Top federal officials say the Gordie Howe International Bridge is going to ‘propel’ trade between Canada and the U.S.
Mary Ng, Minister of Export Promotion, International Trade and Economic Development, François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, as well as Canada’s Ambassador to the United States, Kirsten Hillman, paid a visit to Detroit Tuesday to view the ongoing construction of the bridge.
Minister Ng says we do over a trillion dollars worth of trade through the Windsor-Detroit corridor.
“Connecting Canada and the United States is just some marvel to see, but when you see this infrastructure, it is this great infrastructure that is going to propel that movement of goods and people across our two countries. Doing a trillion dollars a year is not little, it’s quite a lot,” she says.
The Windsor Detroit Bridge Authority, which is managing the project for the Government of Canada, announced in January that construction of the new crossing will not be completed until September 2025. Vehicles are not expected to start crossing the bridge until later that fall.
The delay from the previous completion date of November 2024 has also resulted in an increase in the cost of the project, rising to $6.4-billion from $5.7-billion, a $700-million increase.
Champagne says this is an ambitious project.
“To be where we are in terms of the construction, the quality. The fact that this is going to be infrastructure that’s going to be there for generations, perhaps a century. Listen, if we’re just a few months late, I think people 20 years from now will forgive us and say at the end of the day, we built something that is iconic between Canada and the United States, between Ontario and Michigan,” he says.
Work on the crossing began in 2018.
Throughout 2024, the public can expect to see the bridge deck connect over the Detroit River and the last of the 216 stay cables installed.