Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My name is David Miller. I'm senior adviser to the executive at the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority. I'm joined from Vancouver by my colleague Greg Rogge, director of land operations.
It's our pleasure to be here today to provide the port authority's perspective to your review of issues facing Canada's supply chains.
As a Canada port authority, we're federally mandated to enable trade through the Port of Vancouver while protecting the environment and considering local communities.
The Port of Vancouver is Canada's largest and most diversified port. We're about equal in size to the next five largest ports combined. The port handles the most diversified mix of cargo of all North American ports.
In 2021, despite the ongoing pandemic and global supply chain challenges as well as the extreme weather events in B.C., cargo volumes through the port increased by one per cent over the previous year. Also, 2021 saw record container volume for the fifth consecutive year, and despite the severe drought on the Prairies, record volumes in the first half of the year meant we still had the second-highest volume of grain exports in history.
While we continue to deal with challenges and unpredictability across the supply chain, the port is operating efficiently, and we've been able to weather the storm better than many ports around the world. We were also very pleased that in April we were able to welcome cruise ships back to the port after a two-year absence.
Our port has been a major beneficiary of the national trade corridors fund and its predecessor programs. By working together with our customers, the terminal operators, railways, trucking companies, municipalities and indigenous groups, we've been able to set priorities and access significant funding to address bottlenecks, thereby improving the capacity, efficiency and safety of our supply chains. The government funds have unlocked billions more in private sector investment in new and existing terminals and rail and highway corridors.
The past two years have highlighted a number of supply chain vulnerabilities that require action.
First, we've seen how the acute industrial land shortage in Vancouver and the Lower Mainland is constraining Canada's core supply chains. That's been brought into focus as Canadian exporters of containerized goods have faced challenges in accessing the empty containers that they needed in order to export goods. The container issues are globally based but have been exacerbated by our region's land challenges.
A second point I would emphasize is the importance of data sharing among all the supply chain players. We're leading the data-sharing and analysis project in the gateway program and need the co-operation of all port users to ensure its success.
The most consequential vulnerability we're facing is that Canada's west coast is on track to run out of container terminal capacity as early as the mid-2020s. If that happens, as a country we're staring at a future of prolonged supply chain congestion. It also means a loss of trade sovereignty, with greater reliance on U.S. ports for Canada's market access. Effectively, we'll see a repeat of the supply chain challenges Canadians are experiencing today due to global factors, except those challenges will return as a made-in-Canada problem.
There are currently four container terminals at the Port of Vancouver: two in the inner harbour, one in the Fraser River and one at Roberts Bank. Roberts Bank is of particular importance. With container ships continuing to grow in size, the largest ships cannot pass under the Lions Gate Bridge to reach the inner harbour and are able to access only Roberts Bank Terminal.
For more than 10 years, the Port of Vancouver has been focused on the solution to this capacity challenge, with strong support from our indigenous partners. The port authority is leading the Roberts Bank Terminal 2 project, which we've designed under our public interest mandate, leveraging our deep experience in building sustainable infrastructure to meet Canada's needs and ensure capacity and competition for Canadian importers and exporters. This project will be built on the same basis as previous major projects at the port, including the existing terminal at Roberts Bank. The port authority will build the terminal and lease it to a terminal operator, with the lease covering the cost of construction.
In anticipation of this project, significant gateway and private sector funding has already gone into a number of road and rail projects specifically focused on building grade separations and new roads to mitigate the impact of increased traffic on the communities along the rail corridor to Roberts Bank.
This is a critical project for Canada and Canadians, and we're hopeful for a positive decision this year.
Thank you for the opportunity to appear today. We look forward to your questions.