Thank you, Minister.
I would like to bring the focus back to the Windsor-Detroit crossing. I am dumbfounded as to why the government would approve a permit for the construction of a second bridge, the new Ambassador Bridge, when the owner of the existing bridge has fought Canadians' interests at each and every step of the way for the last decade or more, whether it was by failing to keep the existing bridge in a good state of repair or by fighting us on the construction of the Gordie Howe crossing.
I'm dumbfounded as to why we would approve a second Ambassador Bridge. We have four lanes on the Detroit-Windsor crossing right now, on the St. Clair River, and we're now going to go from four lanes to twelve lanes, a tripling of capacity, at a time when traffic is plummeting. The latest data I've looked at shows that at the Windsor-Detroit Ambassador Bridge crossing traffic dropped from 12.2 million cars and trucks in 2000 to 6.8 million cars and trucks last year.
This is not an isolated phenomenon. At all of the border crossings between Ontario and upstate New York, and between Ontario and Michigan, traffic is down. In that context, I'm dumbfounded as to why we would approve a second bridge crossing that puts at risk Canadian taxpayers. The latest rumours are that the bridge is going to cost upwards of $4.8 billion. The only way we get to recoup these costs is through the tolls that are applied on this bridge. The original modelling was for the tolls to recoup the cost over a period of three decades, and that toll revenue is at risk.
My one question to Mr. Juneau, through you, Madam Chair, is this: has the authority done modelling on the new border crossing numbers in light of the second bridge crossing, and does it show that the government is still going to recoup its costs? Or does it show that the government is going to be on the hook for billions of dollars to pay for this Gordie Howe bridge?