That's right, and we heard on numerous occasions that the anchorages are currently full because of issues at the port. We heard about loading grain in the rain, for instance. It can rain in this region that is my home for days and days, or weeks at a time, which would mean that a grain vessel, for instance, could not load because of a lack of infrastructure at the port.
In many cases, they use these anchorages only when.... This has been used recently only when other anchorages are occupied. Now what the alternative will be is to tell these vessels that are.... Perhaps sometimes they just want to sit there for weeks at a time, as has been alluded to, or perhaps there are other operational issues that have caused them to be at anchor. The alternative to anchor is not returning home empty or going to a different anchorage, because they're in the southern Gulf Islands only if the other anchorages are full. The alternative is cutting them loose and having them circle around in the ocean, burning much more fuel, creating much more greenhouse gas emissions and being much less safe for marine traffic safety.
I understand the political reasons for this happening, but in terms of port governance, in terms of the supply chain.... We were told when this bill was introduced that this was all about improving efficiencies to the supply chain. This will actually make it worse. If you want to get rid of the anchorages in the southern Gulf Islands, you had better be creating them somewhere else, and that has not even started. We've heard that there's no appetite for that either, but that we would need to dramatically increase our anchorages as we dramatically increase the size of the port of Vancouver. We have a whole new terminal coming on. RBT2 is coming on. It's been approved by this government. They have approved it, which will result, when it's done, in a massive increase in vessel traffic. That's what they want.
To suddenly say that we are going to kick out these vessels and let them circle around until they can get back in to get loaded or get on their way might be good politics, but it's not good for the economy, for the operation of the port or for the supply chain.