‘Middle finger to the people in our community’: Windsor mayor accuses feds of short-changing city for blockade reimbursement

Windsor’s mayor and city council are fuming mad at the federal government for “short-changing” a reimbursement request to cover legal and policing costs incurred during the Feb. 2022 Ambassador Bridge blockade, to the tune of almost $1 million.

It centres around a letter recently sent by Public Safety Minister Domenic LeBlanc, where he explains to the city why it will soon be in receipt of an “ex gratia payment in the amount of $6,094,915 on behalf of the Government of Canada to help the City of Windsor cover extraordinary expenses incurred in dealing with and ending the illegal blockade of the Ambassador Bridge in February 2022.”

“This letter is a middle finger to the people in this community,“ said Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens during Monday night’s regular meeting of council, because he said it’s a different number than what was promised a year earlier by former public safety minister, Marco Mendicino.

“The Government of Canada will support the City of Windsor cover costs of managing and ending the blockade with up to 6.9 million dollars in federal funding,” Mendicino said during a press conference on Dec. 29, 2022.

The difference is nearly $900,000.

“It does not live up to their commitment and their promise that they made to us,” said Dilkens. “To leave the people in our community on the hook for $900,000 for this response is among the most offensive things that I have ever seen from my time here at Windsor City Council.”

Many members of council were aligned in anger.

“This has gone on the backs of the citizens of Windsor for decades. And this one is just no, no, no,” said ward 6 Coun. Jo-Anne Gignac.

“Anytime you see an ‘as you know’ letter from the provincial or federal government, I cringe because that's a good way of them telling me, or how I interpret it anyways, we've already done everything we're going to do, go away,” said Ward 1 Coun. Fred Francis.

The difference in what the city was expecting and what they will receive makes up half of Windsor’s budget deficit for 2023.

So why the tune change from Ottawa?

“We've provided $6.1 million. What is not eligible, are legal fees, the $1.8 million roughly in legal fees that the city accrued,” said Windsor-Tecumseh Liberal MP Irek Kusmierczyk.

The legal costs incurred were from filing an injunction to help end the blockade and the city’s appearance at the Emergencies Act commission.

Kusmierczyk said his government decided to come up with a formula to cover half the legal costs for both the City of Windsor and the City of Ottawa, in the spirit of partnership.

He said other levels of government hadn’t done the same.

“We still have yet to hear from the province because the province has not yet provided any funding to help the city defray those costs, even though policing is fundamentally and principally a provincial jurisdiction,” said Kusmierczyk.

The city will continue to advocate for full reimbursement.

“We'll explore all future options moving forward… all options are on the table,” said Dilkens.

Sources say council has given Mayor Dilkens the authority to take legal action, if it gets to that.