Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Ontario Premier Doug Ford signed a new economic agreement aiming to increase trade, attract investment, and encourage job creation between the state and its Canadian province neighbor.
Neither Ontario officials nor Whitmer commented on the governor’s efforts to shut down the Line 5 pipeline between Michigan’s Upper and Lower peninsulas. The nearly 70-year-old dual pipeline is owned and operated by Canadian company Enbridge.
The agreement will support joint initiatives and the creation of new businesses in priority areas, including electric vehicles and related supply chains. Priority sectors include advanced technology, cybersecurity, agriculture and rural development, alternative clean fuels, and travel and tourism.
e U.S. and Canada, Michigan and Ontario have deeply shared economic interests on issues from future mobility to agriculture,” Whitmer said in a statement. “Canada was the top destination for Michigan exports last year, putting $27 billion into our economy and creating thousands of jobs across our state. Today’s Memorandum of Understanding will reaffirm our partnership and foster greater collaboration on trade, technology, cybersecurity, agriculture, and more.”
Michigan and Ontario share the busiest northern border crossing for goods in North America and are each other’s largest trading partner with total trade valued at $80.6 billion last year. Under the new agreement, the two jurisdictions will work together to identify opportunities for strategic partnership and joint trade promotion, improve access to information and facilitate more efficient border crossings.
Michigan and Ontario will establish a Procurement Cooperation Council to support government procurement, improving transparency and engagement in government purchasing.
The new agreement follows Canada in 2021 invoking a 1977 treaty to stop Whitmer and Attorney General Dana Nessel from shuttering the Line 5 pipeline. Canadian-owned Enbridge Energy owns the pipeline which transports 540,000 barrels of light crude each day from Canada through Wisconsin and Michigan’s two peninsulas and into Sarnia, Ontario.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit last week granted Nessel’s request to review a lower court’s decision in her litigation against Enbridge Energy. Specifically, the Sixth Circuit will hear arguments on whether the case belongs in state court or federal court.
“As Michigan’s top law enforcement official, I brought this case forward on behalf of the People of Michigan to protect Michigan’s Great Lakes,” Nessel said in a statement. “It is a Michigan case that belongs in a Michigan court. Enbridge voluntarily litigated this case in state court for over a year before deciding it would prefer a different forum.”
Enbridge spokesman Ryan Duffy said Enbridge is “confident that the Sixth Circuit will ultimately agree with Judge Neff’s decision.”
Neff found that “policy considerations as judicial economy, fairness, convenience, equitable administration, and consistent results as counseling for keeping this case in federal court,” Duffy said.
Enbridge said that Nessel “seeks to undermine these considerations and promote gamesmanship and forum shopping, while ignoring the substantial federal issues that are properly decided in federal court and not state court.”
This appeal process doesn’t affect the Enbridge v. Whitmer case, in which Enbridge’s summary judgment motion and the Governor’s motion to dismiss remain pending before Neff.
In that case, Enbridge seeks a ruling that state officials have no authority to force the closure of Line 5 while Enbridge is working to relocate it into the Great Lakes Tunnel.
“Enbridge remains focused on building the Great Lakes Tunnel which will make a safe pipeline safer, assure long term energy security and reliability, and support Michigan jobs and the economy,” Duffy said in a statement. “Placing the pipeline in the Great Lakes Tunnel better protects the Great Lakes.”
