Port: We are not forcing the agricultural sector out

Re: Container terminals or homegrown agriculture

Industry special interests wish to disparage the port authority to secure a new lease for a privately owned food waste processing and manufacturing plant in Vancouver, and unfortunately former premier Mike Harcourt didn't reach out to the port authority for the other side of the story. We are not forcing the agricultural sector out of the port.

Grain shipments are up about 25 per cent this year, and the agricultural sector has been driving significant growth in container trade, exporting legumes, fruit, seafood, meat, and more. Port authorities are federal government agencies. We don't create trade, but we must accommodate it. We must also protect the environment and local communities from the impacts of trade — challenges with multiple competing interests. Trade is going to grow for decades, but because there is almost no industrial land to build or expand terminals, we have proposed a new container terminal at Roberts Bank. If government does not approve that project, we may have to consider modest expansions to existing Vancouver container terminals, which is not our first choice given community impacts and the restrictions of the Lions Gate Bridge.

Considering the Canada Marine Act, manufacturing operations are not core uses of port lands, something we have been telling tenants for over a decade, so affected tenants have time to move their operations. Allowing businesses that are not primarily focused on international trade to occupy waterfront terminal land would be an abdication of our federal mandate.

Robin Silvester, president and CEO, Vancouver Fraser Port Authority