I joined The Gene Valaitis Show to talk about the brazen shakedown of the $6.5-billion Gordie Howe International Bridge. This isn’t just a trade spat; it’s a direct heist of our national sovereignty. Just hours after Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick met with billionaire Ambassador Bridge owner Matthew Moroun, the White House threatened to block the opening of this vital artery. While Mr. Hockey’s namesake is held hostage for backroom leverage, the public is bleeding $7 million every single week the project sits idle.
The Moroun family’s demand for fair market value to compensate for their lost monopoly is a bunk argument. If we’re doing a forensic audit, the bill goes to them for the decades of tactical blight and public health costs they’ve externalized onto our neighbourhoods. We must stop negotiating with a private dynasty and start the process of expropriation. International border crossings are essential infrastructure that can never be held in private hands again. The Gordie Howe is our Sovereign Bypass; it’s time to stop paying rent to a billionaire just to access our own country.
Transcript (Gemini Generated):
610 CKTB’s Gene Valaitis: Right now, another good friend, another voice here on the show, Jon Liedtke is joining us again this morning. Good morning, Jon.
Liedtke: Good morning, Gene. Thanks for having me.
Valaitis: Oh, it’s great to have you on, Jon. Um, you’ve been taking a very, very serious look at the Gordie Howe Bridge that connects Windsor, Ontario to Detroit, Michigan. This new bridge has been needed for years and years and years. It costs $6.4 billion. Canada paid for the entire thing. We used Canadian labour, Canadian steel, we used American labour and American steel. But all of a sudden, after one phone call from a billionaire in Detroit to Donald Trump, and now the whole thing could be stopped. You’ve been investigating, what have you found?
Liedtke: Yeah, I’ve been looking into this one, and you know, it’s- it’s really interesting. We spoke a couple of weeks ago about how Donald Trump threatened to not open the bridge, and I figured it made sense to talk to your listeners and provide them with a little bit of a background about the Gordie Howe Bridge, why it’s needed, and what the issue is.
It’s what we have here in Windsor, the border’s busiest commercial crossing in North America. Arguably, it’s the most economically vital kilometer of pavement on the entire planet, Gene, and it’s been consolidated into the private financial portfolio of a single Michigan family. For 50 years, two nations have allowed their industrial lifeblood to be funneled through a private bottleneck, leaving our collective economic security subject to the interests of a family trust, quite frankly.
And every 60 seconds, hundreds of thousands of dollars in auto parts, produce, and critical goods cross the Detroit River on the current Ambassador Bridge. It’s the literal valve of the North American economy, but for half a century, the artery hasn’t been governed by Parliament or by Congress or anyone you can actually vote out of office. It’s been run by the Moroun family. It’s a private empire. It’s not a corridor that is a monument to diplomacy or a triumph of government engineering. It’s an autopsy of what happens when two nations outsource their sovereignty to a billionaire’s bank account.
And we can see what a billionaire is able to do when they pick up the phone. We were told that this is a partnership, but this iron grip has turned historic neighbours into sacrifice zones, quite frankly, of plywood and rotting timber, Windsor’s historic Sandwich and Detroit’s Delray.
Valaitis: Well, you know, I just find it interesting that a billionaire family, who, by the way, have been opposing this bridge, which is needed, for years and years and years, can at the last minute just pick up the phone and, you know, Trump changes everything all of a sudden.
Liedtke: Well, we’ve heard that Trump usually, when he goes out and talks, he’s saying the thing that he heard most recently. So this billionaire was able to use his lobbyists and his connections to get a phone call, it sounds like, or a meeting, and to be able to get into the president’s ear.
But you know, to bring it back to Windsor here, when I was mentioning, you know, Sandwich or Delray in Detroit neighborhoods, what the Ambassador Bridge Company wanted to do, this is the Moroun business, they wanted to build a twin span on the Ambassador Bridge to justify not building the Gordie Howe Bridge, and in order to do that, they bought up swaths of land in these historic neighborhoods, and they bought up old family homes, they didn’t rent them out, they didn’t lease them, and they just left- left them to rot. And it’s been a 25-year fight that Windsor is currently still in the middle of.
We actually just recently got a vacant home tax put in to be able to just cause them a little bit of, you know, a headache more than anything, just causing people to have to sign checks. But this is the cost of a monopoly that we’re seeing here, it’s destroyed neighborhoods.
But if you look west down the Detroit River, you can see the Gordie Howe International Bridge. The thing’s done. The cranes are down, the steel’s linked. It’s that six and a half billion dollar beast designed to finally break us out of this economic monopolistic nightmare. But instead of this ribbon cutting that we were supposed to have, we’re getting the shakedown from the president while the lobbyists are whispering national security nonsense right into the president’s ears, and Gordie Howe’s namesake is being held hostage right now caught in the middle of it.
But it’s not just infrastructure. This is a six and a half billion dollar middle finger to a dynasty that thought that they owned the river in its entirety. So the question isn’t when does it open, Gene, the question is how did we let a single family hold two nations by the throat for half a century? Why are we still letting them reach into our wallets today?
Valaitis: Well, I guess with Trump, the- he’s a Republican, and the Moroun family, they’re Republican, and I guess Trump wants them to keep contributing money to the GOP. Now, I have to give the Prime Minister credit, instead of freaking out like Donald Trump does, he called the president, had a phone call with him, and he informed the president that we paid the entire tab, and through tolls, Michigan will repay us half. Michigan will own 50 percent, Canada will own 50 percent. And he also had to reassure the president, who I’m assuming just didn’t know this, that yes, it was built with Canadian steel, but also American steel, with American labour and with Canadian labour. You would figure any common- think- common sense thinking man would get that. But I guess we’re talking about Donald Trump.
Liedtke: Oh, and also consider the fact that I mean, it’s not even- Michigan’s not even paying for it, it’s the toll revenue that they would be getting that’s paying for it, one thing. But also too, I mean, the construction of the bridge happened under his first administration. He was there! It was his project! Like I mean, so I mean, this is just- it’s the same as NAFTA 2.0, right, and how it needs to be rewritten or torn apart. The guy just has hissy fits, he- he throws temper tantrums.
But, you know, this entire mess didn’t start yesterday. The bridge was built in the roaring twenties, but Detroit actually, they were so hyped to vote for it, they did it eight to one for the private offer to build it. They ignored the current mayor’s warning then that the border shouldn’t be privatized. That mayor saw the future, knowing that if you give the private citizen the keys to a border, you’re not building a bridge, you’re building a throne and an empire.
But in ’79, Warren Buffett actually tried to buy the bridge. He bought up 25 percent of it, but Matty Moroun realized what was going on and he outmaneuvered Warren Buffett and was able to purchase more of it and Buffett ended up buying- selling out his shares to Matty Moroun for a- a measly amount of money, just- tens of millions of dollars I believe at the time. And when NAFTA hit in 1992, Matty Moroun wasn’t just owning a bridge, he owned the North American continent’s economic jugular.
And we saw the cost of that in 2022 when the Ambassador Bridge blockade happened, and we had the bridge shut down for a full week. It cost the auto sector 300 million in direct losses, it cost $6 billion in trade to stop going across the border. Plants from Lansing to Oakville ground to a halt. We actually had auto companies flying car parts across the river like it was the Berlin Airlift going from Windsor to Detroit. That wasn’t a trade route, Gene, that was a war zone for our economy.
Valaitis: Yeah, absolutely. And- and you know, many people in the Niagara region and other areas that are listening to us may be saying, well, you know, this is a Windsor-Detroit thing. This is not a Windsor-Detroit thing. This is a 401 corridor thing, and thousands and thousands and thousands of businesses from Fort Erie to Ottawa, all over the province of Ontario, all over Southern Ontario, they rely on that bridge, and it’s a terrible bridge right now. We need the Gordie Howe Bridge open as quickly as possible.
Liedtke: Yeah, we’re not just a stop here in Windsor on the way to somewhere else. We’re the literal bridge between two giants. Every single minute hundreds of thousands of dollars goes across, we’re the valve, and if that valve gets stuck, the entire engine of the economy for Canada seizes up, the 401 corridor grinds to a halt. So yeah, no, you’re absolutely right.
Now, the bridge company claims that the bridge is worth $5 billion US. They say that they have an exclusive right to the river. They actually want to be paid for stolen tolls that will now be flowing to the Gordie Howe Bridge. Get that! They want to be paid for the lost future revenue of a monopoly that shouldn’t have been allowed.
But, you know what? If you want to talk about fair market value, let’s actually talk fair market value. We should take 500 million off of what they say it’s worth for the municipal tax loss from the depreciation of the houses that have been left to rot, and for the policing cost of these ghost streets. We should take a billion dollars off for the public health cost because we know residents within 500 feet of idling trucks on Huron Church, which leads to the Ambassador, have significantly higher rates of illnesses. That’s a Moroun tax.
And then we should also take another billion away for the economic risk that was invited during the 2022 blockade by being the only game in town and not pushing further and using every tool at their disposal to get the protesters removed. So we should be charging them for the damages. I see fair market value at the Ambassador Bridge, not at 5 billion US, let’s call it 2 billion Canadian.
Valaitis: All right, so as of this Thursday morning, where do things stand? When should it open? If it does open, because I guess Trump could say no, we’re not going to, does he have that power really?
Liedtke: I- I mean, sure he could. He could direct his Customs and Border Patrol agents to not work it, and then to, you know, make it unsafe to operate and it would be shut down. He could say it’s not a priority border crossing and send the agents to other places, maybe they have to go do immigration duty somewhere else. I mean, there’s a whole thing- slew of things that he could do. He could just slow it down. I mean, he could- he’s the president, and the president seemingly has all the powers right now.
But where do things stand? Here, Ottawa at least is finally waking up. We’ve got the One Canadian Economy Act, which allows us to cut through all the red tape that has been weaponized for ages, but we need to go further. We need federal laws to ban private ownership of any international border crossings forever moving forward. Borders can’t be for sale. If we can’t control the gates to our house, we don’t have a house, we’re just renters.
We should be expropriating the Ambassador Bridge right now. Screw the exclusive franchise whining. Public interest trumps it all. Reclaim it, demote it to a local link, or we could go bold, we could turn it into a first-of-its-kind international cross-border pedestrian urban green park with cycling paths, walking paths.
Listen though, the Gordie Howe Bridge, it’s the bypass to all of the problems that we’ve been having- having, but it’s just the opening salvo in this fight for total border control. The private border era, that’s dead. And we need to move forward to the sovereign bypass.
Valaitis: Yeah, you know, I saw the former Governor of Michigan on some show on- it was either CTV or CBC, and he was saying, we need to thank Canada! This is an absolutely incredible thing for Michigan. I just don’t see what- I don’t see how- how Trump just doesn’t get it.
Liedtke: I think he just wants, you know, he wants a cut of it. This is like- we’ve heard people, I’m not going to allege it, but we’ve heard people in media refer to his actions like mob boss and I think, you know, it’s- there’s a way to look it through a lens that the guy just wants his cut. What more can he get out of us? How could he shake us down just a little bit more? And I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s- he’s already said that he thinks that they want more than 50 percent of the tolls, so maybe he wants more than 50 percent of the ownership, maybe he wants 25 points of the ownership from our side and Michigan keeps 50 percent of the ownership. Who knows? The guy is a hippopotamus in a hospital. He’s reckless and he’s dumb.
Valaitis: Yeah. So is there- is there an opening date in mind?
Liedtke: I don’t know of one. I mean, everything’s now up in the air, it’s in limbo. We were told that it was supposed to be happening, uh, third quarter I believe of this year. It was supposed to be last year, it was- it was supposed to be a couple of years before that. So we’ve been- I don’t think anyone here in Windsor is expecting a firm date until it happens. And right now, we’re in political diplomatic talks, so- so who knows.
Valaitis: Yeah, and- and meanwhile, Canadian businesses suffer because of- because of Trump again, what can I say. Hey, Jon, great story. Thanks for digging up all these facts, I appreciate it.
Liedtke: Absolutely, thanks for having me, Gene.
Valaitis: All right, there he goes, Jon Liedtke. He always drills down and gets some unknown facts of the story. Glad we had him on talking about that.
This aired on 610 CKTB
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