February 9, 2022
The Honourable Doug Ford
Premier of Ontario
Legislative Building - Queen's Park
Toronto ON M7A 1A1
Dear Premier Ford,
As you are aware, the busiest international border crossing in North America has been blocked by protesters for three consecutive days. The Ambassador Bridge is vital to border cities like Windsor. As of the writing of this letter, the traffic coming in from the United States is completely shut down. This has been ongoing for over 24 hours. Residents of Windsor are frustrated and tired, as they anxiously wait for a resolution.
We want to highlight what importance this border crossing has. An estimated 450 million dollars of goods cross the Ambassador bridge each day. Locally, 2600 businesses are in the transportation and warehousing sector employing over 10,000 people. Thousands of workers cross into the United States every day, many of which are frontline workers working in hospitals and healthcare. Truck drivers are feeling abandoned stuck on highways and parking lots near the Windsor-Detroit border some for over 24 hours without access to food or a restroom break.
Mayor Drew Dilkens and Chief of Windsor Police Pam Mizuno have written to you requesting additional supports including resources and personnel from your government. We are echoing their requests to act immediately to provide the resources needed to end this as soon as possible. Each hour that this protest continues is detrimental to our economy and the Windsor-Essex community. Forcibly shutting down essential infrastructure like this important border crossing is not a peaceful protest.
Please act immediately to help Windsor-Essex residents, businesses and employees urgently.
Sincerely,
(Original Signed)
Andrea Horwath, MPP
Leader of the Official Opposition
Hamilton Centre
Lisa Gretzky, MPP
Windsor West
Percy Hatfield, MPP
Windsor-Tecumseh
Taras Natyshak, MPP
Essex