VFPA DOUBLES

†” per cent versus year-to-date ‡”‡† [in August], which was likely lower than prior to the pandemic,” Emsley said. “So his [Silvester’s] explanations don’t hold water.”

Emsley also challenged the VFPA’s projections that capacity will run out by ‡”—”, noting the port authority’s website often refers to capacity being exceeded in “the early ‡”—”s.” He added that DP World’s ongoing work to expand Prince Rupert’s Fairview Terminal would be more than enough to handle the expected increase in capacity needs along Canada’s West Coast – in an area that’s significantly less environmentally sensitive.

“It is time Silvester woke up to reality,” Emsley said. “RBT ‡ is never going to happen.… Numerous major environmental organizations have come out strongly against T‡, and they are engaging with the federal government.”

Silvester maintains that ‡”‡‡’s first-half drop in cargo traffic is closely tied to one commodity: grain. He noted that if grain exports were taken out of the equation, overall cargo numbers would have increased instead of decreased year over year.

“This [drop] is almost entirely a story about grain,” he said. “It’s about the drought last year and the very abnormally low grain harvest, and we are expecting to see a lot more grain move to the port again.… I think, when you come back to the fundamentals, we see long-term trade patterns continuing to point to growth, and we’ve got to double-down on creating capacity to provide resilience while allowing for growth.”

One of RBT ‡’s biggest opponents has been Global Container Terminals (GCT Canada), which operates the port’s Deltaport container facility at Roberts Bank. GCT Canada has been pushing its own smaller expansion, Deltaport Berth – (DP–), as a cheaper, more right-sized and more appropriate expansion than the much larger Terminal ‡.

Marko Dekovic, GCT Canada’s vice-president of public affairs, said the VFPA is incorrectly trying to compare the infrastructure bottlenecks seen at Vancouver last year – largely due to the “atmospheric river” flooding that knocked out rail l inks to

the port for about a week – to container capacity issues that the Terminal ‡ expansion would address.

“We note that the Port of Vancouver’s CEO is trying to position the RBT ‡ project as providing necessary resiliency for Canada,” Dekovic said. “What is not clear is how: RBT ‡ remains connected to the exact same rail lines and inland infrastructure as the current terminals. Had it been sitting there, fully realized, it would still have been sitting idle last year during the floods, which washed rail lines out.”

VPFA has said one of the main reasons it prefers Terminal ‡ to GCT’s Deltaport Berth – is that the new terminal would h ave a new operator driving down fees for vessels using the port. Dekovic noted the port authority has yet to find that new operator despite years of searching.

“The port’s own information shows RBT‡ cannot be completed until ‡”—— at the earliest,” he said. “Other private-sector projects coming online in the Vancouver and Prince Rupert gateways and GCT’s DP– project are better positioned to meet future capacity needs incrementally and responsibly, compared to building a new artificial island, megaproject, which requires nearly †” years of construction.

“The ongoing effort by the port authority to penalize the success of a private sector Canadian operator under the guise of resiliency and competition is the real disservice to Canadian interests.”

Silvester, however, is not backing down.

“You have to consider where those voices [of opposition] are coming from,” he said. “Our mandate is to enable Canada’s trade in the interest of Canadians, to make sure there’s competitive capacity available for users of the port. The other voices you tend to hear are single commercial interests whose goal is to make money for its shareholders – who may be quite well-served by capacity being a bit tight and prices going up.”¥ ¦

I think, when you come back to the fundamentals, we see long-term trade patterns continuing to point to growth, and we’ve got to double- down on creating capacity to provide resilience while allowing for growth ROBIN SILVESTER PRESIDENT AND CEO VANCOUVER FRASER PORT AUTHORITY