Good evening.
Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for the opportunity to appear today.
I’m Daniel‑Robert Gooch, president and CEO of the Association of Canadian Port Authorities, representing Canada's 17 federally regulated port authorities under Transport Canada.
Most of Canada's non-U.S. trade moves by sea. Our ports connect Canadian businesses to global markets and keep our supply chains resilient. In 2025, Canada's CPA ports handled 376 million tonnes of containerized and bulk cargo, valued at approximately $777 billion. Last year, on average, about $2.1 billion of cargo passed through Canada's port authorities each day.
As Canada looks to diversify trade, the majority of its exports will need to leave the country by sea, meaning Canadian ports will play a crucial role in helping the government achieve its diversification goals.
Canada's port authorities support the goal of Bill C-39 to modernize financial tools and provide CPAs with expanded flexibility to advance Canada's trade goals through efficient gateways that perform and produce prosperity for Canadians. We particularly welcome joint liability arrangements and special purpose entities, which will let ports partner and invest, including in inland terminals. We also welcome ministerial board appointments, which should make appointments faster and, hopefully, more predictable than the current GIC process that's in place today.
However, as with any modernization, the details will matter. How much Bill C-39 helps CPAs will depend on further work to clarify its scope, definitions and regulations. Getting these details right will be essential in setting CPAs up for success without imposing additional administrative burdens. Ports across Canada operate in very different regional contexts, and the proposed changes will affect each port differently, depending on its location, cargo mix and scale of operations.
There are four key areas.
The first is dispute resolution. The changes to dispute resolution are one of our members' most significant concerns. Since the Canada Marine Act came into place in the late 1990s, ports have operated as commercial entities, setting fees that reflect their operational and capital needs, without taxpayer funding. That's the goal. Bill C-39 expands the grounds for complaints to the Canadian Transportation Agency. Our biggest concern around this is nuisance complaints. Going to the agency is costly, even when a case never reaches a hearing. A weak complaint can still add legal costs and delay decisions on projects. For example, only parties that are actually affected by a fee increase should have standing.
The second is the national trade corridors council. The creation of this council in an advisory role could facilitate better decision-making and supply chain management. Our concern lies with the need to consult with the council on port business and land use plans. Under the proposed changes, CPAs will be mandated to consult on these key components of their business with a new organization whose mandate and membership are still unknown. Additionally, the bill does not provide insight into what ports are expected to do with the input they receive as part of this consultation process. CPAs are locally responsive businesses operating at arm's length of the government. Because of this, we ask that the council's mandate and authority and the meaning of consultation be clearly defined.
The third is financial flexibility. While Bill C-39 adds guardrails for borrowing, such as borrowing plans and regular reviews, it's important to note that the amendments in this bill on their own will not improve flexibility in borrowing. We have been working with Transport Canada toward a more flexible approach on borrowing, such as a formula embedded in letters patent instead of a hard number, but this will ultimately come down to a policy decision by the federal government that is still to be made. A more flexible borrowing framework is essential for CPAs to fully realize the benefits of many of the improvements envisioned in Bill C-39. Transport Canada's pending policy decision on using a formula-based approach to borrowing limits is, therefore, a crucial outstanding priority.
The fourth is board appointments and governance. We support the amendments to allow for ministerial appointments instead of GICs. Under Minister MacKinnon, appointments have moved more quickly, and we thank him for that, but legislation outlasts any one minister. The House transport committee addressed this with Bill C-33 a few years ago by adding language that would have given the federal government a deadline of 12 months to make its appointments. We'd like to see this language come back, as it would help ensure that board appointments stay on track well into the future under future ministers and future governments.
To close, Bill C-39 is a positive, important and needed step forward. Our goal is to ensure that the government gets the details right during implementation, guided by three principles. These are flexibility rather than one size fits all, avoiding administrative burdens that undermine commercial decision-making, and building on the good governance practices ports already have.
We look forward to continuing to work with the committee and the Government of Canada on the bill, its regulations and its implementation moving forward.
Thank you. I'm happy to answer your questions.
