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.
11:45 a.m.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Thank you, Angelo.
On the issue of the development at Deltaport, to what degree does the potential in the plan there influence decisions that are being made in the south shore in particular?
Marko.
11:45 a.m.
Vice-President, Public Affairs, Global Container Terminals
I think we, as was mentioned, as a general concept would think of utilizing the existing operation as much as possible before we look at creating a new footprint as the approach. We know that our competitor and neighbour, DP World, is growing their terminal at Burrard Inlet. I mentioned that we have plans to incrementally increase capacity in Vanterm as well, on the south shore, in Burrard Inlet. Then, of course, we would be looking at what more we can do at the existing GCT Deltaport terminal at Roberts Bank.
They're interconnected. Ultimately what we want to do to maintain Canada's competitiveness and to maintain the port of Vancouver's competitiveness is to look at how we can build incremental capacity at the lowest building cost and where that comes from. If that means it's coming from Burrard Inlet, from Prince Rupert or from Roberts Bank, it is about how we are ensuring that we have a cost-competitive gateway and that we continue to be the preferred Pacific gateway into North America.
11:45 a.m.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
You've expanded.
Mr. Booker, you've expanded. DP has expanded.
Do you, gentlemen, have a sense cumulatively about how much additional pressure that's going to put on, first, the railroads and then, second, the regional road network?
11:45 a.m.
Vice-President, Public Affairs, Global Container Terminals
Maybe I'll start. The rail capacity in particular on the south shore is something that is of key interest to us, because, as you've heard from the previous testimonies, the south shore rail corridor is constrained. As we plan our capacity expansion, it is hard to nail down or have a very clear picture of what the ultimate capacity of that rail corridor is and what improvements need to be made in what order.
We are collaborating with the port authority and the railways to try to come up with a general agreement or sense of that capacity to ensure that we're not overbuilding capacity and then ultimately not being able to serve it.
As far as the Deltaport expansion goes, the current project we delivered is really all rail expansion, so we don't expect increased truck traffic, while the Burrard Inlet expansions from both terminals are slightly more truck-focused, so there probably will be some related truck traffic increase in the south shore as well.
11:45 a.m.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Are you doing anything with the inland port at Ashcroft?
11:45 a.m.
Vice-President, Public Affairs, Global Container Terminals
GCT in particular is not currently doing anything active with Ashcroft. We have, for a number years, had ongoing discussions and information sharing with them to look at identifying potential opportunities. That hasn't happened as of yet, and we did recently note that they've been acquired by an international terminal operator and a port. We're also looking to see if they bring something new to the market or a new offering.
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
11:50 a.m.
Senior Vice-President, Operations and Maintenance, Neptune Bulk Terminals (Canada) Ltd.
For the north shore.... You heard about the tunnel and the increased capacity from tunnel modernization, existing capacity construction that's ongoing, G3, Neptune, Fibreco on the north shore, as well as planned capacity by others. If 85% of that capacity is used, it will use 100% of the increased tunnel. Everything we're building today is planned to be used.
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
If you want to grow further, where are you going to do that?
11:50 a.m.
Senior Vice-President, Operations and Maintenance, Neptune Bulk Terminals (Canada) Ltd.
That comes with things, I think, along the lines of crewless locomotives. From a terminal link side, the engineering of bulk handling will meet the capacity needs and the footprint we have.
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Vance Badawey Liberal Niagara Centre, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
You spoke earlier about infrastructure requirements, and I heard from the last delegation as well that bridges and other areas of infrastructure need to be invested in by the federal government.
This is a question to Mr. Nober with respect to us, the federal government, investing in some of those bridges.
I know in Niagara there's a bridge that crosses over the Niagara River, and I was told when we were down there this past week that if in fact there was another bridge that was to be built, that wouldn't be dedicated only to CN and CP. It could also be dedicated to other class 1s. I thought it would be advantageous to move additional trade between Canada and the U.S.
Are you in the same situation?
11:50 a.m.
Executive Vice-President, Law and Corporate Affairs, BNSF Railway Company
Not in Niagara—
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
11:50 a.m.
Executive Vice-President, Law and Corporate Affairs, BNSF Railway Company
Obviously, we believe strongly that the public-private partnership model that the Canadian federal government has followed for development of trade corridors has been of benefit to the communities. It's been of benefit to the carriers. It's been of benefit to increasing trade.
With respect to a specific bridge or a specific project, I'd have to think about that a little bit, but in terms of the general model, though, when you provide public-private partnerships to help fund necessary infrastructure, as member Hardie was just speaking of a minute ago, to help handle community impacts, that is a model that we strongly advocate the United States follow Canada on because that has really worked to help increase trade, and we know that would ultimately have an impact.
Once our line gets south of the metro area and toward the border and into the United States, we've improved its infrastructure by notching the tunnel in Bellingham to be able to handle double-stacked containers. But as folks on the last panel and this one have said, congestion in downtown and in near-town Vancouver is a concern, particularly with added traffic. That's a place where we think the federal government could show real leadership.
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Vance Badawey Liberal Niagara Centre, ON
Thank you.
The main reason why we're down here is to solidify, establish, a more formalized trade corridor strategy. With that, that strategy would attach itself to the region obviously here in B.C., but equally, if not more importantly, to the domestic market, to the national market and to the international market. With that said, what we count on as a take-away from this session is to establish a dialogue and communication with all the partners.
My question to all three of you is this. Do you have that dialogue now happening regionally? Secondly, is it advantageous for you and is it doable for you to actually carry on that dialogue with your partners at the federal and hopefully the provincial—if they would be willing to participate—levels of government, to then, therefore, more formalize a domestic, national, as well as international trade corridor strategy?
Following that, quite frankly, what it gives us a better ability to recognize is where ultimately the trade corridor funding would go for a long-term plan, and therefore, better returns.
11:50 a.m.
Executive Vice-President, Law and Corporate Affairs, BNSF Railway Company
If you like, I can start.
We would say that, again, the more collaboration the better. The more there are formal practices, and they've been ad hoc and informal, and more formal over time here, at least from a railroad and our position, we think that's an advantage. It brings structure to the process. We would very much appreciate seeing a more formal process. We want to be a part of the collaboration.
11:55 a.m.
Vice-President, Public Affairs, Global Container Terminals
We have a history of collaboration on the west coast, be it through the Asia-Pacific corridor initiative, and then subsequent investments. Right now there is the Gateway Transportation Collaboration Forum. We think it's a good mechanism to have that dialogue.
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Vance Badawey Liberal Niagara Centre, ON
I'm going to cut you off because I can feel the chair's eyes on me right now.
Rob, you're the newbie here, so dive in.
11:55 a.m.
Senior Vice-President, Operations and Maintenance, Neptune Bulk Terminals (Canada) Ltd.
We have a 40-year lease. We have owners with 100-year deposits. We're in this for the long term. We don't have to be short-term thinkers.
11:55 a.m.
Edmonton Riverbend, CPC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I want to follow up on a comment that you made earlier, Mr. Booker, with regard to the impact of Bill C-69, and what the challenges could be. Do you mind outlining for the committee some of the challenges that you and your industry, and particularly your company, face when it comes to Bill C-69?
11:55 a.m.
Senior Vice-President, Operations and Maintenance, Neptune Bulk Terminals (Canada) Ltd.
In particular, we've watched our landlord, the port, work through that process and viewed that through the lens of our current permitting to get projects done. The permit process we have is complex. We get a permit from the port, and then we have to go and get a permit from a regional regulator on top of that. That regional regulator has tried to impact our ability on capacity, to write permits limiting capacity.
When we watch the timeline on CEAA and the to and fro, it's very difficult. I sit here in the position of somebody who has a 40-year lease and 100 years of deposits to export. I look at that challenge and go, there's no certainty. The single biggest issue inside that is the lack of certainty from a business perspective.
