The Decibel - What Canada gave up to (hopefully) open the Gordie Howe bridge

Episode Date: July 15, 2026

A new deal between Canada and the U.S. resolves issues around the Gordie Howe International Bridge, which is now set to open on July 27. The bridge – which will become the second bridge connecting Windsor, Ont., and Detroit, Mich., – nearly opened last month, but the ribbon-cutting ceremony was quickly called off after U.S. President Donald Trump refused to open the American side of the bridge. A month later, the federal government has struck a new deal with hopes that this one will work. Steven Chase is back on the show. He’s The Globe’s senior Parliamentary reporter and has been covering developments about the bridge since the original deal was struck between Canada and the government of Michigan in 2012. He’ll explain the tensions around this bridge, why it’s so important to Canada, and how this dispute fits into the wider trade context between the two countries. Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

There's a new deal between Canada and the U.S. This deal is not technically about trade. It's about a bridge between Windsor, Ontario and Detroit, Michigan. The Gordy Howe International Bridge has been in the works since 2012. It's named after a famous Canadian hockey player who played for the Detroit Red Wings for most of his career. Howe is also the person credited with coining the elbow's upphrase, So his name is fitting for this particular bridge. But there's been a lot of drama surrounding this piece of infrastructure.

It was supposed to open in June, but it's been delayed by the Trump administration after long-time opposition from a billionaire family. Now, the bridge is set to open on July 27th. Hopefully. Stephen Chase is the Globe's senior parliamentary reporter, and he's been covering the developments around the Gordy Howe Bridge since 2012. He's on the show to explain the tensions around this bridge, why it's so important to Canada, and how this dispute fits into the wider trade context between the two countries. I'm Cheryl Sutherland,

and this is the Decibel from the Globe and Mail. Hi, Steve, great to have you back on the show. Glad to be here. So let's start by establishing the significance of this bridge. Why is this bridge so important to Canada? Well, it's important to Canada because of something that happened 25 years ago. You have to go back to 9-11, to the terrorist attacks of 9-11. At the time, that was a single bridge going between Windsor and Detroit. And there was massive traffic jams in the aftermath of 9-11 as the U.S. clamped down on border security. And it became quickly apparent to Canadian decision makers that this was a choke point. it was a vulnerability. We couldn't have 30% of our truck traffic reliant on one aging bridge, which at that time was already 80 years old. People began to think there was discussions, there was research, there was collaboration with Michigan. What are we going to do about this? What do we need?

And the end result of all these studies and analysis was we need another bridge. So Stephen Harper government took it upon itself to really push this project and something had to be done about it. it. So we should note, however, that the Ambassador Bridge is a privately owned bridge controlled by the wealthy Maroon family, and they have been opposed to a second bridge from the get-go. Let's talk about the agreement between the federal government and the government of Michigan, which happened back in 2012. What did the original agreement say? The politics are what forced Stephen Harper's hand. Michigan wanted the bridge, but was unable to pay for it because the Michigan legislature refused to chip in funding. So this resistance made a state

appropriation next to impossible. So the result was a June 2012 agreement between the Canadian government and Michigan Governor Rick Snyder under which Canada would fund or cover the $6.4 billion price tag of the bridge. This is a striking commitment for infrastructure that is sitting on foreign soil, but one that reflected how existential the risk was to Canada at that time. This trade artery had to be broadened. All right. So that's quite a big number here. $6.4 billion is what Canada decided to pay in full. What else was in this agreement? Now, the agreement also covered how Canada would get its money back. Under the agreement, Canada would collect tolls from people crossing the bridge, from trucks crossing the bridge, and this is how they would recoup their investment.

It was expected to be over 50 years. The Michigan side was not going to collect tolls, and this is still not part of the deal. Okay, so 14 years have passed, and now this massive new bridge is completed. It was essentially completed in February of this year. And then it was supposed to open last month on June 12th, but it didn't. Why not? We have to go back to February. In February, Donald Trump came out with a true social post where he threatened to stop the bridge from opening and said Canada should give the U.S. government at least half of the asset.

What's been reported subsequently is that that threat came after Matthew Maroon, chair of the company that owns the Ambassador Bridge, donated one million U.S. to a pro-Trump campaign group and reportedly met with U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik. But what the Globe reported at the time, citing a U.S. industry source, is that the U.S. government had slammed the brakes on the opening because Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik and Pete Hoekstra, Washington's ambassador to Canada, wanted to first negotiate a deal to help Michigan's Maroon family, the billionaire owners of the existing Ambassador Bridge, mitigate their losses from competition from this new Gordie Howe Bridge. Do we have a sense of how much traffic the Ambassador Bridge stands to lose? What we have is a Department of Homeland Security study that the U.S. government actually published in January that said that commercial traffic at the publicly owned bridge would drop from nearly 3 million vehicles annually to about 1.6 million once the Gordy Howe Bridge is open. Among the four crossings in the region, according to this Homeland Security projection, the Gordy Howe bridge would attract 28% of passenger vehicle traffic and nearly 45% of commercial vehicles. traffic. One of the things that truckers like about the new bridge, we had talked to the president of the Canadian Trucking Alliance about this.

Stephen Laskowski said his members estimate that Gordiala Bridge's opening will save them between $20,000 to $100,000 a month through operational efficiencies, including shorter wait times. That's because inspection facilities for traffic on the new bridge, you know, customs inspection, et cetera. They're more convenient. And the highway connections between Canada and the U.S. are speedier.

So, as he said, for the first time in the Windsor, Detroit Corridor, we're going to have highway-to-highway-highway connections from the 401 in Ontario to the I-75 in the U.S. We'll be right back. All right, so let's get into this new deal that ought to finally open the bridge. What are the details of this agreement? What we know so far is that the Canadian government has agreed to share some portion of the proceeds from tolls with the Americans. The details, however, are very superficial and top level.

What they've told us is that they're going to collect the revenue from the tolls. The Canadian government will deduct operating expenses and debt expenses and share half of what remains with a U.S. run regional development project for about 15 years. So the profit or the money after expenses and debt will be split in half, and half it will go to this regional economic development fund. But the Canadian government hasn't really told us any more than that. And in fact, they've contradicted themselves in recent days. They told us on Friday that it was 50% of the profits after operating expenses. And then Carney changed it on Sunday to add, we're also going to take out a portion for service.

the debt and that there won't be very much left over. So there's this whole thing where Kearney, the deal has explained on Friday, Carney tried to minimize it on Sunday and saying there won't be very much left to share with them. The Americans have been celebrating this is a win. Mr. Trump has been celebrating this is a win, but we don't have a lot of clarity on how much money is going to the Americans. But what's the effect of having some of the toll revenue pay into this economic development fund? Like, does this delay Canada's ability to recoup the costs of building this bridge? It does. The initial expectations were it would take Canada 50 years of toll collection to cover the cost of building the bridge. Now it's going to take a longer time

period. And again, this is where the Canadian government has been really unhelpful and hasn't explained the implications of this deal. We haven't seen any numbers, any projections. We've seen nothing aside from a few sentences. I understand that there was also something about who gets to decide on the price of the toll. Is that right? So what we understand is that the U.S. will need to give its consent if Canada wants to increase the tolls on the Gordyhow Bridge or lower them below comparative regional averages.

Why would the U.S. want to have a say on the price of the toll? One of the things that people had been speculating about is whether this would create a price war between the bridges. And the Maroon family, one of their concerns, has been losing traffic because of lower tolls. And so we can only speculate that this is a concern for the future of the Ambassador Bridge and avoiding a price war that undercuts what they're charging people to cross. And we should note that according to the Gordy Howe Bridges website, their tools are lower than those of the Ambassador Bridge.

What's really lacking, and this is really unsatisfactory, is the Canadian government has not released a clear accounting of this. They have not released any numbers. We have to rely on snippets of conversation from the prime minister to get details. And this is not acceptable. How unusual is it for a government to use a piece of infrastructure like a bargaining chip? I can't think of another instance in my career where I've had to cover something like this. Before we wrap, Steve, I want to touch on this symbolism of all of this because a bridge is kind of an on-the-nose symbol for partnership. And the controversy around this bridge seems like yet another example of the tensions in the Canada-U.S. relations right now.

How do you think this deal around the bridge might factor into wider issues with the U.S., like the renegotiation of our free trade deal? Well, two things. I think it's obviously a good sign that we can agree on moving forward with this trade artery and that it can open and that we've cooperated sufficiently that it's going to be an option for people to cross another span, another way for commercial traffic to cross. On the other hand, it's unfortunately another reminder that you can't trust Americans. We had a deal. The deal was signed.

It was in place for more than a decade. and then it was undone by Mr. Trump. And that's the concern. This is the same president who said that the United States-Mexico-Canada agreement that he negotiated in 2017-2018 was the best deal ever made. And now, only in the last month, he's come forward and told us

that he doesn't want to renew the United States-Mexico-Canada agreement. And this might be kind of reading the tea leaves here, but just based on what we've seen so far with the saga of the bridge, is there any sense that perhaps the bridge could be used as kind of a bargaining chip and getting concessions from Canada on things like dairy or other things that Trump has been upset about when it comes to the things that he wants Canada to negotiate when it comes to free trade? That's a good question. Mr. Trump over the weekend said in a social media post that this new arrangement was a much better deal for America.

but we've heard that before and then he's gone back on a deal. So who knows. Who knows? Yeah, who knows. That's kind of the only thing we can actually say at this point with Trump. Just lastly, Steve, I want to touch on the permanence of this deal, which we are talking about a little bit right now. But do you see anything in this deal that could stop him from delaying the opening again or closing the bridge once it's open akin to how Iran has been closing off the Strait of Hormuz? Well, his MO is to change his mind.

and to try to get more in this art of the deal approach. So I suppose that's an open question. All right, Steve, we'll leave it there. Thank you so much for coming back on the show. You're welcome. That was Stephen Chase, the Globe's Senior Parliamentary Reporter. That's it for today. I'm Cheryl Sutherland.

Our producers are Madeline White, Rachel Levy McLaughlin and Mahal Stein. Our editor is David Crosby. Adrian Chung is our senior producer and Angela Pichenza is our executive editor. Thanks so much for listening.