TPL On The Road： Franco Terrazzano In Ottawa
Episode Stats
Summary
In this episode of the True Patriot Love podcast, I speak with Francoise Terrizana, a realtor and real estate agent in the city of Ottawa, Alberta. We talk about his move from Calgary to the city, what it's like living in a small town, the Gordie Howe Bridge, and much more!
Transcript
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i think if you talk to most people of the voting public there's only you know a couple key three
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messages that people take away from it right and i think it's fair and push back if you think i'm
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being unfair but i think one of the key takeaways from carney's election platform is he was selling
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canadians on the idea that he was going to be the guy to get a deal with trump right is that fair
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right like that that was kind of his election listen he he paid my mike myers and all those
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people yeah to get into jerseys right yeah so that was his key platform now fast forward to today
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we're you know more than a year out of that election you know where is the improvement
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true patriot love is now in ottawa with franco terrizana welcome hey it's my pleasure welcome
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to ottawa finally finally finally we talked about it a long time it's good to be back i mentioned
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to you i did a property here in ottawa and i was here for a couple years love the city um you're
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a calgary boy right yeah i remember and you made it this way yeah yeah they shipped me off from
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calgary to ottawa i was the alberta director at the time about what like five and a half years ago
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and then my phone rings it's my boss and he's uh you know immediately i thought i just got into
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trouble i'm like hey man sorry blah blah what did i do wrong he's like i don't know what you're
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talking about but do you want this promotion to be the national guy up in ottawa yeah and um here i
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am five and a half years later and how do you like it tell me like living in ottawa is it different
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it's definitely different than calgary right yeah you notice the difference yeah i mean the mindset
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is a lot different right like calgary's very entrepreneurial uh city right like private
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enterprise free enterprise like that's kind of the the groundwork of calgary i don't want to
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paint too broad of a brush right no different people in in all different types of communities
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but you know calgary and then the surrounding area because my family was actually like two
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our south in lethbridge so an even smaller city so again like you know southern alberta very free
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enterprise mind you know when when there's a problem people don't say they should fix it they
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say how should how can we fix it right but ottawa the mindset's a little bit different i again don't
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want to paint too broad of a brush because one of the misconceptions about ottawa is that it's just
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a government town and obviously this is like where the heartbeat of politics is you got the federal
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government right here you got the city here as well but you know there's another part of ottawa
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which is like some of my best friends right a gym owner uh a mechanic right he owns his own
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mechanic shop like so it's it's not just a government town you still have a lot of different
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parts of the city um that are like any other city that you that you would go to yeah big high-tech
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market here you know industry uh auto automation robotics when i was here uh you know of course
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a great racetrack used to be here i don't think it's here anymore but you know there's some really
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cool things. I wanted to get into a couple of things with you today, because the Gordie Howe
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Bridge came out Friday, and it was like a slow leak that came out, I think probably out of Ottawa,
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and it said Gordie Howe Bridge is going to open. And the Gordie Howe Bridge has been basically
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completed since April, but shut. And all of a sudden, we get this announcement. Then on the
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weekend, we learned that we're now going to get only 50% of the tolls. We're now co-sharing for
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15 years 50 of the net profits of this bridge when we already were like 30 years you know the
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6.4 billion we put into the bridge we were going to get back in 30 years now for the first 15 years
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we're going to do a 50 50 split on this bridge any thoughts like when you hear that what what
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are you thinking yeah well i mean first of all it's funny right because over the weekend um i
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essentially was doing media on this because it was like the big story over the weekend right so
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first of all you know i had to kind of do my research into what was going on and then after
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i did just deeply just a deep sense of frustration and i think probably every canadian regardless of
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their political stripes right and you might be frustrated at different aspects of it but i think
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every canadian is just upset right frustrated it's been what a year and a half of this kind
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of stuff going on so that's number one number two right you know on the one hand we do need
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to have our goods and and services flowing across the border yeah right people who work in one
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jurisdiction live in another they got to be able to get to work all that kind of stuff right so we
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got to get the economies going we got to get free enterprise and free trade back so that's on the
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one hand on the other hand like taxpayers have some questions right we pay like canadian taxpayers
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paid what just over six billion dollars to build the bridge yeah and we were supposed to be using
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the tolls to recoup some of that money now we don't know how this new share is going to push
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back the timeline of us recouping that money back but i think it's pretty obvious that it's going to
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take a lot longer yeah right well they're saying 50 to 60 years now so what i read on the weekend
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and you know we're still waiting for the details what net profit means and some of the details but
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we also heard quite frankly that now the u.s has some uh control over what the actual tolls are
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and if the tolls go up by 10 percent they need u.s approval but if they try to undercut the
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ambassador bridge the the maroon group then basically they have to go back and agree with
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the us on whether or not they can do it or not so we struck a deal so this is the crazy part that
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in my mind yeah we struck a deal where we are competing with another bridge
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number one that was a challenge to begin with because quite frankly we're a new bridge with a
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high debt load the ambassador bridge quite frankly has been built and paid for for years so that was
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a challenge. Now we're in a deal where, quite frankly, we are having to get approval from the
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U.S. on what the toll rates are on the bridge we paid for. Like, why would anyone do that? And
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I think that's the question we have to ask. We have to ask, like, why would anyone enter this
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deal? Why would anyone have entered the deal from the beginning? It's not a great deal. It's,
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you know, I do deals all the time in my other businesses. If I did one of those deals, someone
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would some would come to me and go crazy my my shareholders would go bananas yeah yeah yeah so
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you know i think and you know you and i talked before the show the prime minister he's you know
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he's coming into this after the fact like he's kind of he's you know it's like that hot potato
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it lands on your desk you're like oh man now i gotta deal with this i gotta deal with this so i
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don't listen i don't know if he had any options i don't know if it was a great timing i'll be
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be truthful with you, you know, I think Hunter who works with you said before the show, you know,
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with elbows up before Kuzma, was it great timing to try to get this one off the table? I was kind
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of questioning the timing on it in my mind. Do you wait and start to go into negotiations and put it
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into all or do you take it off the table before? Yeah, yeah. I was kind of thinking, well, I think
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I would have waited. I would have put it in as a whole ball of wax and said to the said to the
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citizens i had to negotiate this but i got that or something to that effect but this just came out
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of the blue like out of the blue we're just like okay you know we gave up half yeah so i don't
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you know just gotta sometimes you just gotta eat a slice of humble pie right and there's a lot of
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stuff that i don't know right i'm not around the negotiating table i don't know but here's a couple
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things that stand out to me okay so number one um from the taxpayer perspective i said it before but
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i think it it's worth really honing in on this point um we're supposed to recoup that money
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now clearly the new deal look we don't know timelines but clearly the way it is is that's
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going to be longer for us to recoup some of the deal right we're losing out on some of the profits
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and as the taxpayers who paid for building it that's a huge concern okay so that's number one
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number two the political aspect of it and i think this comes back to accountability um look whenever
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politicians run in an election regardless of party right they have a big platform with you know maybe
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hundreds of pages maybe 50 who knows but all bunch of stuff they're going to do however i think if
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talk to most people of the voting public there's only you know a couple key three messages that
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people take away from it right and i think it's fair and push back if you think i'm being unfair
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but i think one of the key takeaways from carney's election platform is he was selling canadians on
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the idea that he was going to be the guy to get a deal with trump right is that fair right yeah
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listen he he paid my mike myers and all those people yeah to get into jerseys right yeah so
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Now, fast forward to today, we're, you know, more than a year out of that election.
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Because there's, it takes two to tango, so to speak.
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And I think that's a legitimate question because we see this deal, this deal, at least from
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what we've seen, isn't nearly as good as what we thought it was going to be, right?
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Maybe you can't even have the deal done in this timeline.
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But I also didn't make the promise. Right. OK. Third thing that comes to me is just a lack of transparency around this. And let me tie this into the political situation. So one of the things that happens when you now have a majority government, not a minority government, is that the committees change and the power of opposition members on committees change. Right.
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So I think what would be what I think would be good is like a full examination of what has gone on leading up to this point.
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Will that happen in committees now that now that you have, you know, a majority government and control over the committees?
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I don't know. Yeah. Well, it needs to be looked at.
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And, you know, the transparency of how the deal got done.
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We created this Windsor Detroit commission that was overlooking the construction of the bridge.
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There are some private developers who came in, so they sold it as a private-public partnership, which is, you know, great.
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Quite frankly, I'd rather they be more private than public, but they sold it as a private-public partnership.
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I'm curious now with the deal changing, do they get their money back?
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There's a bunch of companies that were in this deal.
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It'd be nice to see how it impacts everyone because the economics of the.