Good morning. The Gordie Howe International Bridge seemed destined for a triumphant opening, until a political showdown got in the way – more on that below, along with a made-in-Canada health breakthrough and Alphonso Davies’s much-watched hamstring. But first:
Today’s headlines
The parliamentary committee on MAID is expected to oppose expanding access to patients with mental illness, sources say
Alberta Health Services has been ordered to hand over documents to the RCMP, the agency’s vice-president confirms
English universities reach a deal with Quebec on French-language rules
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Open this photo in gallery:
The Gordie Howe International Bridge with no traffic on it. Dax Melmer/The Globe and Mail
Bridges
Across the divide
The Gordie Howe International Bridge is a handsome feat of engineering. It’s the largest-ever bridge built between the U.S. and Canada, supported by hundreds of crisp, ultra-light cables that plunge from two large, wishbone-shaped towers – yet at a distance, it seems to skim over the Detroit River and looks almost ribbon-thin. The Gordie, as locals call it, took six years to break ground, another six to construct, plus more than a year to inspect, and cost Canadians $6.4-billion in total. It was finally meant to open last Friday. Then Donald Trump threw a wrench in the plans.
“There’s not great drama here,” Prime Minister Mark Carney told reporters on Thursday, hours after the Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority called off the ribbon-cutting event. He explained that the Canadian government agreed to delay the opening “at the request of the United States” to “resolve outstanding issues.” He did not say what those issues were exactly, nor how long they’d take to iron out.
This wouldn’t be the first time the U.S. President tried to hold up the Gordie. In February, Trump complained on Truth Social that the bridge “has virtually no U.S. content” and that Canada will reap all the benefits while America gets “absolutely NOTHING” in return. He insisted he would “not allow this bridge to open until the United States is fully compensated for everything we have given them,” then suggested “we should own, perhaps, at least half of this asset.”
It’s an odd gripe, given that Canada paid for the entire bridge, used plenty of U.S. steel and labour to build it, and already intends to split ownership with the state of Michigan. But there’s another group here that really, really doesn’t want the Gordie to open: Detroit’s Moroun family, the billionaire owners of the century-old Ambassador Bridge, which crosses the river just five kilometres away.
Troubled waters
Back in 1979, trucking magnate Manuel “Matty” Moroun purchased the Ambassador Bridge, making it the only international crossing in North America that’s in private hands. He then spent the next four decades ferociously defending his monopoly against assaults from governments and local residents, pouring tens of millions of dollars into legal, political and PR campaigns. (His actions led Forbes to call him “the troll under the bridge.”) After Moroun gave hefty contributions to state lawmakers in the early 2010s, Michigan failed to advance legislation that would’ve helped fund the Gordie. Canada swallowed the full cost instead.
Open this photo in gallery:
Matty Moroun in his Michigan office a decade ago. Jeffrey Sauger for The Globe and Mail
Moroun died at 93 in the summer of 2020, but his son Matthew has taken up the fight to stop the rival bridge. The family hired a lobbying firm with ace White House connections, Ballard Partners, which counts among its former employees Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, and his ex-attorney-general, Pam Bondi. The younger Moroun also donated more than US$1-million to MAGA Inc. in mid-January – if the name didn’t tip you off, it’s a super PAC devoted to Donald Trump.
Weeks after that contribution, Moroun Jr. reportedly scored a sit-down in Washington with U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Just hours later, Trump sent out his Truth Social post threatening to block the Gordie Howe bridge. The Globe and Mail discovered that the Morouns were behind the abrupt cancellation of last week’s grand opening, as well. Lutnick and Pete Hoekstra, the Michigan-raised U.S. ambassador to Canada, are trying to negotiate a deal that would save the family from losing too much money once they have to compete with the Gordie.
The road ahead
It’s not hard to understand why the Morouns want to remain the only bridge in town. Roughly US$300-million in trade moves across the Ambassador every day, and the family charges those vehicles at least twice the rate paid at publicly owned junctions elsewhere in Ontario. The bridge already lost its top spot as the busiest U.S.-Canada trade crossing last year: Trucks are increasingly choosing the Blue Water Bridge in Sarnia, 100 kilome…
Read the full article at The Globe and Mail →
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