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The CEO of the Windsor Detroit Bridge Authority (WDBA) has resigned and the bridge authority has a new interim CEO.<\/p>\n
Charl van Niekerk\u2019s departure happened mere weeks before U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat to block<\/a> the opening of the new Gordie Howe bridge connecting Windsor, Ont., and Detroit.<\/p>\n According to van Niekerk, his plan was always \u201cto depart at some point post construction,\u201d originally planned toward the end of 2026.<\/p>\n \u201cMy departure was slightly accelerated due to personal reasons: My home and family are in Toronto, and as you can imagine, it is not feasible to totally relocate a family to a different city for a limited term contract,\u201d van Niekerk said in a written statement to CBC Windsor.\u00a0<\/p>\n He joined the WDBA in July 2023 as CEO. <\/p>\n Noting that he was commuting weekly to Windsor to manage the program, and being away from his then five-year old son during the week, the former CEO said this \u201cbecame a sacrifice that was too much to manage.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThese are the formative years, and I want to be more engaged,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Van Niekerk\u2019s public LinkedIn profile shows that he\u2019s been working at Metrolinx \u2014 a transportation agency in Ontario \u2014 since January. He said his new role was a return to provincial public service and closer to home. <\/p>\n WDBA’s website lists new interim CEO<\/p>\n The website currently lists Chuck Andary as interim CEO and chief legal officer.<\/p>\n CBC News has reached out to the WDBA and the federal government for comment.<\/p>\n Trump has threatened to block<\/a> the opening of the more than $6-billion Gordie Howe Bridge that the Canadian government paid for in full, further inflaming tensions between the two countries.\u00a0<\/p>\n Democrats in Washington have launched a probe into the circumstances around Trump’s threat.<\/p>\n Created in 2012, the WDBA is a not-for-profit Crown corporation which reports to Parliament through the Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Pacific Economic Development Canada, according to its website<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 2 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":486529,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194291],"tags":[49,48,3302],"class_list":["post-486528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-toronto","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-toronto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=486528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/486529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}