The headline version goes like this: under the original 2012 Canada-Michigan Crossing Agreement, Canada fronted the entire construction bill — which grew to $6.4 billion — and in exchange would collect 100 per cent of toll profits until it recouped every dollar. Only then, an estimated fifty-plus years down the road, would profits be split with Michigan. Under the new deal, the split starts now. Fifty per cent of profits go into a U.S.-run regional economic development fund for the first 15 years. Ergo, Trump extracted half of Canada’s bridge. Donald Trump himself declared he’d cut a “much better deal for America,” and a Michigan Senate candidate crowed that the U.S. went from “no revenue” to significant revenue.
If that were the whole story, the outrage would be justified. It isn’t the whole story. It isn’t even close.
The split applies to net profits. Not toll revenue. Not gross receipts. Net. And in infrastructure finance, “net” is not a technicality — it is the entire ballgame.
Here is the waterfall, in order: toll revenue comes in; operating and maintenance costs come out; then the servicing of the bridge’s construction debt comes out — the repayment of Canada’s $6.4 billion investment. Only what remains after all of that gets split, and only for 15 years. As Carney put it plainly at the Stampede this weekend: Canada is sharing after Canada is paid back, and there is not going to be a lot of net to split.
https://deanblundell.substack.com/p/the-gordie-howe-bridge-deal-is-aWhat I can't see from that is the rate at which the $6.4bn is repaid.
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