Canadian trucking industry disappointed with the opening delay for the Gordie Howe International Bridge

‘Great disappointment.’

That’s how the president and CEO of the Ontario Trucking Association (OTA) and Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA) is describing the latest announcement regarding the opening delay for the Gordie Howe International Bridge.

Speaking on AM800’s Morning with Mike and Meg, Stephen Laskowski says the delay is not good news for his members.

He says it’s also not good news for Canadian and US supply chains.

“There is complete alignment on both sides of the Canada-US border in the business community of the importance and the need for this bridge to open,” he says.

Laskowski says for years, OTA and CTA have been providing feedback for the Gordie Howe International Bridge.

“Our members directly to have input from the trucking supply chain,” says Laskowski. “They’ve been gearing up their business to shift traffic over there, so ‘great disappointment’ is an understatement in words.”

He says he’s been hearing from the trucking industry about the delay.

“My phone has been lighting up to say, ‘When are we going to be able to realize this?’” he says. “They’re business people, and business people on both sides of the border and business people don’t like inefficiency and like to get that out of their overhead costs that they don’t need to have, and that’s what the Gordie Howe Bridge brings.”

The Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority issued a release Thursday morning, saying, “Canada and the United States have agreed to delay the opening of the bridge, taking the necessary time to resolve any outstanding issues.”

The statement from the authority did not specifically mention what those outstanding issues are.

The $6.4 billion span was paid in full by Canada, and those costs are meant to be recovered through bridge tolls that will be shared with Michigan once it’s fully paid for.