Dilkens to kill Windsor’s tunnel bus to Detroit with budget veto

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Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens has confirmed his plan to terminate Canada’s only cross-border public transit service using his first-ever mayoral budget veto.

In a post to social media on Monday afternoon, Dilkens announced he will reject council’s decision to continue operating the tunnel bus to Detroit, a service his proposed budget put on the chopping block.

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His choice, he wrote, is a “result of the economic threat posed by Donald Trump on my country and community,” referring to 25 per cent tariffs the United States was expected to impose on Canadian goods on Tuesday. Later that day, and following two phone calls with Trump, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the tariffs would be paused for at least 30 days

Windsor’s tunnel bus “brings 40,000 people to Detroit to spend money every year,” Dilkens wrote online.

“Why would we want to subsidize economic development in the United States when their President is assaulting our communities? We receive almost no benefit in return.”

Anticipating a possible 30-day pause on the Trump tariffs for Canada to match the reprieve the president granted Mexico — which ended up coming to fruition hours later — Dilkens said the city’s budget will have been set by then. He would have to bring the tunnel bus issue back “for another conversation” with city council.

“The one thing that is going to be certain over the next three years and 11 months is the world will be full of uncertainty,” he said. “The decision that I can make is to veto (council’s) decision and save the taxpayers in the City of Windsor a lot of money, and send a small signal back that we’re not willing to facilitate and subsidize economic development in a different country.”

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On Jan. 27, council voted 7-4 to save the tunnel bus, which Dilkens proposed to eliminate in his 2025 budget. Immediately after the meeting, Dilkens told reporters he might veto the budget amendment — something he has the power to do under Ontario’s strong mayor legislation.

Offering the cross-border transit service, which broke even until a few years ago, now costs the city more than $1.4 million annually because of federal sick day legislation.

Changes to the Canada Labour Code enacted in late 2022 granted all federally regulated employees, Transit Windsor workers included, 10 days of paid medical leave per year on top of existing benefits.

All of Transit Windsor’s 300 employees — bus operators, mechanics, and customer service personnel — fall within the scope of federal labour laws because tunnel bus operators provide a service that crosses an international border.

Ending the tunnel bus will have a 0.28 per cent impact on the city’s operating budget and bring the 2025 levy increase down to around 2.99 per cent.

Activate Transit Windsor Essex, a grassroots advocacy group, has condemned the mayor’s use of a veto to end tunnel bus service. In a news release on Monday, the group called on the Dilkens to temporarily close the entire Windsor-Detroit tunnel, arguing that “cancelling the tunnel bus while private vehicles continue to cross contradicts the mayor’s goals.”

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Dilkens told reporters on Monday he thinks the tunnel bus is a “bad business decision” for Windsor. He was going to “very carefully” consider what his council colleagues said during budget deliberations when deciding whether to veto their vote — but Trump’s tariff threat “put this over the edge.”

“I just cannot rationalize having taxpayers in the City of Windsor subsidize bringing people over to the United States to spend their money, and to help the U.S. economy, when our economy as a country, our economy here locally as a community, is under direct attack by the president of the United States,” he said.

“It’s a small decision. I acknowledge this. We’re not changing the world by making this decision.

“I have to do my part, and that’s one of the things that I can do to say that I’m not supporting the action of the president against my city.”

No final date for the service has been set. The city will give riders at least a 30 days’ notice before operations cease, Dilkens said.

The city will also maintain its license to operate a tunnel bus, in case “council wants to get back in,” he said.

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“There may be changes that come federally after another election, maybe, or maybe not. There may be things down the road that happen that make the economics make sense.”

Dilkens will enact his mayoral budget veto on Thursday, the end of his 10-day veto period under the Municipal Act. Council as a whole will then have 15 days to override the veto with an 8-3 vote, Dilkens included. That means one councillor who voted to cease the service would have to change his or her mind. 

Voting to eliminate the tunnel bus earlier this month were Dilkens and councillors Mark McKenzie (Ward 4), Ed Sleiman (Ward 5), and Jo-Anne Gignac.

Dilkens said he’s willing to use some of the savings from tunnel bus operations to invest in the school bus extra program — a Transit Windsor service that brings paying students to and from four high schools along designated routes, and that council voted to eliminate at budget time.

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After hearing “feedback” — both affected school boards and many parents have spoken out against the move — Dilkens said the city could “fill in the gaps” in transit service for students “in the short term.” He suggested extending the existing school bus extra program for some of the four schools, but not all of them, until the end of the year instead of the start of September as had been previously discussed.

The city plans to add 8,000 service hours to five existing Transit Windsor routes this year, plus another 7,000 hours once the school bus extra program ceases, Dilkens said.

If the tariffs go ahead, Windsor will also pull its sponsorship of the Detroit Grand Prix, Dilkens said. The city has invested $50,000 in the annual event for many years.

The city will review all of its other spending “to ensure the City of Windsor is maximizing purchases of Canadian-made goods. Canada first,” Dilkens wrote.

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