Rob Breakenridge: Come clean on the bridge deal, Mr. Carney
- The Gordie Howe International Bridge revenue-sharing agreement details revealed that Canada must share 50% of net revenues with the U.S. for the first 15 years, with funds controlled by the U.S. government, contradicting earlier Canadian government claims.
- Prime Minister Mark Carney’s public statements about the deal were inconsistent and misleading, particularly regarding whether Canada would recoup its debt-servicing costs before sharing revenues.
- The article criticizes the Canadian government for a lack of transparency and honesty in handling the agreement, especially given the political context of tensions with the Trump administration and ongoing trade disputes.
- The author highlights the need for Canadian leaders to be forthright about compromises in international agreements to maintain public trust, invoking Gordie Howe’s lesson about standing firm against unfair treatment.
Ten days after word of the deal was first announced, the details of the Gordie Howe International Bridge revenue-sharing agreement between Canada and the U.S. have finally emerged.
That’s at least nine days longer than otherwise should have been the case, but clearly those details were going to emerge at some point. So why on earth was the prime minister making claims about the deal that would inevitably be disproven and discredited?
When it comes to dealing with a mercurial and belligerent U.S. president, Mark Carney still enjoys a fair amount of leeway and benefit of the doubt from the Canadian public. Given the importance of opening this new bridge, coupled with Trump’s abrupt intervention to block that opening, Canadians would likely have been in a forgiving mood for a compromise deal.
Under the circumstances, this may well have been the best way forward. But instead of the prime minister levelling with Canadians, we got dishonesty, obfuscation, and a heaping of Trump-like spin.
It was Tuesday evening when the particulars of this agreement were quietly posted to the Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority. That alone is telling, since a truly favourable deal for Canada would have been heralded and publicized much sooner and much more widely.
To be sure, the Americans weren’t exactly shy when it came to boasting about this agreement and what they were able to extract from Canada to facilitate the opening of the bridge.
The full text would seem to confirm the American’ claims as well as the earlier reporting which had indicated a conflict between the agreement’s actual details and what Carney was saying publicly. Of course, what Carney was saying publicly also shifted over the span of those ten days.
This is all separate from the original Canada-Michigan bridge deal. Under that agreement, Canada would pay the full $6.4 billion cost of the bridge, and then collect the tolls until that debt was paid off. Afterwards, the toll revenue would be split with Michigan.
As per this new agreement with the United States, Canada will hand over 50 per cent of net revenues for the first 15 years, after recovering operating costs. That money will go into a fund, which will be controlled by the U.S. government.
Two days after that deal was reached, Carney told CTV News that the revenue sharing would only come after Canada’s debt-servicing costs had been factored in. In actuality, the details posted on Tuesday make no mention of Canada recouping such costs.
“We are sharing after Canada is paid back,” Carney insisted at the time. “We get the revenues. Then the servicing of the costs of the bridge and paying the debt of the bridge, and then what’s left over, there’s a split of that for 15 years.”
His comments in the subsequent days were less clear about that point, which only added to the uncertainty and confusion around the agreement.
Now that we have the actual text of the agreement before us, the prime minister needs to come clean with Canadians about why this deal was necessary and why he was not forthright about it in the first place.
The story here should have been the blatant American shakedown of Canada over a bridge that was complete and that we had paid for. Instead, the prime minister carelessly and foolishly allowed his own bad instincts to take over, overshadowing Trump’s actions and raising questions about his own judgment and honesty
As we face down new U.S. tariffs on Canadian goods and American demands for further concessions from us, it’s a less than ideal time for the prime minister to erode the trust of Canadians.
If indeed circumstances require further compromises from our side in pursuit of a broader trade agreement, we should expect our leaders to explain and defend those trade-offs, not downplay or deny them. How much faith can we now put in any government proclamations about future agreements?
In his 2014 autobiography “Mr. Hockey,” Gordie Howe himself wrote about how his father taught him “not to take dirt from anyone, because if you do they’ll just keep giving it to you.”
That’s probably an apt lesson for Canada’s government and their approach to dealing with the Trump White House. However, it’s also good advice for Canadians and our level of tolerance for misleading government spin on matters of great importance.
National Post
Rob Breakenridge is a Calgary-based podcaster and writer. He can be found at robbreakenridge.ca and reached at rob.breakenridge@gmail.com.