlords may not because it is $$$ for them). The city is going to have to have a fight on their hands! If the Eddie thinks that Canderel was a pain wait until he see's the fight over a city taking a good neighbourhood, levelling it all It is a PR campaign he will not win and it is going to cost the city a lot not including the cost of this idiotic idea.

By the way, check out Oklahom's canal and the Riverwalk in San Antonio that Eddie is comparing this to. Both are much longer. Some are over 8kms long, and most have century old buildings that were restored to give it character.

This is my house! My house that I bought, that I wanted to restore, where I could raise a family in an urban environmnet and a place where I could retire and die. So much for following our elected officials. So much for believing that a city would protect a neighbourhood or invest in one. Never would I thought I would have to defend my property (and trust me I will) from the very city that I live in!

Welcome to the gulag!

9) "X" be assured that all of US are behind you 100%...
We will NOT let the Canal happen!
Eddie's Pipe Dream is never going to get any support if:
- reality has anything to do with it;
- we can start right off building some opposition to this scheme.
He apparently was talking about "only $60 Million"
-ya, right - Just to draw-up the plans and hire a few lawyers!
We cannot let X's neighbourhood just disappear..

We have a starry-eyed dreamer leading this Council and what we need right now is a tough-minded LEADER (not a dreamer)to get the City through the next 5 or 6 tough years that are coming!

10) The best explanation comes from Horwitz.
It can't be rinky dink.
Somehow that just fits.
I really want to see how the engineer plans to get water from the river to
street level as depicted in the cute PDF files.
The water level would be at least 50-60 feet below the street.
There must be something else ready to break loose in the city. This
release may be a diversion from some other big story disaster ready to happen
at city hall.

11) OK folks here I am the hypothetical Canal Lot home buyer. I watched the CBC already and I know that property taxes are lower in Southern Florida than in Windsor. The climate is warmer. The water saltier. The clincher, well the executive quality previously $400K+ canal homes are being short sold by the banks under power of sale or foreclosure for less than $100K in US dollars. Can Eddy beat that? So unless I am so bad I cannot get a passport or a pardon if I did something stupid in the past I see the benefit a lot more attractive in the land of the hurricane than in the land of WUC.

12) Gary Cunliffe, managing editor of CBC Windsor, which is also facing layoffs, said traditional methods of news delivery were being challenged by citizen journalists or the "one-man bands operating in Windsor's basements, Windsor's highrises and Windsor's streets."

I wasn't insulted by this at all. I actually got quite a chuckle out of it. It tells us that the traditional media still don't know whats happening to them.

13) If Eddie is so damn keen to get whatever version of Greenslink built, why doesn't he go whole hog and bury EC Row from one end to to the other and build on top of it. If truck pollution is bad for the west end, then truck pollution for a larger population has to be badder/baddest. Now if can only get aircraft using Windsor's cargo hub into tunnels!

14) I knew DRTP would again be seen in Windsor. Perhaps my having saved flags and bumper stickers was not for naught after all.

15) Thought you might be interested. If the province can do it in the GTA, they can do it anywhere....Windsor? In a bid to speed up transit improvements in the Toronto region, the province has evicted all municipal politicians from the board of Metrolinx and merged the transportation planning agency with GO Transit. Integrating GO with the planning expertise at Metrolinx will help get "shovels in the ground" faster on projects, Transportation Minister Jim Bradley said. "All you have to do is get on our roadways at the present time and crawl along to see what it's like to understand the need for these projects moving forward," Bradley told reporters.

16) Now we know where so much of our tax dollars go; to the head of departments at city hall. The same ones who are driving this city into the ground...literally.

As for the Windsor Police Services, shame on them for such reckless spending of tax payers dollars. How about cutting some of those salaries and hiring more police? Nah! Instead they want SUV's so that criminals aren't cramped in the back of the cruisers. What a shame!

17) {Re Francis going to Toronto to hear Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan deliver the Ontario budget) I find it amazing he had to go to Toronto to hear the speech.

18) My investment advisor told me today about his very recent dinner conversation with an engineer employed by a company retained by Chrysler. The engineer has been devoting all his time to estimating the costs involved in removing everything from Windsor’s van plant and then moving it to St. Louis. To say the least, everyone at the table was chilled.

Detroit Schools Can Teach Us A Lesson

Fiscal irresponsibility. That’s the name of the game. I’m tired of being frugal and watching my pennies. Let us spend, spend, spend!

Let's get with it. There's a new economy out there. Why are we living in the past?

• "it has to be world class and in such a way to make other cities envious about Windsor”

Sit down and take a deep breath before you read this BLOG. I do not want you to be shocked at what I have to say since it is a huge departure from what you would expect me to Blog. I do not want you to spill coffee on yourself and get scalded so that I get the blame for it.

Back in my law firm days, one of my areas of expertise was bankruptcy law. I remember handling a file for a client. It was clear that their customer knew that he was going bankrupt and did not care. What he did was “max out” every single one of his credit cards including VISA, Master Card, American Express and so on as well as every Department Store Credit card that he had including some very high end ones in Toronto. He ran up huge debts buying all kinds of luxury items, taking trips and going to the finest restaurants. Then he declared bankruptcy. When I got the file, he was seeking to be discharged from bankruptcy and, of course, I recommended to my client that he oppose it just out of principle.

He enjoyed the good life, suffered a minor set-back and was ready to start all over again.

I thought about this because of two news stories that came out of Detroit that bothered me given the size of the deficits:

Here is one:

• “Detroit schools plan new round of closings, layoffs
  
  The Detroit Public School District's "emergency financial manager" has announced that up to a third of the city's schools will be shut down over the next two years, with thousands of layoffs of teachers and staff.
  
  Robert Bobb was appointed by Michigan's Democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm in January to impose massive cuts in order to balance the school district's budget deficit. In a report released on Wednesday, Bobb said that the district will face a $300 million deficit by the end of the fiscal year.”

As you know also, the City of Detroit has a deficit of several hundred million dollars and its bonds have a junk bond rating such that the City is close to bankruptcy and is one of the few Cities in the United States in such dire financial straits.

The second story I heard was on the radio early Friday morning where the news reporter remarked at how clean Downtown Detroit was with not one single piece of paper lying around in the streets and the grass starting to turn green. All of her comments were to celebrate the Final Four NCAA basketball tournament that took place in Detroit last weekend. This is such a huge event and people in Detroit are celebrating it.

I got to thinking. Detroit has major problems with schools being shut down, teachers being laid off, perhaps being unable to provide all of the services that a municipality should offer to its citizens and what are they concerned about… some basketball games.

I wondered, if it was good enough for Detroit, why not for Windsor too!

Take a look at the front page of the Star on Friday. Look at what is being talked about:

• 1) The Spitfires or rather the East End Arena
  2) The Canal
  3) The Cargo Hub at the airport
  4) Eddie’s side trip to New York to be part of receiving an award for Greenlink.

The only things really missing are the Tunnel deal and Tunnel Plaza Improvements.

Just think about it. So what if our City is a town of only 200,000 people. Our Mayor is a high flying, wheeler-dealing, world traveler, municipal entrepreneur playing with tax-payer dollars who wants to negotiate all of these fantastic deals for us to make us a world-class City I guess.

For heaven’s sake, do not look behind the curtain and ask the Wizard about jobs, roads, sewers basement flooding and utility costs… how small town-ish. Honestly, a guy with his talents did not get elected to worry about bikes on riverfront city streets or no left turns for trucks or solving taxi strikes or being concerned that City workers might walk off the job.

The arena costs supposedly 70 odd million dollars but we really suspect it costs more and will cost more because of parking problems. Effectively, this transaction has meant that we don’t have any money for years to do anything, especially if a catastrophe strikes such as businesses closing down, homes being foreclosed so that the tax base decreases.

The canal project initially costed out at around $60 million but will probably be less. Right. Oh you think it is a gamble just because the Mayor said

• “Then we are off to the races,”

Hardly.

The airport transportation hub will cost so much money that all that can be said about it is

• “Federica Nazzani also said it would take “a considerable amount of capital investment to enable us to take advantage of the opportunities that exist.”

Since she talked about a Fortune 500 company, we have to be talking a minimum of $100 million or it won’t even get off the ground. I thought the Mayor had mentioned numbers even higher than that at one time.

As for Greenlink, while I know that Eddie wants the Senior Levels to pay for it, we are only a few hundred million dollars apart in costs between it and the DRIC road.

The Tunnel deal is a now US$100 million to protect those 5,000 commuters from the big bad private interests who may want to cement up the Tunnel while the Tunnel Plaza Improvements will cost more than $30 million of which the City’s share is a third.

I am sure that I am close to three quarters of $1 billion by now without even trying. How about throwing in $100 million for the WSO Symphony Hall and giving the Art Gallery a few bucks. I would imagine there’s a need for a million or two dollars to refurbish the Capitol. A few more pieces of sculpture for the riverfront would be nice. We need to have a thriving Arts community if you want to bring in all of those rich Toronto Seniors and convince knowledge-based captains of industry to relocate here.

Forget those puny infrastructure dollars from the Senior Levels. Too many strings attached and too time-consuming to get. Who cares about shovel ready when money is no object.

That’s my point. We ought to be spending as if there is no tomorrow. We ought to be doing everything and not worrying about it. We ought to be enjoying the rush of success.

I really don’t see anyone in Detroit getting all upset so why should we. They have basketball, we have the Red Bull air races to divert our attention from reality. Heck, our Mayor gives us a vision a week so that we can strut around as the biggest small town in Canada. After all, we already have bragging rights that we are the only City in Canada that is south of the US.

Seriously what’s the worst thing that can happen to us… bankruptcy. As if that matters these days. If AIG, the banks and GM and Chrysler are verging on going broke, why can't we. We can have a "surgical" structured bankruptcy just like the one that President Obama may force GM to accept.

• "What's good for General Motors is good for America, and Windsor too."

There is a hotly contested election for Mayor in Detroit right now and I don’t see anybody being overly concerned that the City might have to call in a Trustee.

Let’s be blunt about it. This City is in miserable shape. and it is not getting any better right now. Which City has the highest unemployment, the lowest house prices, and one of the highest vacancy rates in the country. Yet which other City in North America is fighting NOT to get $2 billion from the Senior Levels and $1 billion from private industry. In fact, we still don’t have a CEO for our Development Commission and who knows if we will ever get one to diversify our economy away from the collapsing automobile industry.

Let’s spend that money folks. Let’s pile on the debt. It does not matter. In fact, the worse things get here, the better it is for us. Let me remind you of the following piece of legislation:

• Municipal Affairs Act
  
  9. (1) The Ministry, upon its own initiative or whenever requested by any municipality expressed by resolution of its council, or on a petition in writing signed by not less than fifty ratepayers assessed as owners and resident in a municipality, may direct a provincial municipal audit of the financial affairs of the municipality.
  
  10. The Ministry upon its own initiative may make an inquiry into any of the affairs of a municipality.
  
  Powers of Ministry as a result of an audit or inquiry
  
  14. The Ministry, as a result of an audit of the affairs of a municipality made under this Part, or as a result of an investigation or inquiry made under any general or special Act, may make such orders as it sees fit requiring the municipality to carry out, put into effect, observe, perform or enforce such matters or things as the audit, investigation or inquiry has disclosed as being necessary or desirable in the interests of the municipality or with respect to the due accounting for, collection or payment of any of its assets, liabilities, revenues, expenditures, funds or money or otherwise in any respect as the order of the Ministry may provide.
  
  SPECIAL JURISDICTION OVER DEFAULTING MUNICIPALITIES
  
  Special municipal jurisdiction of Board
  
  20. (1) The Board has and may exercise the special jurisdiction and powers conferred by this Part, whenever, upon request of the Ministry or of a municipality expressed by resolution of its council, or upon request of the creditors of a municipality having claims representing not less than 20 per cent of its indebtedness, including debenture debt, it is satisfied upon inquiry that the municipality,
  
  (a) has failed to meet and pay any of its debentures or interest thereon when due and after payment thereof has been duly demanded;
  
  (b) has failed to meet and pay any of its other debts or liabilities when due and default in payment is occasioned from financial difficulties affecting the municipality; or
  
  (c) has or may become financially involved or embarrassed so that default or unusual difficulty in meeting debts or obligations or in providing adequate funds to meet current expenditures may ensue, or has failed to levy the necessary rates to meet current expenditures.
  
  Power of Board to vest control over municipal administration in Ministry
  
  21. (1) If upon inquiry the Board is of opinion that the circumstances so warrant or appear to render desirable, it may make such order as it considers proper or necessary to vest in the Ministry control and charge over the administration of all the affairs of the municipality as set forth in the order and to declare that thereafter and until the Board otherwise determines and orders such municipality is subject to this Part.
  
  Control exercisable by Ministry
  
  27. The Ministry with respect to the municipality and every local board thereof has control and charge over the exercise by any of them of any of their powers and over the performance by any of them of any of their duties and obligations
  
  Powers of Board with respect to debt
  
  28. (1) Where a municipality has become subject to this Part, the Board, with respect to the debenture debt and debentures of the municipality and interest thereon and with respect to any other indebtedness thereof, has power to authorize or direct,
  
  (a) the consolidation of the whole or any portion thereof;
  
  (b) the issue…of debentures … in substitution and exchange for any outstanding debentures … and compulsory acceptance of such debentures
  
  ((f) the postponement of or variation in the terms, times and places for payment of the whole or any portion of the debenture debt and outstanding debentures and other indebtedness and interest thereon and variation in the rates of such interest;
  
  (l) an interim plan, pending a final order or plan with respect thereto, which may cancel all or any portion of interest in arrear and may alter, modify or compromise the rights of debenture holders or other creditors during any period of time between the date of default and the end of the fifth year following the date of the order of the Board.

In other words folks, when we become the Canadian equivalent of Detroit with junk bond status, the Province will come in here and run this place properly. We won’t have our amateur politicians anymore pretending that they are running our City like a properly managed business.

In effect, the City will be filing a US style Chapter 11 Bankruptcy proposal wiping out most of our debt. Even though Creditors have to approve everything, what choice do they have but to accept whatever it is that is proposed.

We will have it all and will get it for only a few pennies on the dollar. It is sheer genius.

Look at that Star photo of Pamela Anderson’s friend. I bet that Larry has told our alien visitors that we do not want any rinky-dink, extra-Galactical UFO hub in Windsor. Only the best. He’ll take them to our Leader and we can show them what we can do in Windsor.

• "Anything is feasible — if you can send people to the moon, obviously you can do this."

Stick with me, dear reader. I think this concept has legs. It will be out of this world. Bankruptcy is the new trend. We can lead Canada in something if we keep on going this way.

Building An ABOVEground SUBway

I wonder if anyone reads Gord Henderson’s column anymore. I wonder as well if anyone will ever be appointed to be the Page 3 columnist to take his place. Or has the Star decided that there is no point in doing so.

I know for myself I generally skip the Columnists on the Editorial pages of the Star. A lot of the Columnists are not local and I find their topics uninteresting. Why the Star has to get a column from Jack Lessenberry as an example to tell us about Michigan I am not sure. I sometimes miss good local columns that way.

Like most readers of the Star, I generally look for a Page 3 column because I expect it to be there and then have to remind myself that Gord has left. I guess I have not yet been trained to remember that Henderson has a column on Saturdays on the Editorial Page because I have almost missed it as well several times now. To be honest, they have not been all that interesting anyway. Some of the sparkle seems to have gone with the transition.

The one good thing I guess is that only have to get angry once a week instead of three times a week.

I truly cannot believe that Gord has given a free pass to our Mayor for so long even though I sometimes call him the Sheriff. It is too bad because if there had been some critical comments from the Star and from Gord on the important matters, we might have had a different kind of leadership in this City, one at least that pretended to care what its citizens thought.

Saturday’s Henderson Column was another freebie for the Mayor with Gord doing Eddie’s job. It is becoming clearer that our Mayor has been told to keep his mouth shut and so is relying on others to do his dirty work.

I found this comment hilarious when talking about the DRIC road:

• “half-assed border fix”

Yup, a road that will probably cost over $2 billion if it is ever built, that is probably 10 times more expensive than the cost of any other road in Ontario and which, according to our Mayor, is only $100 million more than his beloved and award-winning Greenlink is a piece of junk.

Ridiculous statements such as this that have been part of our Leadership’s verbal strategy are really not very helpful anymore. No one accepts them but for a few diehards.

The tactic really doesn’t work anymore, if it ever did. All it does is get the Senior Levels madder at our City. All it does as well is make the citizenry madder at the Mayor and Council. More confrontation with the Senior Levels as the situation gets worse here with job losses and home foreclosures makes no sense any more. We do not have that luxury as we did years before.

The main reason in my opinion why the Premier has not washed his hands of Windsor completely is because he would lose two Cabinet Ministers in the next election.

It is a surprise to me that it took so long for a group like CIBPA to organize. Now that it has, and if they can maintain their momentum, then we will have a true group of citizens who are worried about our City and who will be able to apply the appropriate pressure so that a settlement is finally achieved.

Henderson’s column on Saturday really does not help matters at all. The continued attacks on Toronto are an easy target but hardly makes sense when this City requires Senior Levels to put in infrastructure money that is the only thing that we have going for us.

I do think that it is time for these type of columns to stop the in the same way that it is time now for Eddie to stop with the health scares about children. You could almost hear the groans when he started on that subject at the CIBPA Caboto Club session. It is enough already.

Until I read the Henderson column, I really did not know very much about what was being offered in Toronto. I did some checking and was disgusted. The nonsense about tunnels is despicable because it is misleading:

• “You want tunnels with that? Lots of tunnels? No problem.You got 'em
  
  Real tunnels on the most important trade artery between Canada and the U.S.were too costly for the province, too difficult to build and much too good for the like of Windsorites.
  
  But when it comes to Torontonians getting to work on time and not having their vastly more important neighbourhoods disrupted by noise and pollution, that's a different story.
  
  The loot delivered by McGuinty included $4.6 billion for a 32.5-km light rail line extending from Pearson International Airport to Toronto's east end, a line that will boast no fewer than 13 km of tunnelling.
  
  That's more than triple the tunnelling proposed in the original Green- Link plan for the six-km corridor from E.C. Row to Howard Avenue, and more than six times what DRIC's lame and toxic Parkway plan (a bunch of overpasses masquerading as tunnels) would involve.
  
  So why is tunnelling OK now? Because these are Torontonians and their travel time, not to mention their health and well-being, is hugely important to the McGuinty government.”

This type of comment is an insult to the readers of the Star, especially to those Windsorites who who do not know that part of Toronto. It is NOT on the usual tourist circuit for visits in Toronto. It should never have been allowed in the newspaper in the first place.

Here’s the reality from the Star’s sister newspaper, the National Post. Why couldn't Gord easily research the point as I did:

• “Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty today handed Toronto $4.6 billion to build a light-rail line along Eglinton Avenue, stretching from Pearson Airport to Scarborough.
  
  The 30-kilometre crosstown line, to be buried through the city’s dense core…
  
  The Eglinton line will extend some 30 kilometres from the airport to the Kennedy subway stop in Scarborough. It will be buried for 13 kilometres roughly from Keele to Leslie streets, but it will be an underground light-rail line rather than a full subway. It is set to be fully operational in 2016.
  
  Toronto city councillor Karen Stintz (Eglinton Lawrence) said she was “pleased” with the announcement.
  
  “My preference would have been a subway, that being said I appreciate that this is going to go forward,” she said.”

Here is how the Toronto Star explained the need for putting the light-rail system underground:

• “Q. Then why is about one-third of the Eglinton line being tunnelled between Leslie and Keele Sts.?
  
  The street isn't wide enough to accommodate the streetcar right-of-way and two lanes of traffic travelling in both directions.”

Here is a comment about Finch Avenue:

• "TTC engineers have determined that a 36-metre-wide road is ideal when putting two light-rail tracks down the middle of a city street, separated from the traffic.
  
  But from Bathurst to Yonge Street, Finch is just 30 metres wide, forcing the TTC and city staff to devise other designs, including considering widening the road "over time" to avoid snarling traffic"

In other words, it is only going UNDERground where the road is too narrow. Using Henderson’s logic, the entire 30 km should have gone UNDERground. They are not.

DUH…an analogy for Windsorites who have never been to Toronto is putting a streetcar line down the middle of Ouellette Avenue from Tecumseh to the River. It could not happen. It is just like the Bloor subway line and the Yonge Street subway line in Toronto that are UNDERground as well. There is not enough room on the street for traffic and a light rail system.

I happened to live about a half a block away from Eglinton Avenue in a house when I lived in Toronto where the SUBway would go UNDERground. I know exactly the reason why a line has to go UNDERground. There is no room for it on the surface. It is a cheaper “SUBway” type system.

As far as I know, generally SUBways are built UNDERground

• Q. Why isn't the city building a subway along Eglinton Ave.?
  
  Anticipated ridership for the line doesn't justify a subway, according to the TTC. It expects a demand for 5,400 passengers per hour in one direction by 2031. About 10,000 people per hour is considered the threshold for a subway; 8,000 people per hour is the level at which the TTC considers the technology used by Scarborough Rapid Transit.

Spreading misinformation like this is not at all helpful. It might be fun to work up the locals so that the Mayor has a bargaining position but it gives people an expectation that will never happen. All it does is cause more distress. That is what is so reprehensible about what is taking place here and the debate so far.

One would have thought given the true facts that the Star would be more careful in what is written on its Editorial pages. I will at least give credit to the Star Editorial a few days ago where it said:

• “And obviously there's big difference between a subway-bus system and a border access road.”

That is a huge difference which Henderson chose to ignore completely. Why that distinction was not forced to be revealed in the Henderson story is beyond me. But then again, that Editorial was designed to help out our Mayor as well.

The Star’s mission has to be to pressure Sandra and Dwight to make the Premier come to Windsor and bow down to our Mayor’s genius.

• “Perhaps we can now conclude that the premier finally understands why this community has been fighting tooth and nail…
  
  So why is it, Premier McGuinty, that in Toronto it's OK to want to improve the air we breathe and make the air cleaner, but not here?”

That is the new Eddie-defined strategy that he has been preaching so many times over the past little while. Force the Premier to come here to talk to Council and to be cross examined by our Black Letter Law expert and by our Perry Mason. Allow the Enforcer to finally get an answer to his question about why no one listens to Windsor.

Oh sure, force the Province to mediate but only under the terms and conditions dictated by our Mayor. Those one-sided terms would determine the results wouldn’t they.

In fact, if one actually can read to the end of the Star Editorial, one can see total capitulation by Eddie:

• “There's time to find a better solution, and GreenLink provides the blueprint.”

Now we know the truth. The "no-compromise" City solutions....BS!

Greenlink was nothing more than a negotiating tool for our Mayor. It is exactly the same for which we spent millions on the Schwartz Report and for the debate over a full tunneling. Can you imagine, our millions of taxpayer dollars paid Foreign Consultant generated “no compromise” position is nothing more now than a “blueprint.” What a joke!

The Province does not have to negotiate; Eddie is negotiating himself downwards.

However, do not be fooled. Do not get carried away with all this stuff. Do not get all upset. This is merely theatre and drama. All that the Premier and our Mayor are doing is arguing about who gets how much of the spoils after their alliance with the Federal Government forces the Owner of the Bridge Company to sell out.

If you want an analogy that explains this all so clearly, it is the following. It is nothing more than the Allies fighting about who gets what in East Europe after defeating the “enemy.”

Sam's Garden Of Eden Does Not Win The BIG Award

Congratulations are due to Sam Schwartz for winning a Diamond Award for his Greenlink project. Mind you, I am not sure which version of Greenlink was presented--the original, Son of Greenlink or some other variation or compromise solution. But that is a quibble.

Unfortunately, Sam did not win the Empire Award but it seems that his project may not have been eligible since it looks like a New York State award only.

I mention this because good old Gord talked about the award when discussing Greenlink.

• "The irony, from Windsor's perspective, is that Mayor Eddie Francis will be in Manhattan tonight to join the Sam Schwartz firm at a black-tie gala of the American Council of Engineering Companies of New York where Green- Link will be given a Diamond award for its innovative design.
  
  Good enough to win awards in New York State. But not good enough for the folks in charge of laying asphalt in Ontario, the ones who can't figure out how to keep service centres open on our most important highway."

The suggestion is that Sam's project design was better than DRIC's. Maybe it was and maybe it was not. You see the DRIC Road was not eligible for the award since only FOREIGN HIRED consultants from New York State were eligible to apply.

• "An ACEC New York hallmark is the annual Engineering Excellence Awards (EEA) Program. EEA recognizes and celebrates engineering achievements that demonstrate the highest degree of skill and ingenuity among member firms."

And member firms are

• "firms registered to practice engineering in New York State"

Sorry Gord, that tactic does not work either!

P3s, Government Bonds And Your Mortgage

Nice to see Brian Masse in the news again jumping head first into someone else's story! I was getting worried. Where was he for so long? He was so invisible? He may be happy to know that he and I may be on the same side on a border crossing matter for the first time over the P3 battle with the Federal and Provincial Governments.

I certainly could use his help in denouncing the concept before taxpayers get ripped off for hundreds of millions of dollars. That almost happened in British Colombia with the Port Mann Bridge where the financing costs alone were $200 million more than if the Government did it itself.

He has had a terrific opportunity to slam the P3 concept for the road and the Bridge to the border in Windsor but he has not said a word lately. Has someone told him to be quiet perhaps? Has he been threatened? Who wants him muzzled?

This is not like Brian who normally grabs an issue that taxpayers will love. And what could be better these days than greed and waste as issues?

Come on Brian, get talking. Compare Brian with his NDP colleague in British Colombia where the Port Mann Bridge P3 Project collapsed:

• “Port Mann P3 Deal Blows Up In Liberals’ Face
  
  VICTORIA – The Gordon Campbell government’s only defence for its costly and embarrassing financing fiasco of the Port Mann Bridge is to spread false distortions about the opposition, charged the NDP.
  
  “Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon staked his political reputation on building the Port Mann Bridge as a private project that would be on time and on budget,” said New Democrat Transportation critic Maurine Karagianis. “Now the private financing scheme has blown up in his face. The bridge is late, more than double the original cost estimate, and millions of dollars have been wasted pursuing a failed financing scheme.
  
  “The Campbell government is so embarrassed by this fiasco that instead of coming clean on the cost of their delays they are trying to attack the opposition for asking important questions.”
  
  A Campbell government press release this morning quoted Karagianis as saying that the Port Mann Bridge project was a “colossal waste.”
  
  In fact, Karagianis called the Campbell government’s obsession with a failed private financing scheme a colossal waste.
  
  “New Democrats know that a new bridge is part of the solution for the horrible traffic congestion that plagues commuters,” said Karagianis. “But Kevin Falcon and the Campbell government have generated nothing but delays and dramatically expanded costs.”

Brian had spoken out with respect to the P3 for the DRIC Road:

• “Masse had opposed P3s for crucial public infrastructure projects.
  
  "I don't think that we need to have some consortium from China, Dubai, Russia, Spain or wherever owning public infrastructure in Ontario, especially one that connects our border and is very significant for economic trade," Masse said from Ottawa.
  
  Masse raised the spectre of a toll road and said an international consortium might not be sensitive to local logistical issues when planning and constructing the highway.”

Of course, his comment totally missed the point with respect to the evils of P3s. I was shocked that he did not talk about the rip off of taxpayer money by the private P3 operators. That was what I would have expected a member of the NDP to talk about.

I can remember Brian being so aggressive in Parliament over P3s when he grilled the Minister:

• “Mr. Brian Masse:
  
  Why have you departed from, for example, the Blue Water experience? Maybe you can provide that. Why is it you have decided to depart from that historic, successful venture that hasn't cost public taxpayers and that has lower fares than in many other spots? Why are you departing from that? Is it based upon ideology? Is it based upon serious research? What is the reason you're departing from a practice historic to Canada?
  
  …My concern is whether or not this government has done its due diligence to study whether or not the most important border crossing, which you're hoisting up on the P3 platform for at least two years prior, runs counter to the minister's statements here today that there would be a due diligence process to see whether it's viable or not. You've been putting that out there.
  
  So what's driving this? Has there been hard research done to determine whether this crossing, the most important one for our economy, is actually going to be more successful, have lower toll rates, and be more accountable as a private entity? Because that's not the case with the current private operator. It basically holds much of our economy right now at risk…
  
  But your press release says you were in Toronto today “to seek a partnership with the private sector in the building of a new Windsor border crossing”. So your press release indicates that you are actually out seeking that, yet your comments today say it's going to be going through some vetted process. I'm concerned about that contradiction.”

There’s our Brian taking a dig at the Bridge Company. It would not be a Brian diatribe on the border without it. Yet he pointed out the contradiction and does not seem to have done much about it since then. This is not at all typical Brian. Something is very strange to me.

The concept of Public Private Partnership really isn’t all that well known. It is not all that hard to accomplish in a new project. But in an already built one, as in Windsor, the matter is much more difficult to achieve when someone already owns the property.

In fact you ought to be scratching your head right now and wondering why the Governments want to replace one private operator, the Bridge Company, with another private operator. I have been wondering about that for a long time too. As Brian said, the Governments have been seeking a private sector partner for our crossing.

Clearly, there is an agenda behind all of this which the Governments have seen fit not to tell us. Now you understand exactly why it will be so difficult to get a border solution.

Why would the Bridge Company give up ownership of their bridge just because the Governments want to be the new owners? It is not as if the Company has done a bad job. The Bridge Company can rightfully say that they are the ones that made Windsor/Detroit the #1 border crossing in North America. It was their money that did it, not Government money. And what did they get as thanks from the Governments for doing all of this… an effort to drive them out of business so that the Governments can buy the Bridge at a cheap price and give it to another private operator to run for anywhere from 40 to 99 years.

It would just be like the Governments threatening to build a new DRIC bakery a block away from the bakery of Mary Ann Cuderman in Sandwich if she did not sell out cheaply. If she did decide to sell out because they were much more powerful than she, then the Government would replace her with someone else who makes chocolate brownies because the Government does not want to be in the bakery business. That wouldn’t seem fair, especially because I like what she bakes.

Let us leave that for a minute and talk about the P3 for the road. The concept is the same but the way of justifying it is different now.

Those Infrastructure Ontario guys are pretty smart. Look at how they describe their taxpayer ripoff using their version of P3s. This is part of the press release for a hospital project:

• “The Niagara Health System project will be delivered using an alternative financing and procurement model. Plenary Health Niagara will receive annual payments from Niagara Health System over a 30 year period. Payments cover construction, building maintenance, lifecycle repair and renewal and project financing. Lifecycle refers to ensuring that heating and cooling systems, windows, floors and roofing structures, for example, are kept in excellent working condition over the 30 year period. The payments are like a fixed-rate mortgage with maintenance and repair expenses included and will total approximately $1.42 billion after 30 years. In today's dollars this is equivalent to approximately $759 million…
  
  The annual payments are like a fixed-rate mortgage with maintenance and repair expenses included. For example, if a homeowner signs a mortgage agreement today, he commits to the cost of the house in today's dollars (this is known as the net present value). However, over the lifetime of the mortgage, the homeowner pays monthly mortgage payments plus the costs of updating and maintaining the house during that period. This cumulative cost is called the nominal cost. In the case of the NHS project, while the cost of the contract in today's dollars is equivalent to $759 million, after 30 years, this will total approximately $1.42 billion.”

There, isn’t that easy to understand. Just like your house mortgage now.

What they fail to tell you is that P3 operators generally want a 20% rate of return on their money for toll road deals. I did the calculation in a previous BLOG outlining the many billions of dollars that taxpayers will overpay if a P3 is done for the road.

Presumably those billions are the amounts necessary for “updating and maintaining the house.” If you believe that this amount that I calculated is the cost for looking after a highway for 30 years, then you believe that Greenlink make sense.

At this time, Brian and I should be shoulder to shoulder denouncing what is being proposed. Never mind doing a P3 deal that is like a mortgage. We should be doing a deal that is a mortgage! In other words, the Government ought to be issuing bonds to pay for the cost of the road and paying it down every year in the same way that a homeowner does.. There is no need to pay a superpremium of billions of dollars for maintenance to a P3 operator who probably requires the Government to help finance the deal in the first place just like in British Colombia.

Let us assume that Brian and I are successful. I think that this is where our alliance would fall apart unless we could come to an understanding. Brian would want the Governments to go out and borrow money to build the DRIC roads, plazas and the bridge or use taxpayer dollars to do it. (Doesn't that mean that we would have to give up on some other programs that might be more essential because there was no money for them?). We know that the project costs would be horrific just like in Port Huron where costs have increased 30% in only a few years to almost $600M.

My perspective would be slightly different. I would take a look at the partnership between the Bridge Company and the Governments over the last 80 years. It seems to have worked relatively well. I would suggest that the Governments do their job and build the roads while the Bridge Company does its job and be responsible for the plazas and the bridge itself.

Each of them would be responsible for financing their part of the deal. The Governments would spend less on a government financed project for the road than if it was a P3 project. The Governments would not have to waste another billion or so dollars on building a bridge and updating plazas because that would be the Bridge Company costs.

Yes I know that money is being thrown around for infrastructure these days as if deficits don’t matter. However, wouldn’t it make more sense to use that billion dollars for infrastructure projects where money ought really to be spent.

After all, Governments still have to be prudent with taxpayer money. They still have their Standard and Poor's ratings to be concerned about. There is a point beyond which they ought not to go for the sake of our children and grandchildren who will have to pay for all of this infrastructure deficit spending.

If only Brian and I could agree on that, we might be able to push forward a border solution together!

The Mayor's Press Conference Questions

Don’t you find it amazing that our political leaders are on television so much these days giving interviews and holding press conferences so that they can tell us how they are saving us from disaster? The Prime Minister is doing it and so is the President of the United States.

What is wrong with Eddie Francis? Why hasn’t he seized this opportunity as well? He personally might be able to save Eh-Channel from closing given the high ratings they will get if he has a show on the air and CBC might actually have to hire more people to handle all the fan mail for him.

I thought what I would do to help out is prepare a list of thought-provoking questions that members of the audience or the press might be able to ask on his first show to get his program off with a bang:

1.  When you went to Washington and New York over the weekend did you fly through YQG
2.  Did your office forget to tell you that the President was not in Washington but overseas so that he could not meet with you or was he snubbing you too
3.  Have you set up your meeting with Dan Stamper yet
4.  Did you take a taxi to the airport or did you forget that Veteran Cab drivers were on strike
5.  Considering that truck traffic is collapsing at our crossings, how did you come up with the number of 30,000 trucks going along E C Row
6.  Do you really expect people to believe that there is only $100 million difference between Greenlink and the DRIC Road
7.  Has the Premier told you to stuff it yet or is he leaving that job for Dwight and Sandra
8.  Considering that Lufthansa files into Detroit Metro, why would the Lufthansa consultants say “we will have to look at some of the competing airports just to make sure they're not in duplication or triplication of facilities."
9.  Since Lufthansa offers services for automotive business travelers out of Detroit Metro including Aeromotive Perks and a luxurious new terminal lounge, did you check if they have a conflict of interest in looking at Windsor Airport
10.  Did you really attend the CIBPA meeting to find people from Venice who can help you with your canal proposal
11.  If “Truck traffic key to cargo centre.” then how will trucks go now to the Ambassador Bridge without going on City streets
12.  Did you read the Windsor Star Forum on the canal or does your Office just pick out the good ones out of the about 200 posted so far for you to take a look at so you think that everyone is on your side
13.  If as Bob Duff reported “Spitfires exposed in goal, ” could they wind up in gaol
14.  Since “Coun. Ron Jones said e-mail campaigns don't impress him,” how will you get him to send in an e-mail vote in response to your email so that he votes in future to spend $30,000 to hire lawyers to oppose the Ambassador Bridge Company in the United States.

Now you go and make up a few so that you can ask them too.

BLOGMeister On Panorama Italiano

I was honoured to be invited by Luigi Tosti to be interviewed on Panorama Italiano about the CIBPA meeting and its significance.

I talked about the border file and what it means to Windsor now and in the future. I also expressed my view about the importance of what CIBPA was trying to accomplish.

Panorama Italiano will be broadcast Saturday at 2 pm on Cogeco rather than at its normal time on Sunday. But if you really want to hear what I had to say now, then go to:

http://www.panoramaitaliano.ca/Destination/Transferable/Current.html

You will also see some of the CIBPA meeting and hear what residents had to say. You will also see the Stamper/Francis highlights:

• understand what CIBPA is trying to accomplish and why


• see Eddie disregarding completely the meeting rules of speaking only for one minute as you see part of his 9 or 10 minute address


• see Eddie wanting mediation but not telling anyone what his impossible to meet preconditions are


• see Eddie asking for help to have the Premier bow down to him


• be amazed at the scare "health concern for kids" tactic that Eddie uses


• watch where Eddie backs off dramatatically from his Bridge Company opposition


• watch Eddie never adopting CIBPA's purpose by not inviting the Bridge Company to meet with him to solve their border dispute considering that Dan Stamper was sitting only steps away from the microphone


• listen closely to what Stamper had to say about Eddie's new found position too


• watch how Stamper called Eddie's bluff.


• decide who got the biggest round of applause.

CIBPA held their first organizational meeting last night. Interestingly, most of the people who signed up saying that they wanted to participate---about a quarter of the crowd at the initial meeting, something unheard of---actually attended. Some could not attend and apologized because they had other appointments and some reps from other City groups were there, but it was a huge response.

It will be fascinating to observe the importance of this grassroots citizens' movement that CIBPA started grow as new groups in the City sign up as sponsors and how citizens will finally find their outlet!

Windsor is a small town in the end. If Windsorites buy into what CIBPA is doing, then watch out. The movement can literally become a powerhouse overnight.

Here's hoping!

Taxman 2008 Free Tax Software Cometh

It is bad enough to have to pay taxes but to pay for software to help you do it. Ridiculous!

I have used the Taxman free software now for several years and I like it but you do so at your own risk! Try it out and see for yourself.

http://pacificcoast.net/~gthompson/2008.htm

Is the CP DRTP Sale Another April 1 Joke

I hope that the sale of a significant portion of CP’s interest in the DRTP Tunnel is not another April fool’s day joke like the juvenile one played by CKLW with respect to the East End Arena. That stunt probably will cost Eddie Francis 500 votes in the next election from people who still do not realize that it was all fun and games, for the CKLW staff anyway.

There is interestingly a lot of similarity between the DRTP and the CKLW jokes. They both were set up by people who believe that they are a lot smarter than Windsorites and that they can manipulate us. I bet they had a terrific time thinking about it and carrying out their agenda as we fell for it.

I am happy that DRTP seems to be dead. But who knows if it really is since CP still maintains an interest in the Partnership. However from some of the news reports, it seems that CP needs the cash and $100 million isn’t too shoddy a number to help fix their balance sheet. And OMERS can pretend that this is a sound investment in infrastructure to people who don’t know any better as part of their shift away from the equity markets. Who knows as well from an accounting perspective whether it defers writing down the asset for another few years.

I have always felt very angry in this border file. I know that I and others in the City are being manipulated and played. I feel like a puppet with someone pulling my strings. Something is done here and I react in an expected fashion. Something is done there and I react accordingly. It is all a big game. I can just picture these people sitting around, laughing and having a good time at my expense, and yours.

All I can do, to be blunt about it, is to sit back and react to what is going on around me without really understanding the big picture. I do try, as you can tell from the various theories that I express either directly or through Deep Throat. I’m getting better at it I think and getting closer to the truth as this file is starting to unwind. Still, it is disappointing that those in positions of power have to act in such an underhanded manner. It is eye-opening and sad at the same time.

Who are these people? I have my suspicions. Obviously, a number of them are bureaucrats. Clearly, there are politicians and ex-politicians. Undoubtedly there are some big money boys who can see the huge profits to be made in P3 deals, or rather even the newly redefined P3 deals that are now said to be just like home mortgages. There is no doubt whatsoever that media people are involved as well and academics.

This started as an economic nationalist idea with the Ambassador Bridge being a symbol of American Imperialism in Canada that had to be destroyed by having Canada take it over. Added on to this over the years was the understanding that the Bridge was a key trade link between Canada and the United States. It became vital for Canada to control it in order to ensure that our goods and goods imported from Asia through our ports had a readily accessible market into the United States. Canada had to ensure that it controlled corridors and gateways so that even if the US became protectionist, as it now seems to be under President Obama, Canada nevertheless had a way around any rules that the Americans might apply to the rest of the world. Finally, added onto all of this was money, the huge profits to be made in P3 deals, especially in management fees.

This is a Canadian–run file that has gone on for 50 years as I have Blogged before. That means at the least that there are Ottawa people involved i.e. the Canadian Federal Government. There are some people in Ontario who are part of this but they are really bit players, not the big stars. At the local level too, I suspect so.

In the end though, an international border crossing is a federal matter and the Federal Government has ultimate control and the ultimate interest. Accordingly, the Feds have to be running this operation. It is hardly a small matter either. Prime Minister Harper has discussed our border crossing at least twice in face-to-face meetings with President Bush and once with President Obama. Our little Windsor/Detroit crossing has risen to that height!

As far as the Americans are concerned, my belief is that it is more at the State level than Federal. I believe that they have been duped. They have been fooled into believing that they can achieve their goals by bringing in a pot of gold from P3 investors because the State does not have the money to accomplish certain objectives. Moreover, if the project is handled by nongovernmental people, then it is a way around controls by the State Legislature. MDOT I am sure would rather avoid having to deal with Senate Republicans. Once the deal is structured, they never have to see the Legislators again!

Of course I have a biased point of view because of my position as General Counsel of STOPDRTP. I believed that it was a bad project when I first got involved in early 2003. I thought that it would destroy Windsor. It did not make any sense to me to put a truck highway right through the middle of a City and have a golf course sized Customs Plaza that would spew pollution in the heart of Windsor. I had lived through Bill Davis stopping the Allen Expressway when I resided in Toronto before it ruined that City. I thought the same thing here. Only it was worse because of the trucks only.

You may find this a surprise given how much time I have devoted to the border file but I honestly do not believe that there ever was any intention of building the DRTP truck tunnel using the existing crossing. It took me a long time to come to that conclusion.

I believe that DRTP and STOPDRTP as a reaction to it were completely expected and had an ulterior purpose. That purpose was part of an effort designed to frighten the Owner of the Bridge Company into selling the Ambassador Bridge to the Canadian Government.

I have said that before with respect to DRIC but I believe now that it started even earlier than that with DRTP. There’s no doubt in my mind that the Government people involved were very pleased to see this project moving forward even though they knew in the end that it would never be approved.

To be blunt, the DRTP people did a terrific job in convincing so many people and groups that it was a fabulous project that should be supported. Their supporters were many and were powerful. I must admit that if I was the Bridge Owner I would have been quite worried. But then again I am not and he probably was not concerned.

In fact, the rise of STOPDRTP actually helped those behind the initiative initially. The more vociferous we became and the more outspoken, the more likely it would terrorize the Owner into believing that DRTP really was an entity that could take away half of his business almost immediately. Heck, Mike Hurst when he was Mayor was so concerned about DRTP that he hired David Estrin!

After all, if you remember the Rail Lands Bylaw Issue, it was only by a fluke that I discovered that the rezoning probably would have allowed a DRTP road to be built. If they had achieved the rezoning, it did not matter about all of our protests. DRTP could have started on its project and that would have put terrific pressure on the Owner to sell out rather than lose half of his business.

Unfortunately for those behind this initiative, they did not understand that STOPDRTP was not going to go away but was going to stick around for much longer than they ever expected that it would. Our success in scaring politicians at all levels probably hurt what these people thought that they would achieve with the DRTP project and resulted in the need for DRIC to move forward as a pressure point to force out the Owner of the Ambassador Bridge.

You ought to go back and read my BLOG “February 22, 2006 A Waste Of Three Years.” That to me was probably the most important BLOG that I have written. I discovered that:

• “A Report on the "Michigan-Ontario Railroad Border Crossing Infrastructure" was completed in December 1991… I am shocked that MDOT has been sitting on a document that effectively killed a DRTP-type project in 1991! If this kind of a project made no sense, then why was this not brought forward right away. Why did DRTP have to be examined and only now eliminated?”
  
  …Frankly, if I were the Mayor and Council of Detroit, I would demand to see a copy of it and then go and visit the Governor and State Legislators in Lansing. I would want the answer from MDOT why my City was being discriminated against!
  
  The Canadian Governments should be outraged that MDOT did not give them this Report or did they have it also hidden away somewhere?
  
  The Governor and Prime Minister need to reconsider immediately the value of DRIC while the Michigan legislators need to start their hearings immediately and ask what else is there that has not been revealed.
  
  On top of all of that, the border crossing traffic projections in the Report are of considerable interest. Actual facts prove that they are absolutely wrong!’

The only explanation that I had for this non-disclosure of a key report that was around for a decade and more was that DRTP had a purpose and it was not to be a border crossing. My belief became that it was a terror tactic as DRIC is also and such supplementary actions as the passing of Bill C-3, the International Bridges and Tunnels Act.

This completely changed my perspective on the border file. That report plus some other things that I learned confirmed to me that we have never been told the truth in this file and that it is being hidden from us. There is much more behind all of this than we will ever know.

I came to the conclusion that the Canadian Governments were working together as one to beat the Bridge Company. I viewed the so-called fighting and animosity amongst the three Governments in Canada as nothing more than squabbling over who gets what piece of East Europe as they were fighting Eddie’s “enemy.”

I understood what the Schwartz Report and Greenlink were really all about. The DRIC Road that would never be built to the Ambassador Bridge was designed to squeeze traffic away from the Bridge. The City’s Heritage actions in Sandwich and with the Interim Control and Demolition bylaws were nothing more than pressure tactics. Canada has still never yet approved the Enhancement Project Environmental Assessment. We still see it today with silly articles like those in the Free Press that discuss “security” and Eddie’s rants about health since the fundamental basis for the DRIC project supposedly, traffic volumes, has collapsed.

Do you not see the irony in all of this. If we really were concerned about security then we would have allowed the Enhancement Project bridge to be built already.

Each of the Governments had a role to play within their Constitutional jurisdiction. The Feds over the Bridge, the Province over the road and the City with respect to social issues dealing specifically with respect to Sandwich.

The whole planning was a beauty to behold by brilliant people who are prepared to spend $60 million and more of taxpayer money to accomplish their objectives, who are prepared to risk the relationship between Canada and the United States to achieve their goals and whose mission has completely been destroyed because they underestimated their opponent and did not understand his and his family’s desire to maintain the ownership of the Bridge.

Back to DRTP. In my opinion, biased as it is, DRTP divided our community in a way that never should have happened. It never should have been promoted because it was never going to take place. It stayed around longer than it should have and kept morphing into whatever it seemed was trendy at the time. It was a long-term solution, then the short-term one. Initially it was aboveground and then it was to be tunneled with Greenspace on top. It did not matter. Whatever you wanted it to be, DRTP became.

I am not unhappy to see it go if it really is gone. It is a sad chapter in the history of Windsor.

But it is more. It is a symbol of deception by those in power. It is despicable. It is criminal in the way people have been treated. We are nothing more than pawns to be used just like the people in Delray who have been shafted by their Governments who promised them the world.

I know people who sold their homes or who thought seriously about selling their homes because of the DRTP Truck Expressway. They worried about their investment, their health and that of their children. Businesses suffered because of their proximity to what was going to be a major truck expressway. Can anyone appreciate the anguish and the pressure that some people were put under because this plan was put forward so seriously and with the spending of so much money?

Think about it though from Windsor’s perspective. We have been playing this game since late 2002. Our economy is collapsing in this region. Supposedly money is available, billions of dollars of it for infrastructure from Government and from the Bridge Company who wants to move forward on a project. Not a penny has been spent and there is no likelihood in the near term that much of it will be spent to create thousands of high-paying jobs that will tide over this City until such time as we are able to diversify our economy.

The CIBPA meeting was nothing more than a reflection of our anger, our worry and our frustration. Jobs are disappearing, house values are crashing and businesses are going bankrupt.

Do the Governments care? Hardly. All we get are the usual platitudes about how important this crossing is to the economies of Canada and United States but no action. Instead money is spent in Sarnia and in Fort Erie.

Was DRTP used as a tool by these people as well? I think so. For that, they should be upset as well because it cost them a lot of money.

We do not need a lawsuit to stop the border crossing being completed. Given the experience with the decade long FIRA matter, it will take a generation to be resolved. If we do have to have one, and I truly hope we do not for the sake of Windsorites, I hope Matty Moroun does it. It would be nasty and bitter and eye-opening. I hope that he takes these people to Court and forces them to open up their files so we can learn the truth. Examination for discovery with excellent litigators will put a lot of people at risk personally and will disclose what we only merely suspect.

I want to know who these people are and you ought to as well. I want to learn how much money they have cost taxpayers. I want to know how they have tried to destroy a business. I want to know how they have tried to destroy our Community. I want them dealt with too and in the most severe fashion.

Where is the Auditor General of Canada? Where is the Auditor General of Ontario? Why aren’t they working together on this most disturbing of files, probably for the first time in their histories, since it is a joint matter involving two levels of Government? It is time someone took an interest.

Goodbye DRTP. I really am glad to see you going.

A Few More Stories

Just some extra added attractions

TUNNEL COMMISSION

Can you make any sense of this comment by the Mayor?

All that he had to do was to fill in this blank

However, if he did that, then everyone would know that he was not offered $75 million by Infrastructure Ontario. Now wouldn't that be embarrassing after spending about $2 million on a deal that was never completed

WASH THEIR MOUTHS OUT WITH SOAP

It is absolutely clear that this Council is becoming one of the most foulmouthed Councils in our history. This is a G-rated BLOG or I would tell you exactly what they are saying.

First we had the Mayor using salty language and having it appear in a Column in the Star:

• "It's going to be rough. We are in deep s**t. It will catch up to us and have a significant impact," said Francis."

Now look at what Council MOM said in the Star. In fact, the Star repeated it much more explicitly than they did before. That may perhaps help explain why the have an increase in readership.

But seriously, Councillor MOM, the Councillor who went after Studio 4's sign said:

• "The province needs to get their sh*t together,” said Coun. Caroline Postma, a supporter of the proposed location near Highway 401 between Walker Road and Concession 8."
  

Oh my!

OPEN AND TRANSPARENT GOVERNMENT IN WARD 2

Things are going to get very interesting in Ward 2 with Councillor MOM. It will be true open government after all. Nothing will be hidden. Everything will be exposed for everyone to see. It will all be out in the open. She has decided:

• "I will be in a coffee shop once a month, to openly discuss whatever people want to talk about."

What a strange turn of events for the Councillor who objected to the Studio 4 sign wouldn't you think.

Unfortunately things are not going to be as exciting as I had thought. Obviously, as she also discussed on her website as well, there was " continuous improvement" to her website. I saw this revision to her website:

LUFTHANSA IS IN TOWN

The Foreign Consultants that Councillor Lewenza helped hire were in town looking at our airport.
I wonder if they will be around for the Buy Canadian Motion at Council that the Councillor is sponsoring. I wonder if the Foreign Lawyers that the Mayor has hired to fight the Ambassador Bridge Company will be there too along with the Foreign Medical Consultant that was retained for Greenlink.

ANOTHER MEETING IN SANDWICH

I wonder if they will discuss Heritage matters at this meeting and sign up people to support the City's Heritage Plan. It should be an exciting event at the OMB:

ARCHITECTURAL CONSERVANCY OF ONTARIO
WINDSOR REGION BRANCH
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
April 1, 2009 – 7:30 p.m.
at
Olde Sandwich Bake Shoppe
3118 Sandwich St., Windsor (next to parkette)
GUEST SPEAKER:
John Calhoun
Heritage Planner, City of Windsor

THIS MEETING IS OPEN TO ALL INTERESTED PERSONS
BRING A FRIEND
MEMBERSHIPS AVAILABLE AT THE DOOR

For more information, please call
Pat Malicki at 945-2626

IS THE STAR HYPERACTIVE

I doubt if everyone in Windsor will agree with this statement by the Publisher of the Star:

• "It's the quality of the paper, our hyper-local strategy and how it's been implemented," Venney said, when asked to explain the readership climb. "Hyper-local" coverage diverts more news space to matters of local interest not covered by national or international news outlets."

Some members of CIBPA might be hyperventilating when they hear this kind of hype from the Publisher. As you will recall, CIBPA sponsored a meeting a few days ago to discuss the border file and to demand that politicians at all levels as well as the Ambassador Bridge get together and "do a deal."

Several hundred local residents were in attendance, many of whom I am sure were Star subscribers. A dozen or so of them spoke to express their opinion about what should be done to get this City moving.

I would have thought as well that it was an important event since I saw the Mayor and Councillors Dilkens, Valentinis, Marra, Hatfield and Gignac there along with Dan Stamper of the Bridge Company.

What kind of coverage did the Star give to this important local event that was "not covered by national or international news outlets?"

Zero, nothing, nada, zilch.

BLOGGER POWER

• Gary Cunliffe, managing editor of CBC Windsor, which is also facing layoffs, said traditional methods of news delivery were being challenged by citizen journalists or the "one-man bands operating in Windsor's basements, Windsor's highrises and Windsor's streets."
  

Nice insult. Sheeesh, so now Bloggers are taking down the traditional media. Blame us for everything.

Actually this lonely Blogger works out of a second story office!

A NEW POSSIBLE TUNNEL PURCHASER?

No, seriously, they could not be thinking of borrowing money to take over the Tunnel deal. I mean only our Mayor is that entrepreneurial. Still they are talking with Infrastructure Ontario and Eddie did fail. Perhaps Detroit is really desperate...Cockrel needs a deal. Who knows!

• "Town seeks debt financing through Infrastructure Ontario
  
  AMHERSTBURG — Town council has authorized administration to apply to Infrastructure Ontario in order to borrow money for various capital, water and wastewater projects.
  
  Supervisor of Budget Services Ivano Fregonese said they will gain favourable rates through Infrastructure Ontario with regards to this debt financing initiatives."

CP Bails On DRTP

Canadian Pacific and Borealis Infrastructure announce changes to their Detroit River Tunnel partnership agreement

CALGARY, April 1 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ - Canadian Pacific Railway Limited (TSX/NYSE: CP) and Borealis Infrastructure Management Inc. announced that they have entered into a transaction that, subject to regulatory approval, will change their joint ownership of the Detroit River Tunnel Partnership (DRTP) to a majority position for Borealis. CP retains its exclusive right to operate and maintain the Detroit River tunnel; however, CP's interest will decrease to 16.5 per cent from 50 per cent with the completion of this transaction. CP's proceeds from the transaction will be $110 million plus additional proceeds of $22 million based on future freight volume through the tunnel.

The DRTP owns the Detroit River Rail Tunnel which carries CP's rail line from Windsor to Detroit. The tunnel, which transports rail traffic across the Canada-US border, is a vital link in the North American transportation infrastructure.

"I am pleased with the latest development in our long-standing partnership with Borealis and its parent, the OMERS pension fund," said Kathryn McQuade, Canadian Pacific's Chief Financial Officer. "This transaction allows us to realize value for our asset and strengthen our balance sheet while preserving our right to operate the tunnel."

"The Detroit River Tunnel is an investment that fits into our long-term strategy of securing infrastructure assets that can generate stable and sustainable returns for OMERS plan members," commented OMERS President and CEO Michael Nobrega.

About Canadian Pacific

Canadian Pacific, through the ingenuity of its employees located across Canada and in the United States, remains committed to being the safest, most fluid railway in North America. Our people are the key to delivering innovative transportation solutions to our customers and to ensuring the safe operation of our trains through the more than 900 communities where we operate. Canadian Pacific is proud to be the official rail freight services provider for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.

About Borealis Infrastructure

Borealis Infrastructure identifies, invests in and manages infrastructure assets on behalf of OMERS. Borealis has been in the infrastructure business since 1999 and has developed a diversified portfolio of infrastructure assets in Canada and globally with an enterprise value of over $40 billion.

About OMERS

OMERS is one of Canada's largest pension funds with an established track record of strong and steady performance and with investments in a wide range of companies and assets around the world. OMERS provides retirement benefits to over 390,000 members from the local government sector in Ontario.

SOURCE Canadian Pacific Railway

More Stories Please

The stories just keep coming so keep on reading!

THE GOVERNATOR

Arnold, Arnold, Arnold… I think you need better financial advisors. Your State just escaped bankruptcy and now someone wants to put you in big trouble again.

• California Governor looks to emulate B.C.
  Province's public-private partnerships could serve as model for rebuilding U.S., Schwarzenegger says
  
  VICTORIA — A U.S. political heavyweight who believes his country needs to spend trillions of dollars to tackle crumbling infrastructure is pointing to British Columbia as a model for rebuilding America.
  
  California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, speaking yesterday on NBC's Meet the Press, said he wants to copy the public-private partnerships that have been used to fund and build major projects, from hospitals to highways, in B.C.
  
  "It's like when you look at British Columbia or other places where they have a public-private partnership, where everyone is happy," Gov. Schwarzenegger said.
  
  "Businesses are happy, the people are happy, labour is happy, the politicians are happy. I mean, everyone is happy. We want to do the same thing. We should - the United States should copy that kind of a principle so that you can go out there and build."
  
  The Governor was given a detailed briefing on B.C.'s public-private partnerships, known as P3s, when he visited the province in May, 2007. Premier Gordon Campbell, who has already forged an alliance with the California Governor over global-warming initiatives, took Mr. Schwarzenegger on a tour of the construction site for the Canada Line transit route linking downtown Vancouver and the city's airport."

Arnold, that was way back when, in 2007. It is 2009 now and we have had an economic meltdown, remember.

If you talk to the Premier of British Colombia ask him about the Port Mann Project and how it fell apart. Ask him if it really made sense to spend 200 million dollars more on P3 financing than if the BC Government did it themselves.

You might also wish to take a look at the Ontario Auditor General report on a hospital built near Toronto to see how P3 games are played.

Arnold, I did try to talk your people and offered to help but all I got was this:

OBAMA REBUFFS HARPER ON THE BORDER

It is becoming more and more clear that Prime Minister Harper got nowhere with President Obama on the border issue.

• “Harper wants to speed trade
  
  Canada's prime minister on Friday said he's exploring a locally championed plan to speed border trade by cutting red tape.
  
  Stephen Harper said he and President Barack Obama have discussed establishing border ambassadors, which he called envoys, to deal with impediments to international commerce.
  
  Harper said Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan also will meet with his American counterpart to discuss the concept…
  
  Special envoys will come about only if the prime minister pushes for it, James said after the meeting.
  
  "I got tired of going to conferences and hearing about border 'thickening,'" he said.
  
  "Everybody knows it's happening, and now we need somebody doing something about it."

Obviously, the Kergin initiative failed miserably. Why the Prime Minister wants to further embarrass himself is beyond me. If he could not convince the President to deal with this matter then what will Minister Van Loan or Mr. James accomplish?

Give it up already, Stephen. Neither a Republican nor a Democratic President is prepared to assist you in taking over the business of the Owner of the Ambassador Bridge. Perhaps soon you will finally realize that you have to deal with him before this molehill of an issue becomes a mountain that leads to the further deterioration of Canadian/American relations.

MOOOOO-RE DRIC STUDIES NEEDED

Oh sure, you thought I was kidding. That it was a lot of bull!

You thought I was being foolish when I pleaded that DRIC do the work to measure pollution levels from bovine flatulence to see what impact it had on pollution in this area.

I am surprised that our Legal weapon of mass destruction did not include this as a deficiency in the DRIC Environmental Assessment Report. It is a lot more persuasive than his silly MoE disclosure that turned out to be only a half story:

• "Fish oil in cow’s diet could help save planet
  
  Farting cows, their diets and its impact on global warming may make most people chuckle, but it isn’t a laughing matter for an Irish researcher studying how to reduce those emissions.
  
  Since 2007, Lorraine Lillis, a researcher from University College Dublin in Ireland, has focused on the benefits of adding fish oil to cows’ diet. While the oil helps the heart and circulatory system, and improves meat quality, she has also found that it reduces methane emissions.
  
  Farm animals are thought to produce up to a quarter of all man-made methane emissions worldwide. A part of that problem is a bacteria living in the digestive system of cows.
  
  With methane being 20 times more powerful at trapping solar energy in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, the cow has surprisingly become a very high priority, said Lillis.
  
  While a cow would normally produce 400 grams of methane per day, by adding fish oil to their daily food intake, it reduces emissions, Lillis said.
  
  On Monday, Lillis and other researchers from University College Dublin will report at the Society for General Microbiology meeting in Harrogate, England that by including two per cent fish oil in the cattle’s daily food intake, there would be a reduction of about 21 per cent in methane production.
  
  In Canada cars and trucks release 10.3 per cent of Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions, agriculture follows closely behind at 8.6 per cent, according to statistics from the National Inventory Report and Natural Resources Canada. "

Now about the hot air that comes out of City Hall and its effect on polluting the atmosphere...

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