The Globe and Mail reports in its Wednesday, July 29, edition that the federal government legally destroyed some cost records for the Gordie Howe International Bridge before it opened, raising accountability concerns about major projects. The Globe's Rita Trichur writes that a footnote in the Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority's 2024-25 annual report notes "excluded costs" for the $6.4-billion bridge connecting Windsor, Ont., and Detroit, suggesting that more relevant records may have also been destroyed in recent fiscal years. Ottawa's decision to discard documents related to the bridge's costs before its inauguration highlights serious flaws in its records-retention policies. This incident adds to its troubled transparency record and serves as a warning as the federal government undertakes more important national projects. "The Government of Canada's record retention policy requires that records be retained for a period of seven years; disposal of records is allowed after the retention requirement has been met," the bridge authority's annual report states in reference to the excluded costs. "As a result of this policy, some records from 2005 to 2009 were not retained."