Are We Like Australia Now

Are we going to have any more automobiles made in Canada as time marches on?

What if we do not? If you did not know, the Automobile Industry in Australia closed down after a hundred years in 2017 as business there got worse. Might that happen in Canada as well, especially in our area?

Obviously, my comment is made in the context of the closing down of the GM plant in Oshawa that just happened. However, as far as this region is concerned, will we still have the Chrysler plant in the future producing vehicles and with a good number of employees as well?

Obviously, it is still too early for me to make profound comments about what is going to happen. What I did find somewhat surprising is that both the Prime Minister and the Premier of Ontario have taken the position that it is all over and that the Oshawa plant will not be open again. They do not seem as if they are going to oppose anything or even can do so successfully:

“both federal and provincial governments are signalling there's little they can do now to save a key component of the company's Canadian operations as executives pursue a global shakeup in response to slumping auto sales.

"I talked to the president of GM last night. The first thing I said is, 'What can we do? What do we have to do?'" Ontario Premier Doug Ford told reporters this morning. "And he said, 'The ship has already left the dock.'" (John Paul Tasker , CBC News, Nov 26, 2018) 

I must admit that I think that this will hurt the Federal Liberals politically considering that their election is going to be coming up in the fall next year, or perhaps even earlier if they decide to call the election before then. With all the talk of not buying certain vehicles now that certain people are proposing online, it would seem to me that this will hurt the Government in the next election. After all, remember that there are thousands of people outside of the auto companies who work to build parts to the cars as well. Are they all going to lose their jobs too? Just think of the many people who will be out of work very quickly. Has anybody picked a new place for them to be employed?

There is not very much more that I can say right now since everything is just starting. We will have to see if the Senior Government people will wake up and change their position before it hurts them politically.

For those of us who live in the Windsor area, we better start seeing what may happen to Chrysler and how it may impact us. Our local Government people better wake up and start looking aggressively at how they can diversify our economy here so that more people will have jobs to find in the event that the automobile industry closes down here even more than it has to date.

More Of My Thoughts

I certainly do not create and post as many stories for your attention as I have done before. Obviously, I do not have the same need to do so as I had previously. Also, I just do not have any more the energy to work as long and as hard as I needed to do.

However, dear reader, I still try very hard to post stories whenever I do that interest you. I want you to think about situations that I believe to be important about which you might want to consider.

Here are some of them now.

GOODBYE ENWIN

I was quite surprised when I saw the story a few days ago that:

“Enwin is looking at moving their office employees from their longtime Ouellette Avenue location to their other facility on Rhodes Drive.” (Liz  Thorne, Windsorite.ca, November 9, 2018) 

You can read the story yourself to find out all the reasons that the Head of Enwin, Helga Reidel, gives to move to Rhodes Drive.

For me, it just seemed to me the wrong time to make such an announcement when a number of people are trying to boost the growth of Windsor's downtown area. Can you imagine, a Government Department wanting to move far away from the area. But of course, there is an answer for any negative thought:

“We hope a suitable buyer can be found, with a great plan for repurposing this building,” concluded Reidel.”

Did you expect people downtown to support what was being said? Of course not. Take a look at this comment and see who made it:

“Enwin’s plan to sell its 1950s-era Ouellette Avenue office building and move close to 100 staff to it’s Rhodes Drive operations centre should absolutely not be allowed, the chairman of the downtown BIA said Friday…

Despite those assurances, allowing such a city-owned entity and major downtown player to leave the core is simply “not something to consider,” said Larry Horwitz, chairman of the Downtown Windsor Business Improvement Association.

The mayor and city council “should just end this speculation” immediately, he said.

“Testing out the market and deciding if they should be downtown or not? Yeah, they should be downtown. It’s not a question.” (Brian Cross, Windsor Star, November 9, 2018) 

Two completely different positions. Yet, I am sure, dear reader, that you will know which position will move forward considering this:

“Reidel said there is currently no asking price but that Enwin will be seeking proposals in the next two months on the property at Ouellette and Elliott Street... With a renewed interest in downtown development, she said Enwin feels the “time is right to make this cost-saving move for the benefit of hydro and water ratepayers.”

Hmmm...I wonder why this matter was not raised until after the election was completed.

IS WINDOWS 10 FINISHED

I wonder if that is happening and that Microsoft will come out with a new operating system for which, this time, computer owners will have to pay for if they want to use it. Consider this comment:

“Windows-as-a-service fail: Microsoft keeps customers in the dark

"Windows as a service" sounded like a good idea in 2015, when Microsoft released Windows 10. But after a terrible October, Microsoft's Windows 10 problems continued in November..."

Those activation problems are now apparently resolved, but Microsoft hasn't offered an explanation or an apology. A company spokesperson declined to provide any additional details beyond a terse one-line statement: "We're working to restore product activations for the limited numer of affected Windows 10 Pro customers," (Ed Bott, ZDNet, November 9, 2018) 

The article is quite negative about how Microsoft acted in this matter. Apparently, that is what seems to happens now, whenever Microsoft has a problem:

“Mainstream customers running a released version of Windows shouldn't have to spend hours hunting down information about issues and updates. But in the absence of an official status dashboard for Windows 10, that seems to be the only option."

It seems strange for Microsoft to act this way when it is such a huge organization that works with the public. Could it be that there are some changes which may take place in the way it does business? Could the technical people be more concerned about that than fixing up problems? 

Or perhaps, could Windows 10 be the operating system that may be going out of the marketplace soon for another new Microsoft software operating system that is being developed now?

TV SHOWS EXTENDED AGAIN

I do not know whether you saw this notice or not. However, there is good news for television watchers. It was dealing with two programs that I used to see every day. These were shows in the area that I lived in that played every Monday to Friday between 7 to 8 PM.

I have to admit that I do not watch them very much these days because I no longer have any connections to my TV set that brings in programs that I can watch easily. However, I do have to admit that, previously, I watched them all the time.

Here's what I saw:

“Game show favorites Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune are going to stick around for a while.

CBS Television Distribution announced that it has officially renewed both game shows for three additional seasons, keeping them on the air through the 2022-2023 season.” (104.3, November 6, 2018) 

These shows have been around forever it seems on television. In the 2022 season, it will be the 40th year for Wheel of Fortune and the 39th for Jeopardy.

Why am I telling you this? Well, as I said, I don't watch too much television these days. When I do, however, I'm not very pleased with a lot of the shows that are now being broadcast.

Thank goodness that the "old favourites" that people like me still enjoy, and probably many younger people too, are still on the channels these days. And will be here for a long time to come.

Have You Read These Stories

It is fascinating that I have written so many stories in more than a decade of time. There are literally thousands of them.

I have always written stories that I hoped a lot of people would read. Nevertheless, in doing so, I set out my point of view, and just did not write something in order to get a bunch of people to come to my website to get my reader numbers up.

My stories were designed to set out what I believed no matter what the subject was. Oh sure, I expected to have some people disagree with me but I have to admit that the number of negative comments I received from readers was quite minimal. I was very pleased about that.

My approach on this website is somewhat different than before. It is much more personal in what I'm writing. That is probably due to what happened to me a few years ago when I fortunately survived from a very severe illness. I just feel that I want to write on here what I believe is important from my own personal perspective.

Moreover, I have a special reason for wanting to produce articles for you, dear reader. Of course, I want to have a lot of people coming here to see what I have produced. However, one of my important reasons for doing so is for me to keep up my "brain power" as best that I can.

I trust that when you read my articles on here they make good sense to you, dear reader, whether you agree with my point of view or not. Just keep on coming back every time you see that I posted something. It just makes me keep on wanting to write stories not just for myself but for you too!

Now here are the latest issues that I found interesting about which I wanted you to know.

CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT

This matter may be relevant for you. And you might be able to put a few dollars into your bank account.

I just happened to see on Facebook that a Class Action lawsuit involving a number of computer companies as defendants was just resolved in a settlement. The Plaintiff law firm was Siskinds. Here is what they wrote on their website about this matter:

“The CRT class action relates to allegations that from between March 1995 to November 2007 the defendants unlawfully conspired to fix, increase, and/or maintain prices at which CRTs and products containing CRTs were sold in Canada.

CRTs are a form of display devices. CRTs have largely been replaced by flat panel display devices. CRTs can be divided into two main categories: CDTs (colour display tubes) and CPTs (colour picture tubes). CDTs are used in computer monitors. CPTs are used in televisions.”

The settlement amount was $49.8 million. You can go to this website to see what this matter was all about

Frankly, I think you ought to go and take a look at what this lawsuit is all about, dear reader, to see if you have a claim that can be satisfied by the settlement. I'm not going to go into the details of this because they are two types of plaintiffs that would be involved in this matter. The minimum amount that you could receive is $20. Of course, if you have better details, then you would be able to apply for more specific amounts.

I expect that there are a lot of people who can apply for a claim for equipment purchased and ought to do so as soon as possible.

A HOSPITAL STORY

This is something I did not know before--- not all of the rooms in the hospitals are open now, but I found out about this a while ago. However, since there is a serious flu issue starting now, here is what is happening:

“Windsor Regional Hospital has received one-time funding to deal with the flu season for the next two years.

The Erie St. Clair Local Health Integration Network is giving the hospital almost $1.7 million to open 28 more beds to increase hospital capacity when needed during a surge of the flu.” (Paul Pedro, Blackburn News, November 5, 2018) 

This is not new:

“Windsor Regional Hospital was experiencing occupancy rates of 110 per cent to 120 per cent in previous years when the flu hit.”

To be direct, it seems that the flu disease provides more proof that building a new hospital for our area makes no sense at all. Here is something that I saw on Facebook 
on February 5 that should explain it very easily:

"Philippa Von Ziegenweidt at 9:37 AM

It makes no sense to invest $2 billion in a new hospital with the same number of beds that we have today, and without FIRST addressing the critical need for MORE ALC beds.

The health care system is struggling to keep up now, with an ever-increasing patient loads expected as the babyboomer generation reaches old age. We can't afford to paper over the system's deficiencies.”

I wrote this note in a reply which explains my simple view of what is wrong with what is being suggested for a new hospital system here:

“This is the simplest and best possible reason for scrapping what is being proposed for a new hospital here!”

It is so completely absurd to spend $2 billion to build ONE new hospital here which will handle the same number of patients as our two existing hospitals here now which are to be replaced. These hospitals cannot handle the number of people coming in for assistance now. How will the new hospital handle a bigger crowd of patients in the future when population will increase?

ANOTHER ONTARIO HOSPITAL STORY

I'm not going to write another long story about this subject. It makes sense to me for you to go to this website and read the article for yourself:

“Very low hospital capacity in Ontario” 

You will learn how bad the medical situation is in Ontario:

“Ontario has fewer beds than the rest of Canada and far fewer beds than other developed countries.”

In the Windsor area alone, based on Canadian numbers, we are short about 224 beds in the three hospitals in the area. If one looked at worldwide numbers, it gets even worse:

"If Ontario had that level of capacity that would mean 66,347 hospital beds in Ontario, more than double the current number. For the three Essex hospitals, that would mean an additional 937 beds.”

Just take a look at the article, dear reader, and you will see all the problems that we have here now with respect to our medical facilities. Does anyone really expect money to be spent to improve the situation here?

Some More Interesting New Stories

Of course my new stories are always interesting! Why else would you be reading them.

I do try very hard to find stories to write about and to give you my comments about them. Naturally, I hope that you agree with what I am saying but I don't expect it to happen every single time. Who knows, we might have some differences. However, you will at least know why I am saying what I do.

A Monday night a while ago was interesting for our family. We were having our usual "early dinner" at around 4:50 PM. While it may seem "early," my wife and I are up at around 5:30 AM each morning so by that time we are a little bit hungry. Fortunately we were able to eat most of our dinner and then all of a sudden the power in the house went off.

I have to admit that at first I was not all that concerned about it. Based on outages that I had before, I expected it to last for only a few seconds and then come right back on. That is what happened in the past and then work was done later to solve those problems. This time around however the outage lasted for almost 3 1/2 hours! I knew that it was something completely different but did not know what it was at first. Importantly, I could not eat the rest of my meal at that time because we did not have any more power sources.

I'm not going to go into a long discussion about it. I did walk initially to the area where the outage took place and there was a fire crew there already to make sure there was no big disaster taking place. There was no fire as far as I could tell but I understand that there was some kind of an electrical issue that may have resulted in the outage. Subsequently, I understood that a crew from the local Hydro company came and fixed the problem by about 8:20 PM when the power in my house was turned back on.

I do not believe that a massive amount of work had to be done to fix the problem. Unfortunately, the crew necessary to fix it was in another location just finishing up a problem located there as our situation arose. Given where it happened, I assume that the drive back would take about an hour as well. I think that is why our outage took so long before the power was put back on.

In any event, the issue was resolved by our Hydro company, Essex Power, in a very favorable way and as quickly as they could do it.

Thank you for your efforts!

Now let me discuss some other issues with you, dear reader.

WILL WE EVER GET A NEW TUNNEL

It appears as if there are some problems there these days that is delaying construction:

“The Detroit-Windsor tunnel’s CEO Neal Belitsky indicated Monday it is now anticipated construction inside the 88-year-old border crossing — which has forced nightly closures since late last year — will not be completed for at least another couple of months…

The Detroit-Windsor tunnel’s CEO Neal Belitsky indicated Monday it is now anticipated construction inside the 88-year-old border crossing — which has forced nightly closures since late last year — will not be completed for at least another couple of months.” (Dave Batagello, Windsor Star, October 30, 2018) 

From the Star story, for whatever reason, no one was given an explanation why this was happening. Why not? That seems strange to me.

What also seems strange to me is how much Canadian officials are prepared to do to get this project finished already:

“She said tunnel officials in Windsor have offered assistance to compete the project, but received little response.

“We’ve offered additional (full) closures, we’ve asked ‘do you need more bodies?’” Brown said. “We asked ‘Is there anything we can do to help get the project finished?”

Presumably, this would have cost someone extra money to retain additional employees to get his work done more quickly or to do whatever else has to be done. Was the Canadian half of the tunnel prepared to pay the additional money to do this or did they expect the American half to pay these additional costs?

Hmmm. I wonder if we could expect something similar to take place if a Government bridge was going to be built. If so, would more money than the $5 billion plus Government cost for the bridge have to go much higher as well? With all of it being paid by the Government Canada!

DO WE NEED ANOTHER HOSPITAL

I'm sure that you remember that our new hospital that is going to be built is supposed to replace the other two hospitals that are around now. There's also some talk about increasing the number of beds in that hospital because I believe there is a feeling that more are needed. If those beds are added in, I'm not certain that the Provincial Government will pay for it or the cities and towns in this area may have to do so because they may want the additional size.

To be direct about it, I would also think that if more beds are wanted, then presumably they ought to be added in to the number of rooms that are being built originally. However, I think I saw it written somewhere previously that they would only be added in after the initial size of the new hospital is built.

Honestly, isn't it time to kill the whole project? After all, the Provincial election is over and there are no Liberal promises needing to be fulfilled any more.

How can we have a small, new hospital replacing two existing hospitals? Where will all of these extra sick people be placed if they need a hospital bed? Considering that our population age is increasing, I would expect that more members of our area will need hospital beds in the future to treat all of them with serious illnesses. A new hospital which only can hold what our hospitals are holding today makes no sense to me.

Moreover, look at the problem that our existing hospitals are having right now with all of the sick people that they are treating now:

“The ERs are becoming overloaded and are unable to off-load the ambulances,” Ng said. “So often ambulances get stuck waiting outside emergency room departments not able to off-load patients, which leads to fewer ambulances in the community. There are times where there is significant delay to get an ambulance, and we see this as a crisis.”

Ng added the ambulances can’t offload a patient without an available bed…

Ng added the population is aging, and their health problems are becoming more complex. He said those factors combined with fewer beds and less staff is causing many ERs, and hospitals in general, to become overcrowded.” (Greg Higgins, Blackburnnews.com, Oct 25, 2018) 

I do not understand how it can get any better in the future when the population could rise dramatically and there are more older people living in the area. No hospital the size of our two hospitals now can handle the increased population properly from a medical perspective as far as I'm concerned.  How can only one hospital do it then?

If that is true, then what game is being played now and why?

More Stories For You To Read

It is not easy writing stories for you, dear reader.

I want to make sure that you come back as many times as possible. In addition, I hope that you might find my website so interesting that you will encourage some of your friends to come here as well. In order to do so, it is very important for me to find different stories and give you my interpretation of them that will explain why I found them worthy.

Of course, I understand that you may not agree with me with everything that I write. In fact, you might wonder why I wasted so much time on a particular article. But that is okay. I try to make sure that what I write is something that will attract your attention.

Let me give you a very quick example of what I mean. I saw this story recently from Maclean's magazine:

Canada’s Most Dangerous Places 2018 

It listed over 200 "dangerous places" in Canada. Believe it or not, Windsor was one of the first cities in Ontario listed. It was number 65 in the list, the sixth Ontario location listed.  The Crime Severity Index also increased last year.

I moved from Windsor to Tecumseh several years ago. From a crime perspective, that was something smart to do. Tecumseh was number 216 on the list of 229 areas.

Naturally, if I was writing a longer story about these facts, I would provide a lot more details about the work that was done and its significance. However, all that I wanted to do this time is to show you how I find a story and then start to deal with it to interest you.

I better start writing some more stories for you, dear reader, because, after all, you now know the approach I take when I write them.

MORE ON QUICKEN LOANS

We do have to be excited by this subject. As I saw in this story previously:

“A beloved but crumbling downtown watering hole undergoing a multimillion-dollar makeover will soon be occupied by some of the brightest minds within the extensive financial empire of Detroit billionaire Dan Gilbert.

Employees under Quicken Loans — the mortgage-based business that boosted the Michigan businessman into one of the world’s richest entrepreneurs — will set up inside the former Fish Market and Loop building.

It is the first step into Windsor for Gilbert, who has recently touted this city’s advantages after leading a high-profile joint two-city bid to woo Amazon to open a new headquarters in the border cities.” (Dave Battagello, Windsor Star, October15, 2018) 

What however is even more interesting is what the impact may well be for this area. 

Check out the next story written in the Windsor Star on October 16 by Dave Waddell:

"Local tech companies welcome Quicken Loans as potential game changer.”

Here is the fundamental point that people ought to know about:  

“This is something a lot of people watching the tech industry in Windsor have been saying is required — greater integration with Detroit in the IT sector. This is exactly what we were look and waiting for in terms of investment.”

Here is a key thought about how important this could be for our area in the future

“For the first time, we’re hearing some Canadian commuters to the U.S. can’t get their visas renewed,” Abbruzzese said.

“American firms are not bringing talent over as easily, so you’ll have more companies come across the border.”

In other words, the tougher it is for a Canadian to work in the United States for an American company, the better it is for them to work for that company in Windsor.

Let me be blunt though. I hardly think that our area has been doing very well in the past given this comment:

“Windsor-Essex Economic Development Corporation CEO Stephen MacKenzie [said]:

“We’ve been making progress in the tech sector with four tech companies coming here in the last couple years in addition to Quicken Loans,” MacKenzie said. “This is a huge one though.”

Seriously, four companies only is hardly growing business here. The opportunity now is available to increase the number of people working here. Let's hope we will take advantage of the situation as quickly as possible.

OUR HEALTH IN THIS AREA

I read this comment about medical matters in this area and it really troubled me. My concern obviously arose because of my own age:

“We have a lot of challenges in our community,” Marentette said.

Among those challenges are an older population than the Ontario average that is going to increase in the coming decades, below average life expectancy, the lowest number of physicians per capita, a higher than average number of smokers, a growing substance abuse problem and above-average child poverty.” (Chris Thompson, Windsor Star, October 18, 2018)     

Regretfully, it is our reality.

I saw that Councillor Payne objected to paying out the amount requested. I must admit that I don't understand his attitude about it considering what is actually paid out. I regret that he did not agree that this comment made sense to justify the increase:

“CEO and chief nursing officer Theresa Marentette told the meeting that Windsor and Essex County are somewhat different from the rest of the province.”

It would seem that because of this difference extra money needed to be obtained. I agree!

My Latest News Stories

I have to admit it. I am really quite intrigued with the weather that we were experiencing these days. 

I know, I know, I know...I'm not supposed to talk very much about the weather when I do these columns. However, the weather always intrigues me. So please excuse me when I do.

As I am sure you know by now, I was so busy performing different functions for so many years that I really did not spend all that much time thinking about the weather as I do now. I have the time and am fascinated by what I am experiencing around me. What I found so interesting recently is how high the temperature rose in the autumn, even though it was quite cloudy, and then how quickly it fell, accompanied by rain. Obviously, it was not the first time that it happened in the last few weeks.

Anyway, that is all that I am going to discuss now about weather matters.

There are a number of interesting issues that I would like to discuss. Here they are now.

MORE NEWSPAPER LOSSES

I just find it amazing how much money newspapers seem to be losing. Even the ones that seemed to be so special in the past, and therefore so successful, are suffering today. Clearly, they have to make all kinds of changes to the way they run their operations these days to try and protect themselves.

I saw these numbers recently and was shocked because one of Canada's largest newspapers is losing a lot of money:

"Torstar Corp. reported a loss of $18.8 million in its third quarter as its revenue fell by 13 per cent.

The publisher of the Toronto Star newspaper says the loss amounted to 23 cents per share for the quarter ended Sept. 30.

The result compared with a loss of $6.6 million or eight cents per share in the same quarter last year.

Revenue totalled $126.4 million, down from $145.9 million." (Canadian Press, Windsor Star, October 31, 2018) 

I do not have the faintest idea about what will happen in this industry. As I am sure that you know, the Windsor Star's parent company is also in a difficult financial position. I have no idea what will happen to so many newspapers in our country given the losses that they are experiencing now.

ANOTHER BORDER STORY

Please forgive me for posting the story, but I think that you will enjoy reading it. I'll make it very short and sweet so you can understand what I'm saying and why very quickly.

Try and find a copy of the Ambassador Bridge Company paid paper on the ridiculousness of building a Government bridge at the border for you to read. It was prepared by Eric Miller of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC. Yes, I know who paid for it but take a look at it and see the calculations for building the Government bridge in comparison to building the "private" bridge.

The reality of the paper is that when one looks at the revenues to be generated compared with the cost to build that Government bridge:

"Canadian taxpayers will be saddled with significant liabilities related to the project for decades to come."

Three different examples are given from a financial perspective. The reality produced in an article back in 2007 by Price Waterhouse for the Michigan Department of Transport is that "

"real tolls will not raise sufficient funds to build the project and therefore some kind of a public subsidy... will be required."

What makes this even worse from a financial perspective is that traffic at the Ambassador Bridge has fallen 44% between 2000 and 2017. Car traffic has dropped by half, while truck traffic has dropped slightly over a quarter. 

Apparently,

"there is little hope in the foreseeable future of returning anywhere close to pre-9/11 levels."

As you may know, dear reader, Canada is stuck with the construction costs. They are pretty close to $5 billion now and probably will be a lot higher by the time the Government bridge is completed. Who knows what the real amount will be!

When looking at the three examples in the paper, it is assumed that each of the bridges, the Government bridge and the new Ambassador bridge, will split the border traffic 50% each. Assuming that is true and without outlining to you all the details of how the calculations are determined, here's what should be interesting to you:

Example 1: even with an operating profit of $15 million being made, the Government bridge would require a Canadian taxpayer subsidy of $184 million per year!

Example 2: in this case, tolls are doubled while costs are to remain the same so income increases and yet the Government bridge would still require a subsidy from taxpayers of $144 million per year!

Example 3: tripling the tolls means now that the Government subsidy still is in the amount of $104 million per year! Of course, that assumes that people will still cross the bridge and pay such high tolls.

Can you imagine how much more the losses would be for the Government if the Bridge Company did not match the Government crossing rate and the Government had to reduce its toll price or it would lose more volume. Just remember that the Government cost has to be higher because its construction cost is so many times higher than what the Bridge Company will have to pay for its construction crossing costs.

How long will it take the Government to pay off its debt? The author suggested many decades if it ever could be paid off at all. It is suggested that under the best alternative it might take Canada at least 61 years to pay off the debt.

Frankly, this whole paper that was prepared is just another example of the stupidity that is going on with respect to the border crossing. None of this makes any proper financial reasoning for the Government Canada to spend all this money to build a bridge that may go financially broke in any event.

My own view of all of this nonsense is that the parties on both sides are waiting until the Canadian election is over. Canada is not going to do anything before the election that would cost it votes to do a deal with the Ambassador Bridge Company and might prevent it from gaining extra seats in this area. In my opinion, that is why Canada still talks about building a new Government bridge.

Yet, what is also very interesting now is that the time period for building that Government bridge has increased by couple of years. Why? The answer is easy. The Government needs the extra number of years because of the election that is coming up next year. Once the election is completed, assuming that the Liberals are re-elected, the parties will do a deal quickly in my opinion whatever that deal might look like.

Oh, don't worry. All the engineering work that is being done now will be used to build that new bridge!