And how do we do that?

Well, listen, I, I, I think we have so deeply...

We have such a deeply integrated economy, especially in the auto industry and the parts sector.

It is unfathomable to believe that we're ever gonna get to a point where we're gonna apply 50% tariffs.

Uh, and if that happens, Bianna, I'm telling you, 10,000 people will be out of work in Michigan within a week.

10,000 people will be out of work in Ontario within a week as the OEMs simply idle production and send people home, because the price of the vehicles will not be affordable to anybody in the United States or Canada.

Uh, and so we have to get people back to the table and recognize first principles.

Um, do you think that America is too big for Canada to take on?

What, what does this mean for, for you and for, for our friends across the river in Windsor?

Well, it, you know, that's a really good question.

And Windsor, Detroit, of course, are the two largest urban areas as close as we are on either side of the border across our entire United States and Canadian border.

Uh, and so for a lot of folks in the United States, when they hear the word tariff, it's, it's in some way some abstract thing to them.

They may notice it a little bit at the grocery store.

For us, when we heat, when we hear tariff here, we know that that means jobs or job loss.

We know that...

Does this change the way you talk about how people in Canada are feeling about this? Does this change the way that you run this next campaign?

source contract was awarded to this gt and co and it it sounds like and you could you know answer this better about uh asking counselors and and staff about you know things that would make the city better and he feels like it's not the appropriate time as you know he is running for the mayor's seat i know that uh you called this i can't remember the word that you referred to but kind of unconscionable is what you said about uh fred francis bringing this up in the in the public

Well, it's just about Fred's campaign for mayor.

And what I dislike is that he's playing games with public trust.

It was just April, guys.

It was just April of this year that city council unanimously approved to update our purchasing bylaw.

And everything that the CEO did to let this contract out in terms of the purchasing bylaw, the sole source process, the threshold, the delegation of authority was all unanimously approved by city council and all followed in this case.

And so I have no idea why Fred would be concerned about discussing with a consultant, one of the leading consultants in the country, by the way, someone who knows the processes at the city of Windsor.

Yeah, like if you were in Fred's position, would you be okay with this if you had to talk to, you know, the former chief of staff of the person who was potentially maybe running for mayor again?

Mm.

Like, we'll be fine here.

This bridge has taken 25 years to, from the start of the conversation until it was ready to open.

Don't worry about us here.

We'll manage in the short term.

But I also understand that there's a cost to open it and a cost to keep it closed.

And when you have a bridge, whether there's one car a day or 10,000 cars a day, you still have all of the overhead and maintenance costs and staffing costs, uh, but you wouldn't have any of the benefit of any of the revenue.

Like, what, what do you think what you just described says?

from Michigan.

Yeah, she's from Michigan and she was a Congresswoman for many years.

And then she was elected last year to the U.S. Senate.

She is whip smart.

It was such an interesting conversation and such a, it was so nice to meet her.

Uh, and she wanted to come over to Windsor just to have a conversation.

And, and like most Americans today, if you, if you, if you meet them, uh, Most of them will say, I am so sorry.

These trucks do a lot of damage to that road.

Mm.

That was sort of the question.

Uh, and so folks started planning and, and saying, "We do need redundancy," and we had the North American Free Trade Agreement, and traffic was increasing, so let's get ready and start planning for, for more capacity.

And that really led and was the inertia behind the, the Gordie Howe Bridge.

It took 25 years from start to finish.

Now it's open for the better part of two weeks, and it's been very, very exciting to see people wanting to cross the bridge, wanting to experience it, because it is a bit of an experience different from other border crossings.

And now last week, the opening of the pedestrian pathway, which is something that we fought for here in our community to make sure was embedded.

Mm-hmm.

How are you feeling on this Monday about this new span and its opening and what have you heard in response?

Well, it's all very exciting because this was my 20th year on city council and And this project started just after 9-11, where lots of conversation began about making sure we had redundancy in our cross-border trading ecosystem, because what would happen if a terrorist took out the Ambassador Bridge? That was sort of the question.

And so folks started planning and saying, we do need redundancy.

And we had the North American Free Trade Agreement and traffic was increasing.

So Let's get ready and start planning for more capacity.

And that really led and was the inertia behind the Gordie Hell Bridge.

It took 25 years from start to finish.

But there's no question about the benefit for both of our countries with this new process.

Is, is there any plans for any kind of tunnel bus ser- or bridge bus service, I guess, it would be, at the Gordie Howe Bridge?

Well, you know what's funny, Mike? I was looking at some old Windsor Star articles from, from years ago, uh, and the first cross-border service was bridge service at the Ambassador Bridge, before, it was before the tunnel was even built.

Uh, and so it was interesting reading those articles and where the bus went and, you know, people's experience going back and forth across the Ambassador Bridge.

We don't have any plans on, on undertaking that at this particular time.

It would certainly bring back that, that huge expense, uh, for taxpayers if we were to provide it.

I, I think if there's a market, the private sector, uh, Link Bus operator today, if, if they see a market for it, perhaps they'll do it.

Perhaps a, a, you know, a circle somehow might make sense, you know, in picking up more passengers.

W- doing this for so long, Drew, uh, you know, first as a councilor and now as, as a mayor, is it basically you learn that you can't make everyone happy?

How, how do you heal that relationship with this organization and maybe encourage dialogue with other organizations in the future?

I, I don't really feel there's anything to heal.

I mean, I, I just called out what I saw as really bad governance, uh, playing out, and once we got the data, I put my hand up to support it.

Uh, and so I have no rift with the Welcome Shelter.

I, I think what they do is incredibly important.

I think what the Downtown Mission does is incredibly important, and the Salvation Army, they're, I mean, they're like the unsung heroes.

At the Salvation Army.

Some, some of the details on that, please.

What does this mean, this second crossing opening up to the city of Windsor?

Well, this is of a paramount importance for us because as the home to Canada's auto capital on our side, of course, Detroit is the motor city.

Our entire auto industry operates on a just-in-time delivery basis.

And so there are back and forth movements.

I mean, the stat is that the average part that goes into a vehicle is But that rolls off the assembly line at a plant has crossed the border about six times for continuous improvement.

And so what it means to have this type of border crossing that is a direct highway to highway border crossing will have the most amount of embedded technology to clear passenger vehicles but trucks as quickly as possible as that border becomes almost frictionless.

And having that certainty in our area is really important that the parts can, when they leave the supplier plant, they can get to the finishing plant, be put into a vehicle and roll off assembly line and get to a dealer's lot.

They'll prefer this bridge because it's a more seamless way to cross?

So tell us a little bit about why this one was needed.

needed.Yeah.

So Windsor, Detroit is the home to the busiest commercial border crossing between our two countries, and the Ambassador Bridge today handles about 25% of all the trade that travels back and forth between the United States and Canada.

That bridge was built in 1929.

Uh, and sort of after 9/11 when everyone started doing a, a deeper dive on security checks, sensible people said, "Well, what would happen to trade between our two countries if something happened to the Ambassador Bridge?" And that added, uh, along with a forward-looking view of, uh, our trade agreements and the suspected increase in trade and the need for additional road capacity, those two things really, uh, added a head of steam to a government conversation to say, "How can we start planning for a, a new border crossing?" And it was actually September of 2020- September 2002 that Jean Chrétien, then Prime Minister Chrétien, and then Premier Ernie Eves, uh, announced $300 million towards construction of a new border crossing.

Uh, and then everything started moving forward.

And so it's literally been 25 years of announcements and discussions and planning and lots of com- [laughs] community battles to make sure that we got a good solution here for residents and neighborhoods as a, a new route was, was, uh, created to this new bridge.

Uh, Mayor Dilkens, and who, who are they, and what has it been like dealing with them as the Gordie Howe Bridge project progressed?

Do you think it was the right call to leave the Americans out of the celebration today?

Yeah, absolutely.

How would you possibly think of having a, a genuine celebration with partners from the United States in the same week when their president is launching 50% tariffs one day, 10% tariffs the next day, and continues to, you know, to, to degrade Canada every way, shape, or form that he can? It just would be disingenuous for us to do that.

Uh, so we had a great celebration with all of, I would submit, the right people, uh, were there.

It was a happy event.

And I hope, honestly, I hope that someday in the future we'll be able to close that bridge for an hour or two when the time is right, get everyone to the center, a couple hundred Americans, couple hundred Canadians, uh, to actually cut a ribbon in the right place and properly celebrate the, the magnitude of what was built here, a $6.4 billion bridge, but also to celebrate the man after who it was named.

And Gordie Howe, a proud Canadian, Mr. Hockey, known for his r- his, his character of respect and integrity and humility, uh, all things that I think we, uh, c- character and qualities that we espouse to, and I think, you know, some of our friends on the US side would, would be lucky to, uh, uh, to take a page out of his playbook.

Do you think that they bear some responsibility for all the headaches that have been associated with the opening of this new bridge?

Do you think it was the right call to leave the Americans out of the celebration today?

Yeah, absolutely.

How would you possibly think of having a, a genuine celebration with partners from the United States in the same week when their president is launching 50% tariffs one day, 10% tariffs the next day, and continues to, you know, to, to degrade Canada every way, shape, or form that he can? It just would be disingenuous for us to do that.

Uh, so we had a great celebration with all of, I would submit, the right people, uh, were there.

It was a happy event.

And I hope, honestly, I hope that someday in the future we'll be able to close that bridge for an hour or two when the time is right, get everyone to the center, a couple hundred Americans, couple hundred Canadians, uh, to actually cut a ribbon in the right place and properly celebrate the, the magnitude of what was built here, $6.4 billion bridge, but also to celebrate the man after who it was named.

And Gordie Howe, a proud Canadian, Mr. Hockey, known for his r- his, his character of respect and integrity and humility, uh, all things that I think we, uh, c- character and qualities that we espouse to, and I think, you know, some of our friends on the US side would, would be lucky to, uh, uh, to take a page out of his playbook.

Do you think that they bear some responsibility for all the headaches that have been associated with the opening of this new bridge?

You know, businesses and manufacturing and, and there'll be, uh, you know, increased access to that now.

The most amount of technology in any border crossing is installed and implemented at the Gordie Howe Bridge.

It will be the l- most friction-free way to cross the border with a direct highway-to-highway connection.

For a community like ours, where we rely on just-in-time delivery, this is the route folks are gonna take.

For anyone who's using, you know, involved in the trucking industry, this will be the best way and the fastest way to cross, which means it's the cheapest way to cross, uh, and get your goods to market.

And that, and that cost savings for the trucking industry eventually will get passed along in the supply chain, you know, over time, and so that's good news, uh, for them as well.

And then of course it's been 50 years, we haven't been able to ride a bike or walk across the bridge, uh, and we're gonna be able to do that starting on August the 5th.

This is something none of us will see again.

Before we get into the politics of this, it is quite a moment tomorrow when you help open the new Gordie Howe Bridge.

Well, Jim, it's been 25 years in the making.

I mean, this conversation started in and around 9-11, looking at the need for redundancy.

The question was, what happens if someone takes out the busiest commercial corridor between the United States and Canada, that being the Ambassador Bridge? And then layer on the forward-looking review of what kind of road capacity will we need? to support the increase in trade as a result of the trade agreements that we had between Canada and the US, but now Mexico as well.

And so those two things sort of working together was enough inertia to get the project moving forward.

And you think of over the course of 25 years, the presidents, the prime ministers, the mayors, the governors, the premiers involved in making this happen.

And then a country the size of Canada, when the US said, well, we'll let you build the bridge, but we don't want to pay for it.

Does the politics of the day taint tomorrow in any kind of way?

And so what happens now that that land has been acquired? What more has to happen?

Well, now we just got to put all the pieces together for the National Urban Park.

And I think we're really close.

You know, the partners who were there yesterday, IRCA and the city and the province.

And of course, the minister was here, the Minister of Environment, who's responsible for Parks Canada.

I mean, we're really close.

And so I think it's just a matter of getting those final, you know, dotting the I's, crossing the T's, making sure that You know, everyone can agree to a framework and live with a framework that makes sense to stitch all the land together.

But I'm sure for somebody like yourself and a lot of other individuals in our community, this is very monumental.

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm

...

the Ambassador Bridge? You know, what do we do? So we need the Ambassador Bridge as part of the border crossing ecosystem here.

Would it make sense for government to buy the Ambassador Bridge, create a border authority, uh, a bridge authority, and put both bridges under the auspices of one authority, and then have one CEO managing both? And, you know, it probably would.

But the question, you know, the sensible question you ask is, is it possible? Yes, it's possible, but how much is it gonna cost?

[laughs]

No, that, that, that's, th- th- listen, I, I have been all about investing responsibly.

We've had the lowest tax increase of any city in Ontario these last four years.

But now a deal has been struck with a promise to set some funds aside for regional economic development, and that news threw Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens for a loop.

At first, I read the press release and I thought, "What are we giving in?" [laughs] What did we give in order to see this happen? And then, uh, at, at first read, I thought, "Oh, boy," and then second read, I thought, "Oh, net profits.

There, there probably won't be very much transfer to this regional economic development corporation, uh, in the first 15 years of the agreement because they'll be busy paying off the cost of construction." Uh, and so it looked to me like it was a well, a politically well-crafted, uh, message, uh, and probably a step down so the president could look like he took a win.

But ultimately, I, I suspect there'll be very few dollars and cents going into that regional economic development fund.

[sniffs]

... because it's only a contribution for the first 15 years, uh, after the opening of the Gordie Howe Bridge, and I submit that there will be very little money free and available to go into an economic development pot, uh, because this, this bridge has to be paid off.

This was a perfectly crafted political message, in my humble opinion.

Uh, and it, it allowed the president to step down from his position to be able to say he got a win.

How do you feel about the fact that we're going to have vehicles on this bridge as of July 27th? Well,

I think it's great for the local industry.

It's great for all of us.

We've watched this whole process play out for the better part of 25 years.

We've watched construction happen for about the last eight or nine years, and certainly...

We've seen the bridge rise up out of the ground.

We've seen the two halves meet in the middle.

But to me, if that is the details of what the prime minister is saying, how do you interpret that? To me, it says then not much has changed.

How did we do, uh, with, uh, with city crews and getting everybody back online?

Everyone is, has been working full-tilt.

The ENWIN crews are, have been working [laughs] full-tilt, uh, since the storm came.

All of the forestry crews are working full-tilt nonstop, and we've brought in additional crews, contractors, uh, who do tree rem- removal as well.

And so we know there have been residents impacted by basement flooding.

We know there have been residents impacted by fallen tree branches.

And so we are doing a special, uh, collection for tree branches and yard waste, uh, this week and next week.

Oh

So how long do you think will this take to get, I guess, people back in the water in, it sounds like a bit of a different location, but it's a hot summer.

It is a hot summer.

So, you know, we have outdoor pools, we have indoor pools.

Certainly folks are welcome to use those.

I just, you know, we've not had a drowning at Sandpoint Beach when the lifeguards are on duty.

The problem is people before, you know, outside of the one o'clock to seven o'clock hours that the lifeguards are on duty, people are people.

And they go to a beach and they walk in the water.

What should the public know about this?

And I'd like to actually ask our audience, do they want to see the barn move on and live another life in this form? As you mentioned at the top, it would be cheaper to knock it down and use that property or find another property and build new? Absolutely.

I bet that it would be cheaper to knock it down and build a purpose-built building that is not having to renovate that heritage structure.

It'd be interesting to see what the poll, what the AM800 News poll says to that question.

But listen, I do hear from some people that they think it's a heritage, we know it's a heritage building, but they do think it's a building worth saving.

Others I know are not too fussed about it, but certainly it would just be a i could just imagine that you know if we if we proposed as part of this to tear the barn down to save the barn committee would come back and you know we'd have another uphill battle uh you know as we try and move forward with something good you know this council and past councils have been really good about protecting the city's heritage i think of the muir library as an example i always said with the muir library we probably probably could have built twice the building for half the price kind of tongue-in-cheek but you know at the end of the day it does cost money to save heritage as well But focus on the housing here.

You know, there's 102 units getting people off the street, trying to deal with the issues that I hear every day, guys, people saying, Mayor, what are you and City Council doing about the problem that we see in the downtown and different parts of the city? This is our solution.

And we're modeling it after something we see in another community that is working.

Do we have the transitional housing and affordable housing available for these individuals then to, you know, move on?

The idea that you floated out a few weeks ago about tolls here in church, is that idea sounding better and better at this point? I don't know how serious you were at the time, but is that even more of a possibility at this point?

Well, listen, I was serious about it at the time, and I did call the premier and had a conversation with him, and you heard his response where he's not in favor of tolls.

He doesn't like tolls, but in this case, he's willing to have the conversation and look at it.

The reality is, you know, there comes a point in time where you start poking the bear, and you may not like the consequences if you poke the bear too hard.

And so, you know, again, the goal, even when we announced, you know, that we were interested in setting up a tolling structure on Huron Church Road, The goal, and I said it at the time and I'll say it again, was always to get the Gordie Howe Bridge open and not have the Ambassador Bridge hold the community hostage.

And so will it happen? I suspect that it won't.

But I think the longer that this delay goes on, you know, I think you'd have more attention in Toronto to say maybe Drew is on to something and maybe we should start giving this serious consideration.

I guess, what do you say to Windsorites who are looking at a story like this and wondering why your use of the strong mayor powers is so much greater than other municipalities in Ontario?

Was some of this that they claim they weren't alerted or consulted? Was some of it about, like, let's stay on the nice side of this and not tick anybody off unnecessarily? Any of that?

Well, this has been 25 years of drama from the start of the conversation until today.

And every step of the way, there's been twists and turns and friction and a lot of it driven because of the interests of the private owner of the Ambassador Bridge.

It's just hard to believe that, you know, in the past, we never really cared that much whether the bridge was public or private.

But you see when you build a brand new public bridge, Canadian taxpayers paid the entire cost, $6.5 billion to build this structure, that the private owner is doing whatever he can to keep his revenue stream going because he's fully aware that the day the Gordie Howe Bridge opens, 50 or 60% of his business evaporates overnight.

And so he's got some influential friends.

He's a billionaire.

What do you have to do as a municipal government, regardless of how the die is cast in the municipal elections coming up? what does Windsor have to do to hit those kind of numbers? What do you have to move away from and what do you have to focus on?

Can you tell me what the conversations were like as the fact of it started to go around?

Well, for us here in Windsor, it's been 25 years.

It's been 25 years of conversation, getting the roadways and the extension of the 401 built to the foot of the bridge.

25 years of lawsuits and lots of twists and turns every step of the way.

And a lot of the friction here related to the private ownership of the Ambassador Bridge.

The Ambassador Bridge is about 90 plus years old.

It is the busiest commercial border crossing between the United States and Canada.

What's your sense about what has changed in our relationship? How does it define it?