LILLEY: Carney’s spin on Gordie Howe bridge deal starting to unravel
· Toronto Sun
It’s starting to look like Prime Minister Mark Carney is dancing around the edges of the truth as he tries to defend the Gordie Howe bridge deal. What Carney has told the media in Canada doesn’t match reputable reporting from Bloomberg and The Globe and Mail .
Why the Prime Minister feels the need to obscure the realities of the deal is a mystery.
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Canadian voters have shown that they are willing to grant Carney the benefit of the doubt when it comes to dealing with Donald Trump. Had he simply stated clearly that this was the deal he had to accept to get the already-built bridge open, there likely would have been little issue.
How the original bridge agreement worked
The original deal, signed between the Government of Canada and the Government of Michigan in 2012, called for Canada to keep all toll revenues until the cost of building the bridge was paid off, after which toll revenues would be shared.
Back in February, as the opening of the bridge drew near, President Trump started complaining about the deal, saying it was unfair to the United States. He refused to give final sign-off on the bridge’s opening in June, and talks were held to arrive at a new deal.
Since that new deal was struck about 10 days ago, the public has largely been kept in the dark.
The Americans describe it as a great new deal for them; Canadian officials have tried to play it down publicly as a nothingburger.
“I was able to cut a MUCH BETTER DEAL for America, and by so doing, will be allowing the new and spectacular Gordie Howe International Bridge, spanning Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, to open on July 27, as scheduled,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Carney, meanwhile, tried to make it sound as though the Americans got nothing while speaking to CTV at the Calgary Stampede.
“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,” Carney said.
Carney’s explanation begins to shift
On July 12, Carney specifically said that paying down the debt on the bridge construction would be deducted from the toll revenue before anything was split with the Americans. By last Friday, he was no longer making that claim, but neither was he being clear about the terms.
“It’s not splitting the tolls of the bridge. It is an agreement for 15 years to split net revenues,” he said at an announcement in London, Ont.
“So it’s manning the toll booth, it’s maintenance, it’s snow removal, a series of other operational costs. We expect that after those costs, for the first few years, net revenues will be modest. In fact, we expect them to be negative.”
Independent reporting tells a different story
Then came Bloomberg’s reporting on Friday afternoon.
The news service reviewed the one-page agreement, and there was nothing about debt repayment.
“It’s a 15-year side pact to share the equivalent of net profits, after operational costs but not interest. The underlying Canada-Michigan deal (which does factor in debt repayment) is unchanged,” wrote Bloomberg White House correspondent Josh Wingrove .
While Bloomberg’s reporting contradicted Carney’s claims and relied on American sources, Steve Chase of The Globe and Mail confirmed the same information a short time later using Canadian sources.
“The official said net revenues are all revenues collected with respect to the bridge minus all incurred operating costs of the bridge. There is no subtraction for debt servicing, they acknowledged when asked,” Chase wrote.
It appears that Carney is being coy with his language in describing the deal.
It seems that, under the deal, Canada keeps all toll revenue, as provided for in the original Canada-Michigan agreement. Under the new agreement, however, Canada will pay the Americans an amount equivalent to half of the toll revenue minus operating costs.
We can claim it isn’t toll revenue because the money will come from the government’s general revenue fund, but the Americans are still getting what they claimed: half the toll revenue, regardless of which pot of money it comes from.
A request was made to the prime minister’s office for clarification on the discrepancy between his comments and the public reporting; they did not respond.
Canadians deserve to hear the full truth from Carney, not the obfuscating word salads he’s been offering up.