The DRIC Road To Hell Is Paved With Good Deceptions

What irony. It was the Windsor Star, the big DRIC booster, that put the final nail in the coffin for the lie known as DRIC/NITC.

And yes, DRIC is a lie. It always has been. It is nothing more than a terrorist tactic designed to terrorize the Moroun Family into selling out their interest in the Ambassador Bridge as cheaply as possible to the Governments, or rather to Canada as we now know since their legal guru told us that Canada will own hundred percent of the crossing.

And the lies that have been spewing forth from politicians, bureaucrats, academics, the media, are disgusting. The lies are designed to fool the public into believing that the DRIC project will not cost taxpayers billions, that it will benefit the public and that it makes sense as a public-private partnership.

“One truth about megaprojects – which I will document below – is that forecasters misinform and sometimes even lie about projected costs, benefits, and risks. This results in cost overruns, benefit shortfalls, and the mismanagement of risk to a degree that often jeopardizes project viability.” (Truth and Lies About Megaprojects Bent Flyvbjerg September 26, 2007)

Mark my words. If a DRIC bridge is ever built, it will be financed by the Chinese and built by the Chinese with Chinese labour and Chinese steel. When the bridge defaults in payments as it will, the most important border crossing between Canada and the United States will be owned by the Chinese.

Think about it. When you analyze everything, it is the Governments who are at fault that this region has suffered for the last decade because of their deliberate misinformation:

• Michigan will own 50% of the DRIC bridge—A BIG LIE
• the Non-Agreement Agreement is ironclad—A BIG LIE
• the DRIC project is financially viable—A BIG LIE
• tolls are sufficient to cover the costs—A BIG LIE
• availability payments are not needed—A BIG LIE
• Canada will pay for everything—A BIG LIE
• it is needed for federal matching grants—A BIG LIE
• Michiganders will not have to pay a dime—A BIG LIE
• traffic is sufficient—A BIG LIE
• traffic will grow significantly over the next 30 years—A BIG LIE
• there is enough traffic for the other crossings—A BIG LIE
• Sandwich will be destroyed by a gigantic Plaza—A BIG LIE
• Delray residents will gain benefits—A BIG LIE
• it is needed to make the area an international trade hub—A BIG LIE
• another bridge is needed for security/redundancy—A BIG LIE
• a gagillion jobs will be created—A BIG LIE
• local contractors will benefit—A BIG LIE
•  foreign-controlled P3s makes sense—A BIG LIE

I am sure that  there  are  other  BIG  LIES. But  you must  understand what I  am getting  at by now, dear reader.

They cannot keep up these false pretences any longer. We are too far down the road, excuse the pun, for that. The Moroun Family was expected to have sold out already so that all of these lies were not necessary to tell the public. The Governments would have been able to do exactly what they wanted to do including making foreign P3 operators fabulously wealthy at taxpayer expense and lining the pockets of anonymous special interest groups.

When they did not sell out, the falsehoods began and are still going on. No wonder the Bridge Company has to spend millions on commercials to get their side of the story across.

I predicted already what would be said after the Auditor-General of Canada and Ontario and the American equivalents do their report years after the project was completed, slamming everything that was done. It has happened before as you are aware from what I have written before about hospitals and nuclear plants in Ontario so the script is well prepared.

“Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,” the Governments would say. “We apologize. We will do in the future exactly what the value for money audit requires us to do. After all, we are novices at this. This is our first P3 bridge and road project. It was an experiment in how to do it. We will do better next time.”

Check out the Star story and you will see the small script change made by Infrastructure Ontario already.

Or perhaps they would take the alternative Spanky approach…

“We would sign the same deal all over again.”

What an indictment against the Governments and the anonymous special interest groups that are supporting them. You must read the Windsor Star story by Date Battagello on August 17, 2012 for yourself here: “Parkway jobs fall short: ‘We are not going to sit on our hands any longer’.”

The first four paragraphs of the Story are enough to make one sick as they shine the light on the Government lies:

“Local jobs will fall well short of the 12,000 promised for the Windsor-Essex Parkway project because area contractors are either “shying away” or being bumped from the project, the head of the local construction association says.

Jim Lyons, executive director of the Windsor Construction Association, says local companies are being expected to assume too many risks and are not receiving final payment for completed work until the project is complete in 2014.

“A lot of companies don’t even want to go near the parkway based on what’s going on there,” Lyons said.

Lyons issued a four-page warning letter in April to Transportation Minister Bob Chiarelli on behalf of the Council of Ontario Construction Associations – which represents 21 construction associations across the province – detailing “hardships” for companies working on the parkway project.”

The Ontario Government who is supposedly running the project is quite concerned, hardly:

“Lyons said he has made the letter public because the province has failed to address the issue…

[David Salter, press secretary for Transportation Minister Bob Chiarelli] I expect that we’ll have a formal response to the letter within the next few weeks based on these ongoing discussions.”

We learned how foreign P3 operators become rich as they bastardize the tendering process. Who said it was not possible to ensure that favoured companies get the business.

My understanding of the P3 deal for the DRIC road is that the P3 operator does not get paid until the road is finished. Do you think that is a financial big risk for them so that they should be allowed to make a big profit on the DRIC road job? After all, as is always argued by the P3 cocaine dealers, when one takes on the risk, one is entitled make a profit to take into account a contingency. It is hardly a risk when the foreign P3 operator will not pay local contractors all the money owed until the end of the contract.

Local jobs and local contractors:

“98 per cent of subcontracts going to local companies.

Lyons claims that’s not true.

The biggest problem is “bid shopping” by Windsor-Essex Mobility Group, the Spanish-led consortium hired by the province to oversee the project, he said.”

I’ll let you read how the game is played in the story. I’ll also let you read how Infrastructure Ontario, the Government Agency who is handling this file, doesn’t have a clue what is going on in reality as its script change shows.

The Moroun Family should feel vindicated now! What they have been saying for years now about the DRIC farce is coming true. The name-calling, the demonization, the vilification of their Family name has all been a tactic to try to destroy them in the eyes of Legislators and the Public. It has not worked.

The destruction of DRIC has not been accomplished by the Moroun family. It has been achieved by the DRIC-ites themselves.

I have one word for them: LIARS.

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