For people in Detroit and Windsor, Gordie Howe bridge delay fits a familiar - and frustrating - pattern

The international bridge whose opening was abruptly cancelled this week has long been fought against by the billionaire Moroun family, who own the private Ambassador Bridge

Home Canada Business Investing Life Opinion World Politics Personal Finance Culture More More Latest in More Real Estate Sports Drive Watchlist For You Events Find clarity in the chaos. Subscribe now and save 70% Subscribe Digital access Digital + home delivery For people in Detroit and Windsor, Gordie Howe bridge delay fits a familiar – and frustrating – pattern For people in Detroit and Windsor, Gordie Howe bridge delay fits a familiar – and frustrating – pattern Kate Helmore Agriculture and food policy reporter Adrian Morrow U.S. Correspondent Detroit and windsor, washington Published 12 hours ago Open this photo in gallery: The Gordie Howe International Bridge, seen from the American side, on Friday. The bridge's opening was postponed on Thursday just a day before the planned ribbon-cutting. Dax Melmer/The Globe and Mail

Friday was supposed to be a big day for the Canadians and Americans who live on either side of the Detroit River.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony had been scheduled to mark the opening of the Gordie Howe International Bridge – a $6.4-billion crossing that was first announced by former prime minister Stephen Harper in 2012.

The new span will be the only public bridge directly connecting Detroit and Windsor, Ont. The existing century-old Ambassador Bridge is privately owned by the billionaire Michigan-based Moroun family, who charge vehicles at least double the rate paid at publicly owned crossings in other parts of Ontario.

But the bridge opening was abruptly cancelled on Thursday at the demand of the Trump administration. The Moroun family was behind the delay, The Globe and Mail reported this week.

United States Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and U.S. ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra are trying to negotiate a deal that would save the Moroun family from losing too much money once they have to compete with the publicly owned Gordie Howe bridge, The Globe reported.

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The news comes as no surprise to those who live in the shadow of the Ambassador Bridge.

The Moroun family, which also owns a trucking empire, has fought for years to shut down any competition to the Ambassador, pouring tens of millions of dollars into federal and state politics along the way. That includes donating more than US$1-million to a campaign group supporting U.S. President Donald Trump. The family had also employed a lobbying firm – Ballard Partners – well-connected within the Trump administration, counting Mr. Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, and his ex-attorney-general, Pam Bondi, among its former employees.

“Yes. The delay might just be a few days, a few weeks,” said Frazier Fathers, a Windsor city councillor. “But it fits into a pattern that has happened over 25 years. And it impacts people’s lives on a daily basis.”

The Gordie Howe bridge is meant to speed traffic – including international goods trade – by clearing up the congestion that currently marks the Ambassador.

The new bridge connects directly to Ontario’s highway network, avoiding the use of local roads in Windsor and Detroit that lead to the existing bridge, such as Vernor Highway.

Steve Boyle, left, and Chris Beto dine at Duly's Place Coney Island Mexicantown neighbourhood of Detroit, Mich., on Friday. Dax Melmer/The Globe and Mail

The road cuts through the Mexicantown neighbourhood of Detroit, where at lunch time on Friday, a gathering of baseball enthusiasts descended on a 24-hour diner called Duly’s Place Coney Island.

Chris Beto is one of them, and he sits down at a table in the diner. He is the director of a program that offers free sports clubs for kids in the summer. Throughout the program’s 48-year existence, children have played sports at Clark Park, a square sandwiched between two roads that feed the Ambassador Bridge.

The trucks are loud, pollute the air and are dangerous for the children, said Mr. Beto. His friend Steve Boyle agrees.

“The truck traffic coming through this neighbourhood is ridiculous,” Mr. Boyle said.

Every summer, Mr. Boyle donates sports equipment to the organization. He has lived in Mexicantown his whole life, and he remembers being able to walk across the bridge (which is no longer permitted). He’d have Sunday lunch in Windsor, then visit the racetrack and Chinatown. But he doesn’t go as much any more. It is time-consuming to cross the bridge by car, he said, especially if there are backups.

A five-minute walk down Vernor Highway, Manna Noyes, owner of Guero’s Barber Shop, says she has felt the impact of a drop in cross-border traffic.

Manna Noyes, owner of Guero's Barber Shop, hopes the opening of the bridge could bring more visitors over the border. Dax Melmer/The Globe and Mail

Ms. Noyes says she has lost around 40 per cent of her customers since Mr. Trump took office. It would be packed on Friday nights. Canadians would cross to have dinner in Mexicantown, and then get a haircut. But now, “they’re scared to be here,” she said.

The opening of a new crossing would cut down on the truck traffic outside her shop, she says, and she hopes it would bring more people back over the border.

“I was hoping the bridge would make things better.”

Mr. Beto says he’s tired of the constant lobbying of the Moroun family. It has been a mainstay of his community since he can remember.

After extensive Moroun lobbying and campaign contributions to Michigan legislators, the state legislature in 2011 and 2012 failed to advance legislation to help pay for the Gordie Howe bridge. Canada agreed to pay the full cost.

In 2012, the Morouns spent US$33-million to back a referendum question that would have amended the state constitution to require a statewide referendum before any new international bridge could be built. Michigan voters rejected the measure.

The century-old Ambassador Bridge is owned by the Michigan-based Moroun family. Paul Sancya/The Associated Press

Across the river, another group gathers at Rock Bottom Bar and Grill, a restaurant and bar located in Windsor’s Sandwich neighbourhood.

The restaurant’s owner, Nicole Sekela, is deeply disappointed by the delay. It demonstrates the unfair influence of the Moroun family, she says.

The Moroun family purchased upward of 180 homes in Windsor from the mid-90s to mid-2010s, according to an investigation by the Toronto Star. It bought out many properties on Indian Road and Bloomfield Road next to the Ambassador. The company had plans to expand the bridge, a failed attempt to thwart the construction of a public crossing.

“We had families and students living in every one of those houses,” said Ms. Sekela, who is hoping a new bridge will bring more life back to the area.

Michigan State Senators Stephanie Chang and Erika Geiss gathered at a table in Ms. Sekela’s restaurant. They’d crossed the border to meet with community leaders on the other side.

The Moroun family needs to “back down,” said Ms. Geiss. The new bridge “is good for both our countries. It makes economic sense. It makes common sense.”

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Kate Helmore is a Toronto-based journalist who loves reporting on agriculture. No, she didn’t grow up on a farm. She just likes any opportunity to get beyond city limits. In 2023, she worked as an ROB reporter and covered issues such as microplastics in farming, Quebec’s pork crisis and Canada’s global dominance in pulses (the protein of the future, she assures us). She has also reported for CBC, The Tyee, Canadian Geographic and Capital Daily. She graduated from UBC’s master of journalism program in 2022.

When not wearing the reporter cap, Kate can be found on the dance floor, in the mountains on a bike, or wolfing down lasagna.

I have been based in Washington since January 2017, with reporting trips to the U.S. the previous year. My coverage here has included three elections, two presidents, and the many major events that have shaped the direction of the world's most powerful country in that time.

\n\nI also report regularly from across the country, including on healthcare in Virginia and Pennsylvania, trade in Missouri, gun violence in Chicago and Memphis, immigration in Texas and Minnesota, ballot battles in Georgia, campaign finance in Florida, abortion in Alabama, and climate change in Michigan and Mississippi.

\n\nCanada-U.S. bilateral relations are a frequent focus, from high-level negotiations to the on-the-ground effects of the relationship.

\n \nBefore D.C., I covered Ontario provincial politics from Queen’s Park and general assignment on the Toronto desk.

When not wearing the reporter cap, Kate can be found on the dance floor, in the mountains on a bike, or wolfing down lasagna.

\n\nCanada-U.S. bilateral relations are a frequent focus, from high-level negotiations to the on-the-ground effects of the relationship.

\n \nBefore D.C., I covered Ontario provincial politics from Queen’s Park and general assignment on the Toronto desk.

When not wearing the reporter cap, Kate can be found on the dance floor, in the mountains on a bike, or wolfing down lasagna.

Jake is an academic intern for The Globe and Mail.

He has written for various community-based publications in Toronto, and is the editorial manager of Sage, a policy analysis Substack.

Steven Chase is a senior parliamentary reporter for The Globe and Mail. He has covered federal politics in Ottawa for The Globe since mid-2001, arriving there a few months before 9/11. He previously worked in the paper's Vancouver and Calgary bureaus and originally joined The Globe and Mail in 1998. Prior to that, he reported on Alberta politics for the Calgary Herald and the Calgary Sun. He’s had ink-stained hands for far longer though, having worked as a paperboy for the (now defunct) Montreal Star, the Winnipeg Free Press, the Vancouver Sun and the North Shore News.

In four instances, Mr. Chase has been part of a Globe team that won a National Newspaper award. In 2023, he was a recipient of the Parliamentary Press Gallery Charles Lynch Award for outstanding national affairs coverage. In 2024, he and colleague Robert Fife won the Sidney Hillman Prize for their work on foreign interference . That same year Mr. Chase and Mr. Fife also won the Ross Munro Award, again for their work on foreign interference.

\n\nCanada-U.S. bilateral relations are a frequent focus, from high-level negotiations to the on-the-ground effects of the relationship.

\n \nBefore D.C., I covered Ontario provincial politics from Queen’s Park and general assignment on the Toronto desk.

Laura Stone is a reporter for The Globe and Mail's Queen's Park bureau. She joined the Globe in February 2016, reporting on federal politics in the Ottawa Parliamentary bureau until October 2018. Before that, she was an online and TV reporter for Global News in Ottawa. Laura was the first recipient of the Michelle Lang award at the Calgary Herald, where she wrote a national series about women’s prisons. In 2015, she won the Canadian Journalism Foundation’s Greg Clark Award, which allowed her inside the RCMP’s Senate investigation. Most of all, Laura likes to profile politicians over lunch. She always picks up her own tab.