Mr. Speaker, I stand to recognize a jewel in the crown of western Canada, situated in part in my riding: the port of Vancouver.
Vancouver stands as the gateway to the Asia-Pacific. The port of Vancouver is the guardian of that gateway, serving the western regions as a point of entry and departure of all goods to the Pacific.
The port of Vancouver is the largest port on the west coast of North America. Its annual throughput is approximately 70 million tonnes.
As a fully self-supporting crown corporation the port serves all of B.C. and western Canada. It supports 9,000 jobs in the lower mainland as well as another 62,000 employees from the rest of Canada who produce, transport and process the goods that move through the port. The port's cargoes exceed $38 billion annually.
As the sleeping tiger of Asia awakens, the port of Vancouver has the unique opportunity to become the hub of trade for the northwest. The U.S. ports of Oregon and Seattle vie for the prize. Perhaps all western Canadian provinces should claim ownership and mould it to become the Pacific jewel that it can be.