International Trade committee  That's absolutely the sort of thing we are working with the port authorities on and encouraging them to do within the port ecosystems. Very rapidly, the last major disruption at the port of Vancouver was in 1969.

International Trade committee  In terms of ongoing impacts, I was speaking of the reputation. I think the issue from the vantage point of Canada's trading and business partners has been on all disruptions to our supply chains, not just labour disruptions. The reality is that we've had blockades, the atmospher

International Trade committee  Sure. There are reputational impacts.

International Trade committee  If I may, there are a couple of elements to that. One is, as my colleagues have previously noted, that these supply chains are not necessarily very agile. It does take lead time to adjust. The other factor was that there was reported to be tremendous solidarity with unions up

International Trade committee  I did know that. I don't remember it offhand. Businesses begin to make adjustments when they anticipate that there could be uncertainty. They don't necessarily wait for the disruption, so there have been impacts as people seek to mitigate risks when they anticipate there is a vu

International Trade committee  People would like more predictability, more stability and more certainty. There is concern from businesses in Canada that this affects their reliability reputation abroad. There is concern from trading partners that are perhaps less familiar with the Canadian labour context.

International Trade committee  I'll turn to my colleague. One thing I want to observe as well is that the strike was not a Port of Vancouver strike. In fact, it was the west coast, owing to the structure. I'll turn to my colleague on that. There are slightly different structures in different ports in terms

International Trade committee  In terms of that comparative analysis, that would be best directed towards colleagues from the labour program. I'm not familiar with that. Just as a practical matter, if 7,200 longshoremen were on strike, there would be limited management capacity to replace them.

International Trade committee  My colleagues may say more, but I'd simply say that we are trying to and are engaged regularly with the port authorities at multiple levels. There is a lot of innovation, including digital initiatives, going on at the various Canadian port authorities. They have different capacit

International Trade committee  I apologize. I'm not familiar with that. I'd have to return—

International Trade committee  I'm not aware of that group.

International Trade committee  From what I understand, each port has its own way of doing things. It's really the local ecosystem. They're often referred to as “port community systems”. The Port of Montreal has worked with its stakeholder community that works in the port. Vancouver has done the same. I'm fami

International Trade committee  Thank you very much. Good morning. I am pleased to appear before the committee on behalf of Transport Canada. I would like to begin by acknowledging that I am speaking with you today from the traditional unceded Anishinabe Algonquin territory. With me from the department are C