How the Ambassador Bridge protest could tighten the supply-chain chokehold

Almost 20% of Canada-U.S. trade moves across this 'vital artery of supply' that has been closed since Monday

Protesters in Windsor, Ont., began blocking the Ambassador Bridge Monday evening, a trade route that Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair called “a vital artery of supply for the province of Ontario.”

Traffic from Canada into the United States was fully open on the bridge Wednesday morning, while traffic in the opposite direction remained closed. The bridge was still listed as “temporarily closed” on the Canada border services website Wednesday morning.

The ways to and from the Ambassador Bridge are blocked by a relatively small number of people on Huron Church Road, the main route connecting the bridge to Ontario’s Hwy. 401. A limited secondary access to U.S.-bound traffic was open.

Blocking access is not hard to do, and could probably be replicated at practically any land crossing, said Bill Anderson, a trade expert and director of the Cross-Border Institute at the University of Windsor.

This was excerpted from the 9 February 2022 edition of the Financial Post.