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This hasn’t stopped the Marouns from doing everything they can to stop the Canadian project from going forward. They and their Canadian subsidiary have litigated against Canada through multiple avenues, engaged in special-interest lobbying and even attempted (but failed) to have Michigan voters enshrine their wishes into the state constitution in 2012. Anything, it seems, to prevent “traffic diversion” away from the Ambassador and hence a loss of profit, including their cash cow of duty-free gasoline sales. (If the family is aware of the irony of arguing for free trade while working hard to disrupt competition from across the border, they show no sign of it.)

The Gordie Howe bridge project, which should be seen as a gift by the cash-strapped and infrastructure-crumbling Motor City (dependent as ever on the economic growth that serving as an international trade hub brings), is supported by the governor of Michigan, the Obama administration and even by the state government in Ohio, whose largest trading partner is Canada.

There is no question that, according to all the relevant metrics (excluding, of course, the Marouns’ bottom line), the Gordie Howe bridge proposal is superior to X12. The latter will carry all but the aging faults of the Ambassador, including the direction of traffic through residential areas in Windsor and the environmental consequence of idling vehicles. The Gordie Howe bridge, meanwhile, will allow for a constant flow of traffic through its connection to major thoroughfares.

It would make no sense for Canada to commit to such an investment in its bridge project if the Maroons’ proposal had merit. It doesn’t. The Canadian proposal is the right one — and we hope that all of the necessary stakeholders on the American side will recognize this going forward.