DRIC and The Air Race: It Has All Been Cock And Bull

Ok here goes:

• Eddie, You're The Man!


• Only you could have done it!


• Take that whiners and naysayers


• Windsor on the World Stage Again


• It's a symbol of our rejuventation


• We are Canada's Aerospace Capital now


• We will be known as a world-class tourism destination


• Jobs, jobs, jobs.

There, does that make some of my naysaying cheerleader readers happy. It's easy to be so positive and rah-rah-rah until the real facts come out.

How do people feel now when we know that it is the Province working with our Mayor as the insignificant junior partner who made this happen when we all thought it was OUR Mayor alone who was the hero. What a switch from yesterday to today in media coverage. Who knew about Provincial involvement until we saw this video

Talk about our Mayor looking and acting uncomfortably!

That press conference must have been hastily set up. Dwight was not around and had to be conferenced in. Interestingly, his name was plastered all over the Star story but Sandra was not mentioned although we did see her photgraph.

I wonder when the information about the two levels of Government working together would really have come out. Several months from now IF Eddie could NOT have lined up sponsorship funds?

It has been kept from us by our Mayor and two Cabinet Ministers since last fall. I wonder what role Transport Canada has played as well since my insiders have said that they played a key role in this too. They would have to be deeply involved because of their air navigation responsibilities at the least.

So nice learning that the three levels of Government can work together so closely and secretly for so long. Makes one wonder doesn't it.

However, Eddie just could not leave well enough alone. He must have thought that he was dealing with Windsor Councillors still and that he could get all the glory. The Province probably would have let him get away with it, they had up until now, but the story in the Globe and Mail probably angered someone at Queen’s Park. If it was just in the Windsor Star, who cared because it was just for the locals… but in the Globe for everyone to see:

• "Global air-race tour to hit Ontario
  
  February 3, 2009 at 10:28 AM EST
  
  WINDSOR, Ont. — Windsor has been selected as the lone Canadian stop on the six-city Red Bull air tour and will host the event the weekend of June 13th.
  
  Windsor shared host duties with Detroit last year, but Mayor Eddie Francis said the Michigan city decided to forgo involvement this year.
  
  Mr. Francis estimated the economic spinoff for Windsor and Essex County will be as much as $70-million.
  
  Other stops on the tour include Abu Dhabi, San Diego, Budapest, Barcelona and Portugal.
  
  The race sees pilots in fast, agile planes hitting speeds of up to 370 kilometres an hour along a low-level aerial track.
  
  The event attracted thousands of fans to the Windsor river front last summer, and Mr. Francis said he expects bigger crowds this year.”

The kiss off to the Detroit media will not help our Mayor very much either:

• “Nora Bertram-Romero, who works for the Windsor mayor's office, said Windsor Mayor Eddie Francis had been in contact with Red Bull.
  
  "He's spoken directly to them but nothing has been secured at this point," she said. "The provincial budget is being revised this week, and Mayor Francis is very busy right now."

How about this in the media as well:

• "Windsor and neighboring Detroit shared host duties in 2008, but Windsor Mayor Eddie Francis says the Michigan city decided to forgo involvement this year."

I do not recall seeing this in the media before. Why isn't our Mayor inviting Detroit to be involved as they invited Windsor before....you know, all of this 2 nation co-operation platitudes giving us the uniqueness for this type of event.

I cannot believe that both Eddie and Dwight can throw around numbers like $70 million. It sounds like the huge amount of money that Windsor was supposed to get at Super Bowl time so that the City could justify all of the money that it sunk in to that project, including sponsorship money. It turned out that the amount actually received was a fraction of that amount. I guess they think they can fool us again.

Take a look at the video. Forget listening to what was said. Just watch Sandra and Eddie. At his moment of glory, why did the Mayor look like he was in shock, completely stunned. Look at his feeble smile when Sandra looked at him. He looked like someone who had just been scolded and sent into the corner for bad behaviour. Now he knows how the Councillors feel when he treats them as like Kindergarten children.

And his behaviour was abysmal. Did you see anything in the Globe story but the name of Eddie Francis. Not a word about Sandra and Dwight and the Provincial backstopping of this project.

At the least, with the Montréal Grand Prix, it was 3-level Government attempt to win the race back for that city. It was all public too.

• "Fortier seeks meeting to save Canadian Grand Prix
  
  MONTREAL -- Federal International Trade Minister Michael Fortier says he is seeking a meeting with Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone to try and save the Canadian Grand Prix for 2009.
  
  Fortier met today with Montreal Mayor Gerald Tremblay and Quebec Economic Development Minister Raymond Bachand to discuss a course of action."

Here it looked like it was all the Mayor of Windsor alone.

It was also very reminiscent of the Sutherland matter which, when it first came out, made it appear that Eddie Francis was again totally responsible for bringing jobs to Windsor. It was not until later that we found out that it was Sandra’s money that did it. She was able to obtain put up the cash that actually did the trick.

The body language tells it all as do the voices of Sandra and Dwight. Even though this was a video from the Windsor Star they did not record one second of Eddie's comments, if he actually gave any.

This is the Province who is responsible for this tourism coup. It was brought here by our two Cabinet Ministers and not our Mayor notwithstanding that he tried to grab all of the credit.

Poor Eddie. He is in serious trouble. The Province is only providing “backstop” money. Eddie has to go out and find the $3.2 million. From the way that Sandra described it, it is only if Eddie cannot find the money that the Province would be involved. The pressure is on our Mayor. He has to perform. And if he doesn’t, then fingers can be pointed at him.

Eddie will now have to demonstrate how wonderful he is at fundraising. I am certain when he approached the Province back in the fall he thought it would be nothing to get money from sponsors since our economy really wasn’t in all that much trouble. Today however which corporation is going to be seen to be throwing money at a frivolous air race. Companies are cutting back, not spending lavishly as they did before.

Oh well, it looks like Eddie is going to be occupied in matters other than looking after the well-being of the City. Who cares about roads and sewers when his neck is on the line.

Moreover it is not just of Windsor alone that will be involved in this project. The Province will be involved as well. After all, if you are putting up the gold, you make the rules.

I expect that the Province is not too pleased about being involved given what is going on in the economy but they are stuck. The Opposition ought to have fun about this but Spanky and the MITI Minister will be able to bluster their way out of it. A hint for the leader of the Opposition: use what I Blogged before from one of the leading business people in the US:

• "Here is what Roger Penske did in Detroit:
  
  “Detroit Grand Prix group understands cancellation
  
  On everyone's lips was the cancelation of the 2009 Detroit Belle Isle Grand Prix, which had leaked out a few hours earlier.
  
  No rumor -- just plain, cold facts. With the Motor City suffering from an economy in crisis, organizers of the race thought they could not, in good faith, stage the event scheduled for Labor Day weekend.
  
  Roger Penske, the force behind the return of the GP to Belle Isle in 2007, pulled the plug -- with the understanding of the Detroit city officials, event sponsors and the Indy Racing League, the race's sanctioning body. ..
  
  Merrill Cain...who has run the GP's public relations efforts from his office at the Renaissance Center, wasn't putting a spin on the night's mood. He was bitterly disappointed, like everyone, but he understood the necessity of cancelling the race.
  
  "With a lot of folks in Michigan hurting, it just wasn't right to stage the event," Cain said. "We all had a few beers and talked about it. Everybody wants this race to come back. But we knew it wasn't a good situation to go ahead next year with it..."
  
  the decision to cancel the Detroit Belle Isle Grand Prix is a good one.
  
  But to expect the public to shelve out that kind of money for the 2009 event in such economically challenging times would have been foolish and arrogant.”

Of course, there is more to this story than meets the eyes. We have been bambozled once by the politicians and their secrecy. Why not again. Our Councillors have to feel like fools now. They above all have been used as pawns unless they are in on it too.

Naturally, you know that I am going to talk about the border. You remember the secret Eddie/Sandra/Dwight meeting, the infamous car ride to the airport.

You know I am talking about the "family feud" over the Schwartz Report, full tunnelling, Greenlink/DRIC Road and the fight to put the Ambassador Bridge Company out of business. It was all designed to stall until after 2010, the time when the Province thought they would have money for the road to the border.

If this does not tell you that the City and the Province are working together and all of the feuding is nothing but a stage-managed farce, then nothing will prove it to you.

What are the other deals that have been made now that we know about the secret Red Bull one?

I can guess one of them...Did you see the story the other day about Brownfields and the Editorial today. You wait and see....we will be given the choice of Greenlink or cleaning up our major Brownfield: the Zalev plant! How do I know? It was in a Henderson column the day after the last municipal election! That is how the Province will get out of building the DRIC road.

• "Look for border infrastructure, the Zalev scrapyard and Windsor Airport to top the must-do list when Mayor Eddie Francis and his new council meet with a facilitator in early December to draw up a battle plan for the next four years."
  

In 2007, we read in another column:

• "Is the timing right for a deal between Windsor and Michigan waste disposal magnate Anthony Soave, the Grosse Point Farms resident who owns the former Zalev Brothers recycling yard and perennial city eyesore...
  
  Meanwhile, Mayor Eddie Francis, who made a 2003 election commitment to eliminate the 50-acre Zalev mess once and for all, recently asked the company to schedule a meeting on the operation's future. "The time has come for us to have a serious discussion, to see what is possible and what is doable," said Francis.
  
  He's had a lot on his plate with the border file, but has never made a secret of his desire to see Zalev move. He said it would be consistent with current efforts to boost Windsor's sustainability through beautification and environmental and quality of life improvements."

The timing is much better now for both the municipal and provincial politicians as the next elections are fast approaching.

So much for Eddie threatening lawsuits and never starting one. So much for the millions in legal and consulting fees that we have had to pay out. For what?

Let's get real. Eddie knows who the Senior Level is. He knows who has all the power. There is no doubt that he was reminded of it before the press conference with Sandra.

Eddie will do what he is told. The Province and the City are ganging up against the Federal Government and there are no ifs, ands or buts about it.

We will get the kind of road that the Province wants to give us. Eddie has always known that and now we do too. I would be hopeful that we would get a road similar to I-696 but will probably get an at-grade expressway from Highway 401 to the Ambassador Bridge. The dream of a DRIC Road is now dead. Keep your Greenlink flag however as a memento. You might be able to sell it on eBay a few years from now to make a buck or two.

Why would Sandra and Dwight want to put up this kind of money for a weekend in Windsor? In the end, it does not cost the Province all that much since Eddie has to produce and there is probably some tourist program under which it falls. Our MPP/Cabinet Ministers can show us how much they are doing for the area too.

It is really a cynical exercise in power politics after all.

Eddie Francis should have listened more closely to ex-Mayor Mike Hurst when he said:

• “I am the Mayor of a small town. I have no authority; I have no clout.”

Now Eddie knows that Mike was telling the truth. And so do we!