William Watson: We need wakes for policies that fail

A view from the Gordie Howe International Bridge multi-use pedestrian and cycling pathway is shown on the day it opened to the public on Aug. 5, 2026. Photo by WINDSOR STAR - DAN JANISSE

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“Highway robbery” isn’t actually a reference to highways being stolen. Highways are hard to steal, for obvious reasons. Yet we recently had a bridge hijacked, a big, new, shiny one.

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We proposed the bridge, designed it, built it, paid for it. Then the guy at the other end of it said, in effect, nice bridge you got there, how much you gonna pay me for it? And refused to let people off the bridge at his end if we didn’t pay up. Making it a bridge to nowhere unless we acceded to toll trolling — the same approach the mullahs take to the Strait of Hormuz. If this is really how the New York real estate business works, it’s amazing there’s any real estate there at all.

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We could have waited him out, leaving the bridge unused and rusting until he’s gone, as he will be eventually, its empty laneways a monument to his stubbornness. Instead we paid up — though because we were wearing a cowboy hat we said we hadn’t. You’ve seen what cowboy hats do to people’s brains.

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I actually liked the opening ceremony for the Gordie Howe Bridge, with his grandkids being the first to drive across. And the goodwill fact Howe was from Floral, Sask., and played all his hockey life in the U.S. And that he was known, among other things, for his elbows. Who knew when the bridge was started in 2018 that elbowing, a Howe art form, would become an important theme in Canada-U.S. relations?

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In Montreal, we got an equally nice new bridge in 2019. For a time there was talk of naming it after Maurice Richard, Howe’s rival and (we in Montreal all believed) superior, another legendary number nine, along with Chicago’s Hull, Boston’s Bucyk, New York’s Bathgate and (not a legend, though a good player) Toronto’s Duff. Members of Richard’s family could have driven across first.

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But the politicians chickened out and, unimaginatively, the new bridge got the same name as the one it replaced: Samuel de Champlain, though in its own way that was an act of courage in that Champlain (1574-1635) founded New France, the first permanent European colony in Canada, with all the ideological baggage that now entails. Champlain’s descendants were not invited to cross the new bridge first. Maybe they could have ridden in ox-drawn carts, as early settlers may have done.

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Numberless politicians did show up, along with a band, to celebrate the opening of the Pont Champlain. They also jammed our side of the Gordie Howe Bridge for a many-scissored cutting of a very wide red ribbon.

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I asked last week why people go into politics. At times, it seems it’s for the ribbon-cuttings. The politician who doesn’t love a ribbon-cutting may not exist. They all seem to have a great time together, even partisan and internecine rivals. Giving away stuff they didn’t pay for makes politicians jolly.

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Building things is good. Or mainly good. Or maybe that’s just concreteness bias, or bias for concrete. Some built things, even if they do work, are a great waste of money and other resources. I expect there will be a big opening ceremony for our first high-speed train, if it ever gets built. On the other hand, given the difficulties experienced by new light-rail services in Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto, politicians might not risk going on the first trip: it would be embarrassing if the thing broke down and they had to be whisked away on buses, as too often happened with VIA’s slow-speed rail.