Mr. Speaker, I rise today to request an emergency debate in this chamber, consistent with other emergency debates that have taken place, with regard to the subject matter of the trade route on the Windsor-Detroit corridor.
In less than one week, on October 29, the Government of Canada, unless there is intervention, will permit class 3 and class 8 hazardous waste materials to cross the American-owned Ambassador Bridge. This would be detrimental to our economy; basically, 24% of the national trade between Canada and the United States takes place on this bridge. It has the drinking water for millions of people, the largest fresh water supply in the world and an ecosystem that is right on our doorstep. The material, which includes battery components, battery fluid, hydraulic acid and other things, will cross an over 90-year-old bridge, which is going to cost us with respect to traffic management and ecosystem difficulty.
It was cleared by the Michigan Department of Transportation after it did a thorough investigation on its side about the routing, but that has never been done on the Canadian side. In fact, the Government of Canada and the Province of Ontario did not even make a submission on this with respect to the negligence. The City of Windsor and the Windsor Fire and Rescue Services have opposed it. Many different individuals on the U.S. side have also opposed this. None of them have done any of this work, and there is currently no plan in place to deal with a spill or the materials that could get into our drinking water. It could also cause a backup and a delay in traffic.
This chamber was seized with the blockade of this route in 2022 because it cost the Canadian economy billions of dollars. In fact, in Sarnia, just a month ago, a small leakage that could have been cleaned up properly, as facilitated through a process, shut down that bridge for several hours. That is hundreds of millions of dollars that would take place in the Canadian economy. Not only that, but we do not even have the fire and rescue services plan yet to deal with those issues, so we cannot even use some of the proper techniques necessary.
Further to that, the CBSA union and the CIU, which has been doing the oversight on this, have not even been trained or notified by the government with regard to the issue. Therefore, there is no protocol in place, and the City of Windsor is scrambling to deal with this.
There have been no public hearings. There have been no consultations with the indigenous communities that I am aware of.
The potential danger of explosions and accidents is expanded because the small bridge capacity on the plazas is something that will create further problems that will not be able to be addressed.
The Windsor-Detroit ferry service operation has been opposed to this. It closed just recently. For over 30 years, it brought the materials across in a safe way, with a perfect record. Only recently, through lobbying in the United States, did this change take place at the Michigan Department of Transportation. This is what is odd: We have ceded our sovereignty to the Michigan Department of Transportation, and the Province of Ontario and the Government of Canada have not even made representations on this. In fact, they have stood down on it.
A number of different issues have arisen on this bridge in the past. In fact, we had to bring in a law in this country, called the International Bridges and Tunnels Act, because the private property before that was something that we could not even deal with. We had no laws in this country to deal with it. However, because of the behaviour and the management of the Ambassador Bridge, a new law was crafted and created in Canada.
In summary, I want to make sure that we have a chance to discuss this issue in Parliament. If we do not act right now, the routes of those vehicles will change. They are going to go into densely urban areas on the Detroit and Windsor sides. In addition, we do not have any plan in place to date to deal with this issue and, if there is a problem, the consequence to the economy will be significant.
This is an over 90-year-old structure that will have corrosive materials expanded to its system; they could even cause permanent damage. Basic questions relating to firefighter training have not even been provided for right now. There is no plan or support for that. There has been no containment or environmental concern plan developed by the federal or provincial government.
There is a fuel-specific risk that could expand the complications of it, and we do not even know if the Ambassador Bridge authority has provided the proper economic impact assessment for its insurance.
I conclude by asking for this to be looked at tonight, because the Government of Canada has to act. If we do not act right now, a private American billionaire and the Michigan Department of Transportation are going to determine the fate of the international crossing that crosses not only Detroit, Michigan, but from Montreal all the way to Florida. This is with respect to the trade and traffic of 25% of the Canadian economy, as well as the drinking water of millions of people and an ecosystem that is very fragile.
This has been denied on this 90-year-old bridge to date. A process is in place wherein, in a matter of months, within the year or just soon after, the Gordie Howe International Bridge will open up with the best standards for containment, capture and design for that, similar to Sarnia, which has this in place.
It is very suspicious that after all these decades of denying access to these types of capabilities on the bridge, this is being provided when the solution is right in front of us. There is a looming deadline and we have no plans whatsoever in place. Not even union workers or the fire department in the city of Windsor have been trained on this issue.
Why would we change things right now? We have safe crossing solutions in Sarnia at the moment. We will have the Gordie Howe International Bridge open very soon. The chamber needs to discuss this because so much of our economy and ecosystems are at risk. They are very unique and could be permanently damaged. The risk factors are so significant that the history of our crossing, with the freedom of the Underground Railroad, will be disgraced, because if an accident happens, it will pollute one of the most magnificent pieces of fresh water in the world and one of the strongest economic links to our number one trading partner.
