Evidence of meeting #30 for International Trade in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was containers.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Chief Marketing Officer, Canadian National Railway Company
They haven't really got up to Canada as much. There's a little bit being done in Canada. The issue is they have a problem with winter right now, so they're testing in the southern United States to make sure the technology works, and then they're gradually going to move north.
Liberal
Chandra Arya Liberal Nepean, ON
The trailers are being tested in Ottawa. We have 16-kilometre roadways where these automotive technologies are being tested, especially because of the weather. That is the reason many companies, mostly passenger cars... A lot of the software for autonomous driving across the world is being developed in Ottawa.
It has—
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
Point of order, Madam Chair.
The interpreter cannot do her job because our colleague is talking too far from his microphone.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
Mr. Arya, when you are speaking, please speak closer to the microphone. The translators are having difficulty interpreting it.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
Your time is up.
It's imperative that the translators hear clearly and translate everything clearly.
Monsieur Savard-Tremblay, go ahead for two and a half minutes, please.
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
I have a very simple question: which sectors are affected by this crisis?
We've heard a lot about the grain sector, and I read somewhere that the lumber producers are starting to get worried too. Besides the grain sector, what other sectors are most at risk? Are there other sectors that we don't necessarily suspect are affected by this crisis?
Chief Marketing Officer, Canadian National Railway Company
Is that with respect to containers or overall?
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
My question is related to the current crisis and the port congestion.
Are there other sectors that may be affected by this crisis?
Chief Marketing Officer, Canadian National Railway Company
Really, it's anything around the container supply chain. What gets put in a container? It's a little bit of softwood lumber. It's not as much as it used to be. It's a lot smaller. Quite a bit of pulp still goes in; that's a large export through containers. Grains, by far, are the largest export, dramatically higher than everything else.
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
You are talking about pulp and paper. If containers are no longer the main mode of transport that wood producers use, where do their concerns come from?
Chief Marketing Officer, Canadian National Railway Company
They do some, but a lot of it is by truck. They're not having such a large problem getting the containers. In Quebec in particular, almost all of that moves by truck to and from the plant to the port of Montreal and goes for export. The rest of it will either move by truck or by rail, usually going into the U.S. market, which they have tried to focus on.
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
Thank you, Mr. MacDonald.
My last question is for everyone.
At our last committee meeting, a week and a half ago, we had a witness who talked about the need to have a strategy to enhance and increase the use of ports, particularly for the port of Montreal.
Do you share this opinion?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Association of Canadian Port Authorities
What do you mean by “enhance”?
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
I am talking about a revitalization of the use of ports, which is perhaps not yet at its optimal level.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Association of Canadian Port Authorities
I'm going to answer in English.
I'm not sure I can speak properly to the question, but we have a tremendous network of ports in this country. There is unused capacity in certain parts of the country, and certainly we think there are opportunities to make better use of some of the assets that are maybe underutilized. In general, our ports are working well in their important role of supporting and facilitating trade.
We're really looking at what we need over the next 10, 15, and 20 years to ensure Canada continues to have the capacity it needs while making many other investments that need to be made in terms of fuels of the future, adapting to climate change and having hardened and resilient infrastructure. Really, we're very focused on ensuring that our port system can continue to serve the needs of Canada and our economy for the decades to come.
We think there is a tremendous opportunity now with the focus on supply chains and the work of the supply chain task force in pivoting to where we go next, so that's why I'm excited to be here.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
Thank you very much.
Mr. Masse, go ahead for two and a half minutes, please.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
To Mr. Dekovic, has there been much innovation in the containers themselves?
Aside from people trying to use them for housing, I haven't seen much, and I don't know if that's true or not. I'm just curious whether there has actually been some innovation to lighten them or make them more efficient. I'm curious about that aspect of it, because the only time we really see them is when they're passing by on the roadways or in a movie or something like that, and we just envision them as Lego blocks.
I'll start with you, and then if anybody else has any comments, I'm wondering whether there is some work happening there, or whether it's worthwhile.
Vice-President, Public Affairs, GCT Global Container Terminals Inc.
Sure.
Again, we're not the experts in containers themselves. Our job is to move them and to make sure that they spend the least amount of time possible in our terminals.
I can speak anecdotally from what we've seen: yes, we've seen certain shipping lines invest in lighter containers and use different materials, particularly in the interior and the insulation of the containers. Ultimately, the container is intended to be a standardized unit, so everybody tries for that. The whole focus of the industry is to keep them standardized, to have as much standardization as possible across the entire industry. We know there have been some moves by certain ocean carriers to RFID all their containers and use technology to track them better, etc., so all those innovations are happening.
I want to use this opportunity to comment on the industry overall. We hear a lot of comments about digitalization. I think there is maybe a misconception around terminals and the industry, which is that people are still walking around with a pen and paper to track containers, but we have a very sophisticated digital infrastructure at all of our terminals. We have a digital twin of our GCT Deltaport intermodal rail yard. It's the most technologically advanced on-dock intermodal rail yard in the world. It's a semi-automated on-dock intermodal rail yard. All those things exist already in Canada. They are being done and they are being invested in by private sector dollars. I think it's important to keep that in mind.
Chief Marketing Officer, Canadian National Railway Company
On the container side, you'll see a lot of innovation on the refrigerated containers. A lot of them are now GPS-enabled. They'll tell you where they are; they'll tell you how much fuel they have left in them and when it's going to run out and when you have to refill them. They've spent a lot of money on that side of the market, and it works very well.
Liberal
Conservative
Colin Carrie Conservative Oshawa, ON
Thank you, Madame Chair.
Mr. MacDonald, I was trying to get some information about capacity and whether we could do things a little bit differently, take things off rail that didn't have to be on rail. The question was about the oil and gas sector, because I've heard from my friends out west that a significant amount of oil and gas is on rail. I asked about the supply chain task force and if this is something we could look at. Do you have any idea, if we were able to get some of that oil and gas into safe transportation through pipelines, of how much capacity we could free up?