Who to thank for the Gordie Howe Bridge and over 2,000 jobs.

Meet the people who work on the bridge:

Meet the team working on the bridge

The Gordie Howe Bridge

On any single day, more than 2,000 people are working on the Gordie Howe International Bridge site, ports of entry and the Michigan interchange.

Around 42 per cent of the workforce are local to Windsor and Detroit. Meanwhile, workers from around the world — including Ireland, Italy, Germany, Brazil, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, India and more — have come to complete the bridge.

It has been under construction since 2018, with its opening currently slated for September 2025.

Delays under the Liberal Party:

The Gordie Howe International Bridge is now slated to open in September 2025, a delay of 10 months from its original targeted completion date in 2024.

The new targeted opening date means the international border crossing will now cost $6.4 billion Cdn, up from the original $5.7-billion cost estimate — a cost that will be borne entirely by the Canadian government, a Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority spokesperson said.

“The project is still entirely funded by the Government of Canada,” said Heather Grondin, the chief relations officer for the Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority (WDBA). “So that does include this increase in the contract value.”

Bridging North America, the private-sector partner on the project, would only absorb costs like fluctuations in the exchange rate or construction increases that are not caused by an unplanned event like the pandemic, Grondin said.

The new international border crossing was scheduled to be completed in November but “experienced unprecedented disruptions as a result of the COVID-19 global pandemic,” the bridge authority said in a press release issued Thursday morning.