My prepared remarks referenced 350 billion dollars' worth of trade. Those are numbers that are difficult to digest in some cases, but fully 50% of the containers in and out of this country come through this one port. Seventy per cent of what we do, through the Port of Vancouver, is the bulk commodities that I mentioned: potash, agricultural products, coal, sulphur and others. This all generates about 110,000 jobs across the country, 50,000 of which are within the region around the Lower Mainland, providing employment at port facilities. There are also transportation, transloading and other activities that support ports.
Canada has a disproportionate dependence on a very few ports on the west coast—that is, the ports represented here today. It's why we are very passionate about the importance of making timely investments in the supply chain to allow us to continue to play that important role and restore what I believe is confidence in the Canadian supply chain in terms of being able to get our stuff to you, whoever you are, in whatever part of the world you're interested in shipping it to.
