00:00:25.280I think most Canadians, myself among them, would look at this and say those cost overruns and delays have been absorbed by the Canadian taxpayer.
00:00:33.380So perhaps you could explain a little bit more about what you meant by those comments and where the misconception is that we have about this project.
00:00:39.880Where have those been absorbed by the Canadian taxpayer?
00:00:43.080Well, the project itself, the cost of the project was delivered by the Canadian taxpayer.
00:00:47.800Canada gave the money for the project.
00:01:11.440Okay, so it's like you said the numbers are real, depending on exactly where you start.
00:01:19.040But the estimated cost of the bridge was $1.2, $1.5 billion.
00:01:23.980OK, financed by the Canadian government with a regime in place that that would be paid back, meaning that at the at the end of the day, when the funds came in from the revenue from the bridge, the Canadian taxpayer would be off the hook.
00:01:43.080so it's not it's financed by the taxpayer the Canadian government made a judgment that said
00:01:49.920we're going to invest in this project there's going to be revenues coming back and we're going
00:01:56.260to as those revenues come in we're going to pay off the bonds or whatever financing the government
00:02:01.780is using in Canada and you know so it will be paid back the taxpayers off the hook we've been
00:02:09.520dealing with and a lot of the discussions have been as well, America, you have absolutely no
00:02:14.800say in the bridge because we paid for it. It's kind of like, well, that doesn't seem fair.
00:02:21.000You know, it's revenues that are coming out of the cross river border area. There's so much
00:02:29.420revenue that comes out of there. It's either off of the tunnel or off of the bridge, right?
00:02:34.900Some of that revenue is now going to go to the Gordie Howe Bridge to pay off the Canadian debt.