Pressure on Gordie Howe bridge project may be paying off

Was it just over a month ago when I was yet again kvetching about the inexplicable delays at Canada’s “most important” infrastructure project, the Gordie Howe International Bridge?  That particular blog (see prior post “Governor Snyder says “Everything is on schedule” as Ottawa blames Michigan for bridge delay” Sept. 9-16) followed a strange chain of events where Dwight Duncan, the Chair of the Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority had publicly blamed the slow pace of U.S. land acquisition by the Michigan government for the project’s delay, despite Michigan Governor Rick Snyder being firmly of the view that there were “no delays” on his end and that “all the land acquisition is on schedule.”

The multi-billion dollar P3 project’s RFP was to be released last December (see prior representative post “It’s Now or Never for the Gordie Howe International Bridge” June 8-16), a date that my Board chose to ensure that the bridge would be able to open by former Transport Minister Lisa Raitt’s hard target date of 2020.  As time has passed, the project has gone from being on time and on budget (Jan/16), according to my replacement, Mr. Duncan, to late, when Mr. Duncan started telling the media this summer that he wouldn’t be held to an arbitrary date.

2020 was never an arbitrary date.  It was THE mission.  It was a date that the new WDBA CEO said he could deliver against when his then-Minister presented us with the challenge in the summer of 2014.  The Federal Budget of that year had already laid out the 5 year spending plan, and Parliament had approved every dollar.  All that was left was execution by the WDBA, with timely support from the mandarins in Ottawa when it came time to review the agency’s annual Corporate Plan.

If there is no target opening date — no risk of embarrassment if folks don’t deliver — there is no sense of urgency within various government agencies.  Other priorities will invariably get in the way in Ottawa, guaranteeing even more slippage of time.  I’m at a loss to understand how Mr. Duncan thinks a publicly-stated deadline isn’t a constructive element in the ultimate success of the project.  If it wasn’t for the public’s awareness of the 2020 opening date, my Board colleagues wouldn’t have been able to successfully win the day when Treasury Board staff recommended the we delay the summer 2015 RFQ release until after the federal election.

My theory has been that officials within the Treasury Board Secretariat and P3 Canada have been responsible for the WDBA’s laggard pace this year, although Mr. Duncan must ultimately shoulder the blame for his inability to stickhandle the various issues through the halls of power; he made great hay of his access to the PMO and Cabinet when he took the role last December.  Sadly, that access and influence hasn’t produced any tangible results to date.

For all of the photo ops of meaningful progress on the Canadian side of the border, everyone associated with the project knows those “Early Works” construction contracts were devised, budgeted, approved, let and begun long before the Liberals took office in November 2015.

Mr. Duncan may not agree with me that the role of any Crown Corp is to deliver on its mandate, rather than be an apologist for the government of the day.  When the McGunity / Duncan / Smitherman government didn’t dedicate a penny of Ontario’s massive 2009 infrastructure stimulus funding allocation to top up then-Minister John Baird’s $17 million contribution to help fund a portion of the Toronto Port Authority’s proposed pedestrian tunnel to Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport, it would have been easy for the TPA team to declare defeat.  Without a Provincial commitment, the minority government in Ottawa wouldn’t play ball either.  And yet, we found a way to get that tunnel built just the same, without a single dollar from taxpayers.

When Billy Bishop saw record passenger flows in June, July and August of this year, the tunnel’s existence meant that passengers didn’t have to wait for three ferries before crossing the Western Gap.

Tough, complicated projects require constant elbow grease.  It’s not like running a government department where you just push a button and your Deputy Minister ensures that a memo appears on your desk.

Good news may be just around the corner, and the negative attention that the Gordie Howe project is getting is surely the key factor.  During a recent speech to a Detroit business audience, Canada’s Ambassador to the U.S., David MacNaughton, had this to say about the delayed release of the bridge’s P3 RFP (h/t The Windsor Star):

“I don’t want to scoop what the Minister of Infrastructure (Amarjeet Sohi) may say in the next couple weeks, but it’s safe to say things are progressing extremely well.”

That’s a much better tone than Canada’s 10,000 exporters heard a few weeks ago when Mr. Duncan advised that bureaucrats and Ottawa’s external legal counsel had “underestimated the complexity” of buying land for the bridge on the Detroit side of the Canada-USA border, and that the project’s RFP couldn’t be issued until all of the key U.S. properties had been acquired.

It appears that sanity is returning to this “crucial” project.  And not a moment too soon.  As Lisa Raitt once said: “Let’s get ‘er done.”  Canada’s 10,000 exporters have waited long enough.

MRM