Truck ferry owner to appeal court ruling on ‘unfair’ fees

WINDSOR, Ont. – The owner of the Detroit-Windsor Truck Ferry may have lost a recent federal court decision that forces him to pay thousands of dollars in "discriminatory" fees to the Canadian Coast Guard, but he isn’t giving up yet.

Gregg Ward says he’s appealing a recent decision that calls on him to continue paying $25,000 a year in icebreaking fees, according to the Windsor Star.

The truck ferry is the approved cross-border service for transporting hazmat trucks across the Detroit River between Windsor and Detroit.

Ward, who’s based in the U.S., argues that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, which administers the fee, has forgiven millions owed by other similar Canadian ferry operators while exempting others.

Furthermore, the fee has little to do with ice breaking since the large majority of icebreaking services across his stretch of the Detroit River is performed by the U.S. Coast Guard, not its Canadian counterpart.

The court decision justified the fee because Ward uses a Canadian port for Windsor operations. 

Ward counters that intraport movements are supposed to be exempt from the fee and when his vessels leave the port, they’re in the sovereign waters of the U.S.