How a bridge to Canada got the axe from American lawmakers

March 5, 2021

As American lawmakers inched toward approving a bill with an eye-watering 13-digit price tag, it was apparently a bridge to Canada that proved a bridge too far.

Funds for upkeep of an existing cross-border bridge from Massena, N.Y., to Cornwall, Ont., were included in, and have now been stripped out of, a $1.9 trillion US pandemic-relief bill that Congress could pass any day.

Less than one-millionth of the bill's overall price tag had originally been set to fund operations of the half-century-old Seaway International Bridge, jointly run by the Canadian and U.S. governments.

The original version of the bill that passed the U.S. House of Representatives guaranteed $1.5 million for several months' funding of the span, which connects upstate New York with the Ottawa-Montreal area through Cornwall, Ont.

"It's a vital, necessary access point between our two countries," Steven O'Shaughnessy, the town supervisor of Massena...

This was excerpted from the 4 March 2021 edition of CBC News.

Topic(s)

Freight & Transport

International Trade and Border Management

Information source

Canadian News Channel

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