Trade agreement has big impact on Canada’s largest port
The new Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for the Trans-Pacific Partnership has a direct impact on Vancouver, which hosts Canada’s largest port.
About $1 in every $3 of what Canada imports and exports beyond North America goes through the Port of Vancouver, and that number is sure to grow with the new trade deal, not to mention the end of NAFTA should that come to pass.
The very significant majority of the additional trade as a result of this new agreement will come via containers, part of a worldwide trend that has favoured their efficiency since they were introduced in the 1950s.
In Vancouver, those containers will leave loaded with Canadian grain, lumber and food products, among other goods. They’ll come back filled with appliances, clothing and other consumer products, as well as auto parts and other manufactured goods. The resulting challenge for the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority becomes how to manage that growth in the densely populated Lower Mainland.
Upgrades to Canada’s largest container terminal, Deltaport, and other terminals to increase their efficiency and reduce their environmental footprint, are complete or underway. Roadways have been improved to address increased traffic, overpasses have been built to avoid train crossings and reduce train noise, and a number of similar projects have been put forward for funding from the federal government’s National Trade Corridor Fund.
However, for Canada’s other major West Coast port in Prince Rupert, independent expert forecasts show it won’t be enough to manage Canada’s future trade demand.
The port authority began studying how best to address the pending shortfall in the late 1990s. Since then, we’ve determined Canada needs a new container terminal on the West Coast. After several years of early planning and over six years of environmental research and engineering study, we have determined the best place to locate a new container terminal is next to the port’s Westshore terminal at Roberts Bank. The location has needed road and rail connections, and the proposed terminal can be situated in deep ocean waters to minimize the impact on sensitive ecosystems in the Fraser delta, such as eel grass that provides habitat for Chinook salmon and crab-rearing beds closer to shore.
The land base for the proposed Roberts Bank Terminal 2 Project will be mainly created from sand that is released from the Fraser River each spring during and has to be removed to keep the river from overflowing and the channel open for vessels. The terminal would feature some automation and provide about 1,500 new jobs, as well as another 11,000 trucking, warehousing and other jobs off the terminal. It wouldn’t require taxpayer funding, since the port authority is financially self-sustaining despite its federal parentage.