PM Mark Carney must release Gordie Howe Bridge deal details

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It should have been a simple story.

That is, Canada will give some of the net profits from operating the Gordie Howe Bridge in Windsor-Detroit to the U.S. under a renegotiated deal with U.S. President Donald Trump, despite Canadian taxpayers paying 100% of the bridge’s $6.4-billion cost.

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Why? Because it was important to get the bridge open and its boost to the Canadian economy going, instead of having it become a stranded asset by playing hardball with Trump who played hardball – again – with Canada.

Agree or disagree, that’s an understandable position.

What isn’t understandable is why every time Prime Minister Mark Carney and the feds talk about what’s in the deal, what’s in the deal becomes less clear.

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Canadian taxpayers won’t get investment back for long time

We do know Canadian taxpayers aren’t going to get back their investment for a long time.

The original estimate was at least 50 years under the first deal signed between then-Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper and then-Michigan governor Rick Snyder in 2012.

Now it will be longer, we don’t know how much longer, because money is going to the U.S. in the new deal that wasn’t going there in the first one.

In the new deal, 50% of the net operating profits from toll revenues will be sent to a U.S.-controlled regional economic fund for 15 years.

But what that means is unclear.

Deal means more money for U.S. and less for Canada?

Carney said the U.S. share of net profits will only be paid after all operating costs of the bridge are first paid to Canada – including the costs of servicing the $6.4 billion debt.

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The Americans say, and Bloomberg News says it has a copy of the agreement confirming the U.S. position, that there’s no provision for including Canada’s debt servicing costs in determining net profits.

That would mean more money for the U.S. and less for Canada.

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Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has rightly called for Carney to release the full text of the deal so the public will know what was negotiated, prior to the bridge’s July 27 official opening after an earlier delay.

Canadians are entitled to transparency on a deal costing them $6.4 billion, given the confusing and at times contradictory positions of the Carney government on what it says.

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