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MONTREAL — The charitable foundation created by former Microsoft chief executive Bill Gates and his wife Melinda oversees a $42-billion endowment, working to alleviate poverty and improve health care in the developing world. It gets lots of requests, but the one mailed from Quebec City this month was surely the first seeking a paint job for a rusty First World bridge.

Mr. Gates, through an investment company he controls and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is the largest shareholder in Canadian National Railway Co. (CN).

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“We are appealing to your sense of civic responsibility in hopes that you will urge CN to assume its responsibility and finish its work to paint the structure of the Quebec Bridge,” the mayors of Quebec City and Lévis wrote to Mr. Gates.

“Such a gesture will ensure that our historic world heritage city will once again have a historic bridge worthy of its name.”

The letter, sent two weeks ago, has so far gone unanswered, but the mayors — Régis Labeaume of Quebec City and Gilles Lehouillier of Lévis — are not giving up. At a news conference Thursday, they were joined by politicians from the three main provincial parties, all sporting T-shirts with the slogan “Paint your bridge, Bill.”