You Are The Border BLOGMeister Today

Here is another of those Do-it-Yourself border BLOGs.

Every so often I just get one of those moods where I have a lot of things rattling around in my brain but I just can’t make any sense out of them. What I have done in the past and what I intend to do today is to set out all the facts for you and let you figure out if there is any rhyme or reason to all of it.

I know that there is but I just can’t put my finger on it. I’m sure that you will be able to do so and help me out. Sure it may seem that there are a lot of "facts" but I know you can do it, dear reader!

The reason I am writing this BLOG is the big article in the Windsor Star by Michael Kergin, the former Canadian Ambassador to the United States and the Premier’s envoy on the border file. He wrote a report on the border if you will recall about which the Star did an Editorial and which I Blogged about as well.

I don’t expect that the article was written merely to encourage attendance at the luncheon speech that that he is going to give at the University of Windsor towards the end of the month. I think that there is some other reason for it as I have suggested before.

He again advocated in his article “Border's future is critical” what he set out before his report

• “When Prime Minister Stephen Harper has his meeting with President Barack Obama, he might propose the establishment of a Permanent Joint Border Commission, along the lines of the earlier PJBD.
  
  The PJBC, co-chaired by cabinet members reporting to the heads of government and including officials from the relevant border, security, foreign and economic departments, would recommend border policy initiatives, as well as co-ordinate the implementation of new measures to streamline our common border.”

In other words, keep it low level and under the radar so that Canada can get what it wants without the Americans being any smarter about it.

I noticed that this article “was written for the Ottawa Citizen.” Obviously then it was written for the US Embassy in Ottawa to forward to Washington before President Obama’s visit to Canada. It is yet again another way to signal to the Americans what the Canadian Government wants without the Government saying it.

I could not understand though why he was so lucky to have his report distributed so many times so I started thinking and a number of points came out that I’m just not sure how to put together properly yet. Let’s see if you can do it:

1.  President Obama is going to make a "pit stop" in Ottawa to discuss matters of interest with Prime Minister Harper.


2.  PM Harper tried to convince former President Bush at least twice to support a DRIC bridge but he did not


3.  Former Transport Canada Minister and now Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon already had a shortlist of Canada-U.S. issues that matter most: "Job creation, fighting protectionism and the energy and environment ... as well as the borders."


4.  Kergin report came out favouring amongst other things a new DRIC bridge


5.  Carleton University’s Canada US project came out with a Report favouring a new DRIC bridge out of the blue


6.  Kergin spoke at Carleton University at a roundtable for the Canada US project


7.  Former US Ambassador to Canada and former Michigan Governor Jim Blanchard also spoke at that roundtable


8.  I believe that Mr. Blanchard provided consulting services for DRIC


9.  Herb Gray is the Chancellor of Carleton University


10.  Herb Gray was one of the strong supporters of FIRA, an Act used to try to block the ownership of the Ambassador Bridge by Matty Moroun


11.  The International Bridges and Tunnel Act as far as I am concerned is directed right at the Ambassador Bridge and provides very onerous terms that only apply in reality to the Bridge Company


12.  In my opinion, IBTA is nothing more than FIRA in disguise


13.  Derek Burney just wrote an article in the Financial Post about “Saving Free Trade”


14.  Derek Burney is a former Canadian Ambassador to the United States


15.  Derek Burney is director of the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University.


16.  Derek Burney is senior strategic advisor at Ogilvy Renault LLP


17.  Brian Mulroney works for Ogilvy Renault


18.  Former Senator and defeated Conservative candidate Michael Fortier works at Ogilvy Renault


19.  Then Senator Fortier was intimately involved in the border file


20.  Brian Mulroney is one of the big supporters of Stephen Harper


21.  A former partner at Ogilvy Renault, Jacques Demers, now works at Borealis which is part of OMERS


22.  Jacques Demers was involved as a lawyer in Canada’s first shadow tolling highway


23.  Michael Nobrga of OMERS just opened up a London office so that they could tap into the money of various Sovereign Funds for various infrastructure projects


24.  As Minister of Energy, Dwight Duncan worked with one of OMERS’ Companies for the Bruce nuclear plant


25.  The Province has just announced that it wants to make the DRIC road to the border a P3 project using the expertise of Infrastructure Ontario


26.  Len Kozachuk was a consultant in the DRIC project now works at Infrastructure Ontario


27.  Ontario Ministry of Transport plan to finance their Windsor Essex Parkway with an availability payments or shadow toll project.


28.  The Financial Post, Ottawa Citizen and Windsor Star are all sister newspapers owned by Canwest


29.  The Vancouver Sun, another sister newspaper, has written stories about the Port Mann bridge and the P3 problems there because of the doubling of the cost of the bridge and the problems of financing the project, none of which stories has appeared in the Windsor Star


30.  Derek Burney is Chairman of the Board of Canwest Global Communications Corp.


31.  Derek Burney advocates in his article “to use diplomacy at all levels” including the White House and sympathetic members of Congress and to “to electrify the "hidden wiring" in our relationship with the United States.” ie relations at many levels -- from the state-provincial and business-to-business to nongovernmental and legislative levels.


32.  This multifaceted approach was part of the strategy in the Ultrasecret Playbook of the Canadian Government about how to deal with the United States


33.  Louis Ranger was Chair of the Group that prepared the Playbook and Herb Gray was a member of the committee


34.  Louis Ranger is Deputy Minister of Transport Canada which wants to build the DRIC bridge and also is part of the process of the Environmental Assessment of the Ambassador Bridge Enhancement Project.

Do you see what I mean? This is so complicated. There are so many connections amongst the parties that it is hard to keep up. There has to be something in common that ties all of this together: Government, media, money, the academic community, lawyers.

Do you think the connecting link could be the concerted Canadian Government effort to take over and own the Ambassador Bridge, a 50 year effort so far on Canada's part, to control trade into the US by controlling all of the major Gateways and Corridors between the 2 countries?

Naw, no Canadian Government could be that dumb to antagonize our biggest customer by putting them at our mercy over trade. Why it would be just as dumb as interfering in a US Presidential election. We would never do that!

I think it has to do with Free Trade and Afghanistan somehow but I just do not know what it is.