Payne: Bridging Candor Gap

Posted by hpayne on June 7, 2012

The New International Trade Crossing could use a little candor. Because we haven’t gotten much so far.

Canada Consul General Roy Norton exploded this week when asked by a reporter if Nolan Finley’s June 1 report in The Detroit News was correct that the use of Chinese steel was a sticking point in the Michigan-Canada bridge talks. “Norton said whoever tipped off Finley did not ‘know anything about Canada’s procurement policies’ and created what he called ‘a fiction, a poorly informed report,'” reported MIRS.

And who are these ignoramuses that Finley sources? “Top officials of the Snyder administration, on the island for the Detroit Regional Chamber’s annual policy conference,” according to Brother Finley’s article.

Oh. When politicians insult both reporters and the very Michigan pols with whom they are partnering as know nothings, it should rouse suspicion that they know something.

And what we do know is that the issue of Chinese building American bridges is a very controversial topic these days. Indeed, China is constructing the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge reports the New York Times. Made in China. With Chinese labor. Because it saves the government of California a bundle.

Canada, too, would be smart to have China build its bridge (to the applause of free traders like yours truly) — but to do so would fly in the face of Snyder-Canada claims that the new bridge is about jobs, jobs, jobs.

Yes, North American union labor will construct the bridge and its on-ramps over the Detroit River — but admitting that the actual bridge-construction jobs will be outsourced to China would be a political catastrophe for Snyder-Canada.

“It’s a philosophical difference, but one we’re confident we can move beyond,” says that “know-nothing” top Snyder administration official. I bet it is.

The Chinese issue is part of pattern in this candor-challenged project, beginning with: Why is the bridge necessary in the first place?

Because we need to “put the power of the private sector behind a new project and say that ‘we’re not for monopolies anymore, we’re for competition,'” Lt. Governor Rick Calley told Michigan Public Radio this week. So the bridge is necessary for price competition?

No, other pro-bridge sources tell Rochelle Riley of the Detroit Free Press. We need the bridge because the Ambassador Bridge is falling down.

“The Ambassador Bridge was designed to last about 50 years. It is 83 years old. Arguments about whether bridge traffic has increased or international trade is growing fast enough are irrelevant in an argument about whether a bridge can last forever. It can’t,” reports Riley.

So which is it?

Bridge advocates can’t claim both that two bridges are necessary to compete for increased traffic and also say traffic numbers are irrelevant because one bridge is about to fall down.

In truth, there is no business case for a second bridge. Traffic at the Ambassador Bridge is down 25 percent since 2006 at 50,000 vehicles a day with no increase in sight. Meanwhile, traffic at the Blue Water Bridge in Port Huron is up four percent (so much for that monopoly, Lt. Guv). So Canada wants to build a bridge in Detroit where there is the least demand? Why?

Because it wants to put the Ambassador Bridge out of business.

Canada has its reasons: Because it’s jealous that a private company is making money over its border. Because it doesn’t want truck traffic running through downtown Windsor. Because governments like to build shiny new things. Because it’s a once-in-lifetime chance at winning a decades-long war with the Morouns to finally control Canada-Michigan commercial traffic.

Fine. Except that Canada and its U.S business partners don’t make that case. Instead they invent arguments about increased traffic demand and bridge monopolies.

More candor, please. Michigan officials believe a new Canadian-owned bridge is important because the existing bridge is old, the Canadians won’t let Moroun build it, and they covet federal matching money — even if it means throwing a major Michigan business under the bus and saving costs by outsourcing to the Chinese. A tough argument to make — but at least it’s true.

 

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