American watchdog sheds light on political problem after Ambassador Bridge owner donates to Trump PAC

$1 million was donated less than a month before President Donald Trump threatened to block the Gordie Howe Bridge opening. Bob Bellacicco has more.

It took a $1 million donation to shine a light locally on an issue that’s quickly building a rap sheet across the border.

“A regular Canadian doesn’t get to write a $1 million cheque to protect their business,” said Windsor-West MP Harb Gill.

But people on both sides of the border feel that’s what happened when Matthew Maroun, the billionaire owner of the Ambassador Bridge, donated $1 million to a pro-Trump campaign account less than a month before the U.S. president threatened the opening of the Gordie Howe International Bridge.

“It just confirms what we knew all along, that this had to do with who funds the president as opposed to any significant or meaningful issue regarding the bridge,” political professor and UWindsor political science head Lydia Miljan said.

Mayor Drew Dilkens said it’s been a struggle for a long time to see the Ambassador Bridge as strong community partners. He would be more concerned if the Gordie Howe International Bridge was partially built.

“It’s fully built. It’s fully connected. Any delay now I would look at purely as a billionaire play to try and stall and thwart the Gordie Howe’s success,” he said.

“It feels like if you have the money, you get ahead of the line and you get to determine the outcomes that are in your favour,” Gill added.

According to a monthly campaign finance statement, the seven-figure contribution was made to MAGA Inc. on Jan. 16.

MAGA Inc. is a super political action committee (PAC) supporting President Trump and his current political endeavours.

“It’s a way to placate your donor, who thinks that they’re going to get something out of it when the courts didn’t work. Nothing else worked so far. It makes no sense any way you look at it, except for the fact that there’s such an overt money trail going on right now,” Miljan said.

Shanna Ports is Senior Legal Counsel with Campaign Legal Center in Washington. The organization is a political watchdog focused on government ethics and election law.

According to the CLC there is an overt trail of brazen trade-offs.

“Paints the picture of corruption in American politics,” Ports told CTV News.

“We see so much corruption happening in the open but there’s also money being exchanged behind closed doors and it’s impossible to even track what sort of favours come out of that.”

Ports said a CLC report shows a list of people who donated and were rewarded. She and others are calling for reform because the influence of super PACs is not being enforced properly.

“It just creates more and more loopholes for super PACs to cozy up even tighter to candidates and to make contributions to super PACs from these large donors even more valuable, which I think is why we’re seeing so many of these exchanges based on super PAC contributions,” she said.

President Trump has yet to act on his threat to prevent the opening of the Gordie Howe International Bridge.

In the meantime, Gill continues to press for answers. He wants to know when the bridge plans to open and more importantly, he doesn’t understand why toll rates have yet to be released. Gill said withholding something as simple as toll rates is challenging many companies.

“Logistic companies out there are looking for some sort of actions to say we are bidding on contracts; we need to know how much we’re going to pay. What’s the harm in publishing the rates. Just get that out there.”