Amid the confusion over precisely what deal Canada struck with the U.S. to open the Gordie Howe International Bridge, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick has weighed in on social media with his own calculations.
“The USA struck a great deal with respect to the Gordie Howe Bridge,” he wrote in a social media post on Saturday. “Before this deal we got NOTHING. Now, the U.S. gets 50% of net revenues until 2041 and a say in setting the tolls. Our share is before interest and principal.”
He added: “This is the Art of the Deal in action,” a reference to Donald Trump’s 1987 memoir and business advice book ghostwritten by Tony Schwartz.
The government of Canada announced on July 10 that the bridge, originally slated to open early in 2026, then briefly slated for June 12, would in fact open on July 27. The span connects Windsor, Ont., and Detroit, Michigan.
Without mentioning specific numbers, the government said the opening plan included “a series of cooperative measures focused on toll governance and transparency” between the two countries, “as well as investments in the region, including through the establishment of a 15-year economic development fund tied to a portion of profits from bridge operations.”
Last week, during a media event in London, Ont., Prime Minister Mark Carney said there would likely be little revenue to share with the U.S. in the first few years after the bridge opened because the tolls will not be split until the $6.4-billion cost fronted by Canada has been fully repaid.
“We expect that after those costs, for the first few years, net revenues will be modest,” Carney told reporters. “In fact, we expect them to be negative as traffic ramps up. So, negative to modest in the first few years.”
However, on Friday Pierre Poilievre called out Carney for making “contradictory statements” on revenue sharing. In a letter shared on social media , the Conservative leader wrote: “Canada paid for 100 per cent of the cost of building the Gordie Howe International Bridge under the simple promise that we would collect 100 per cent of the tolls until the cost was repaid.”
Poilievre continued: “While answering questions about the deal, you made directly contradictory statements about what you’ve given away.”
He noted that Carney had said the deal is “not splitting the tolls of the bridge,” but that it is “an agreement for 15 years to split net revenues,” and “any sharing of the toll revenue won’t happen until all of the debt is paid.”
Carney told CTV News on July 12: “We are sharing after Canada is paid back. So we get the revenues, then the servicing of the cost 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.”
Annual interest on the construction cost would be hundreds of millions of dollars, and factoring that in that would reduce the profit and therefore the U.S. share.
However, a U.S. official who did not want to be named told Bloomberg that neither loan interest nor depreciation would be factored into the calculation. That would suggest fewer expenses to offset the revenue and, thus, a larger share for the U.S.
Neither country has published the text of the deal. On Tuesday, Carney’s spokesperson Audrey Champoux said that “officials in both countries are working to finalize the specific legal and administrative details of this arrangement.”
As to Lutnick’s remark that the U.S. will have “a say in setting the tolls,” Reuters and Canadian Press have both reported that the U.S. can veto any change in tolls of more than 10 per cent.
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