No sharing of Gordie Howe bridge tolls until debt is repaid, Carney says

Canada will not share any tolls collected from the soon-to-open Gordie Howe International Bridge until the debt is repaid, Prime Minister Mark Carney said on Thursday.

The bridge is set to open on July 27 after several months of delays. Canada fronted the entire $6.4 billion in costs for the construction and development of the bridge. Drivers must pay a toll to cross it, and under the terms of the original agreement, Canada would have received all toll revenues to cover the cost.

Details of a new deal were announced late last week that would reportedly send about half of the money collected to the U.S., including toll revenues.

“It’s not splitting the tolls of the bridge. It is an agreement for 15 years to split net revenues. Splitting of tolls, any sharing of the toll, won’t happen until all of the debt is repaid,” Carney told reporters on Thursday.

“We will split net revenues over the course of the first 15 years and those net revenues are after operational costs — it’s manning the toll booth, it’s maintenance, it’s snow removal, a series of other operational costs. We expect that after those costs for the first few years, net revenues will be modest.

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“The underlying agreement that we have with Michigan remains the same.”

Over the weekend, U.S. President Donald Trump said in a social media post that this new arrangement was “a MUCH BETTER DEAL for America.”

Last month, a scheduled ribbon-cutting ceremony was cancelled, with Carney referring at the time to “a series of technical aspects which we’ll work through with the United States.”

Trump has been pushing for more U.S. ownership of the bridge, which was built and financed entirely by Canada.

Under the terms of the original agreement signed in 2012, the Canadian-run Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority (referred to as “the crossing authority”) was entitled to set and collect the crossing tolls, and the U.S., or Michigan side of the bridge, could not.

— with files from Global’s Ari Rabinovitch