Evidence of meeting #110 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was capacity.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
First of all, I want to speak to you, Mr. Singh. I'm glad you're here. I think we needed to hear what you had to say. I especially invite you to come back for what we're calling an “open mike” session tonight, from 5:30 to 6:30. You'll have an opportunity to delve into that issue.
As you may know, there's a governance review of the port under way.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Well, it's a port modernization review, but governance is clearly a piece of that. This will be an opportunity. We'll do what we need to do to get you hooked into that process.
Spokesperson, United Trucking Association
Of course, we are ready for anything for the betterment of these 1,100 guys.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Given that trucks account for 70% of the movement of goods in Metro Vancouver, it's obviously a key piece of the whole chain. Is it true that 70% of those trucks are mainly for local purposes?
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
I want to talk to the terminal operators about network efficiency.
There are a lot of moving parts. Marko, we've already talked a lot about railroads, and we'll continue to, but there is the road network, and then there's the movement of ships. Every time one piece doesn't work and doesn't mesh properly, it leads to delays and additional costs in the others.
Can you and perhaps Mr. Eshleman comment on the state of the network? How are things performing? Where are we basically wasting time and resources in each part of the network?
Chair, BC Marine Terminal Operators Association
That's a fairly large subject, so I'll probably keep my comments somewhat brief and to specific areas.
On the rail side, there are some rail efficiencies that need to be driven into the system with respect to the movement of cargo. A lot of that has to do right now with crewing sizes, boxcar availability, and some of those things.
Some of the products coming to our terminal will be coming by truck from Prince George or Celgar or different areas in Alberta, rather than by rail. That is very inefficient movement of, principally, pulp products or forestry products, which normally come by rail but are coming by truck now because of boxcar capacity or crew capacity issues. That's just one example.
At the local level, road congestion obviously is a factor that affects Mr. Singh's drivers also. How to open up cargo movement corridors is probably something that could be looked at.
Those are just two examples on the efficiency side.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
What about the water side? There are comments, particularly from residents of the Gulf Islands, about the moorage, about ships typically parked there waiting for their moment in the port.
Chair, BC Marine Terminal Operators Association
On the ship side, they're typically either waiting for cargo to arrive at the port or waiting to unload cargo at the port, one or the other. Either the cargo hasn't arrived yet at the terminals for them to come in and berth to load the cargo; or on some of the unloading, there might not be some capacity in the terminal to unload the cargo. Typically most of those vessels are waiting for cargo to arrive at the terminal or to be unloaded.
Vice-President, Public Affairs, Global Container Terminals
One of the things in motion that we should encourage to continue and commend Transport Canada for starting is a transparency or port visibility project. I believe that is the official title. They have just completed the pilot project around bulk movement of cargo, and I believe containers are next. It's a tremendous effort of putting all their supply chain partners together and actually using technology to really monitor and answer the million-dollar question you pose. It's absolutely the right question we should be asking. We haven't had that information, and now the process has started to actually have factual information—that is, what is the weakest link in the supply chain?
It started with bulk, and I think it's moving into other commodities.
NDP
Robert Aubin NDP Trois-Rivières, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I would like to welcome each of you.
Mr. Eshleman, I will begin with you because, in your preliminary statements, you gave us the four-part recipe for success. In fact, I was able to note four.
The first consists of more investment. We will skip over that quickly, as it is easy enough to understand. The second is reducing bottlenecks. You already explained in part in answering a question from Mr. Hardie.
For the third part, you emphasized — I do not know what word to use — the cumbersome nature of the regulatory environment or the difficulties that it presents. Could you elaborate on that?
Chair, BC Marine Terminal Operators Association
When companies are looking to invest, they can invest in various places within the world. Even if you take the grain example, the companies that were in partnership with our world players in the agricultural world can invest in Australia, in Brazil, in Ukraine, or somewhere in the U.S. They chose to invest in Canada because of the growth they saw.
However, if that gets delayed at any point, let's say for a year or a year and a half, with respect to regulatory reviews, that money they have available to invest could get reallocated to other areas of the world and not be available for that investment. That's the concern. The companies make decisions about where they're going to invest their money, but if different opportunities come up because of delays, because delays cost companies money, that money can be reallocated to other areas of the world.
NDP
Robert Aubin NDP Trois-Rivières, QC
Thank you.
The fourth part of your recipe is one of a more competitive workforce. I would also like to hear from you on that.
Are we talking about a lack of workers, given the labour shortage that we are seeing across Canada? Are we really talking about a lack of worker productivity? What solutions do you foresee to increase competitiveness, if that is the problem?
Chair, BC Marine Terminal Operators Association
That is another very big subject that also gets into labour and the unionization world. In our environment on the waterfront, we negotiate collective agreements with the longshore workforce, the ILWU. That environment means that we negotiate and agree on work practices on a whole number of things.
In heading down the road with technological change, innovation, and some of the things that are happening around the world, different jurisdictions are able to implement technological change and innovation and change in work practices in probably a more timely manner than our current labour environment can. That causes a lack of competitiveness in our ports, as opposed to other ports around the world.
NDP
Robert Aubin NDP Trois-Rivières, QC
What I am looking for is the solution. When a collective agreement is signed, a bipartisan agreement, that is binding for both the employer and the employee.
What is the solution? Would you prefer shorter collective agreements that allow for faster or ongoing bargaining?
Chair, BC Marine Terminal Operators Association
Again, that is another interesting question.
In the collective bargaining process, you have two parties that are working at it, and the two parties need to come to agreement to effectively deal with either labour practice changes or wages and benefits.
Typically what's happened is that the process is a long and lengthy one that comes to the point that the federal government ends up intervening with mediation in trying to bring the parties together, because there's no clear avenue for us to get to an agreement under the current process. It's a situation in which the parties don't have to agree, so to get labour changes and technology changes and practices through a labour environment without an ability to do that is difficult on the employer's side.
Also, if there is a strike or walkout or an unfortunate situation like that, it shuts down Canada's trade, so Canada comes to the table to put everybody back to work with an agreement. There's not an effective mechanism within that type of model.
Liberal
Angelo Iacono Liberal Alfred-Pellan, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
This time, I am ready.
I will try to share some of my time with my colleague, Mr. Hardie, who would also like to ask questions.
Briefly, this is my question. It is for the Port Alberni Port Authority.
In the document you sent to the Committee, on page 4, you mention the current logistics, which I find very interesting. I see that 90% of empty containers return to Vancouver after being transported by train to Calgary.
Can you further explain this aspect of logistics? Why are the cars empty?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Port Alberni Port Authority
The way the volumes or the container traffic moves through the port of Vancouver, or at least to my knowledge.... Let's use the example of 10 containers coming in.
The port of Vancouver has a fairly balanced trade, in and out. They move about 3 million TEUs annually. Ten containers come in, and approximately seven of those depart by rail to Toronto, Montreal, the eastern provinces, Calgary, or Edmonton, and three stay locally. The three that stay locally essentially go to the warehouses and distribution centres in the Lower Mainland, get emptied, and then are loaded back.
Out of those seven that go to eastern Canada, four of them come back empty. They are to be loaded back onto the ship, because ships do need to have a balance. Four of them come back empty and three are loaded. Three essentially come back loaded to the terminal. The four of them that come back empty may stop at Ashcroft, which has a good potential, but the volume Ashcroft can produce is fairly small, so the majority come back to the Lower Mainland empty—I'd say three of those. Then they get trucked out from the container terminal into the community to pick up a cargo, because what the shippers want to do is ship cargo from Port Alberni that comes on a flatbed truck to a warehouse in Surrey. They want to put lumber in that container and ship it back to Asia, because they need those containers back in Asia to be loaded with TVs and goods that we need here for North America, in order to keep a balanced trade.
We don't have a trade balance with Asia; essentially we import more, so now we find a cargo convenient to ship back. Nanaimo's CEO mentioned this morning that it costs more to ship from Vancouver Island to the Lower Mainland than from Vancouver to Asia. It is actually cheaper to ship from Vancouver to Asia than from Nanaimo to the Lower Mainland. It's $900 for a 40-foot container to be shipped from Vancouver Island, and it's $600 for that same container of lumber for ocean freight going back.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
I'd like to expand on that a little bit, the reason for this rather odd difference. Why is it more expensive to get a container from Nanaimo to Vancouver than from Vancouver to Asia?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Port Alberni Port Authority
I guess our friends at the ferry association have a role to play in it as well.
It costs some money for a trucker, it costs some money for the ferry, and it costs some money to be trucked in the Lower Mainland, warehoused, and so on and so forth. Meanwhile, shippers need that container back in Asia in order to load that container with goods for here. Essentially, they'll put anything in it—scrap metal, lumber, whatever we produce. Instead of shipping it empty, they'd rather put any cargo in it.
Liberal
