Harper promised that his government would mend relations with Canada’s largest trading partner [the US] that deteriorated under the Liberals. Harper must honour that pledge and begin working today to build bridges, both literally and figuratively…
Delays at the border - the “choke point of the economy” - cost the Canadian and American economies a staggering $13.6 billion per year, according to the Ontario Chamber of Commerce. Delays caused by a work stoppage by customs agents at Windsor border crossings in November cost Canadian industry $1 million per hour, according to the Ontario Trucking Association…
A Senate report released this summer called on Ottawa to pursue the construction of a new crossing with “war-time urgency” and concluded Windsor’s vital link to Michigan and beyond was vulnerable to shutdown. The report said Ottawa felt “little apparent urgency” to ensure goods continue to flow unimpeded across North America’s busiest land border crossing, with almost $130 billion in annual trade crossing in both directions.
Former U.S. Ambassador Paul Cellucci also stressed the need for a new crossing and even floated the idea of a public crossing financed by both national governments to expedite a process that had become bogged down in bureaucratic inertia. Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm has also blasted the glacial process, arguing it is necessary to “collapse” the “anachronistic geo-political barriers” holding up the construction of an additional crossing.
