Transport committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. We will do our best to comment within that timeframe. Good afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to present Port Metro Vancouver's position as regards Bill C-52, the fair rail service act. As committee members may already be aware, Port Met

Transport committee  As I mentioned in my comments, Ms. Chow, bulk supply chains are very diverse throughout the country at each port that handles bulk commodities. It's inherently more difficult to standardize performance metrics within those supply chains. Having said that, you may be aware of the

Transport committee  I would observe that, generally speaking, the performance of both primary rail providers in our gateway has improved considerably. The agricultural supply chain on the west coast is undergoing significant change by virtue of changes to grain transportation and the change in the C

Transport committee  That's a question that I'm not sure the port has taken a strong view on. I think our recommendations around the first priority being commercial agreements between parties would suggest that if there are reciprocal incentives or penalties, it would be amongst those commercial part

Transport committee  I think from the port's perspective, I'd reiterate our caution that developing one template may be a challenge. So appreciating that this places an inordinate challenge before the committee, we're concerned that there could be unintended consequences in our desire to make this as

Transport committee  I would echo the comments of Prince Rupert and Halifax. We're conscious that the feedback received by government over the last number of years as a result of shipper concerns has led us to this place. Shippers are also concerned that the improvement in performance that we believ

Transport committee  I appreciate the question. By way of a bit of context, our experience and focus would be on improving first- and last-mile performance, particularly the things we can do in and around the port complex to ensure that's not a constraint to the free and efficient movement of goods.

Transport committee  In terms of Port Metro Vancouver, our structure is slightly different, although it has the same principles as were described by our friends up north. Our arrangement is that we've entered into memorandums of agreement with both railways that seek from them a commitment to enter

Transport committee  At the risk of restating our previous comments, the result of the initiation of the rail service review and then subsequently the introduction of the legislation is that over that period of time we've seen a number of things occur. Most notable is a very keen desire on the part o

Transport committee  Yes. My apologies to the committee.

Transport committee  Certainly it's a matter of fact: there were no service-level agreements or memorandums as they relate to service between the port authority and the railways prior to 2010. I'd say for that period, that was most acute in terms of shipper concern. We would also characterize our rel

Agriculture committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the honourable members giving the port the opportunity to provide comment. I'll try not to duplicate Mr. Hemmes' comments. As members may be aware, Port Metro Vancouver is Canada's largest and busiest port. We serve as a vital strate

Agriculture committee  Thank you for the question. I'll probably look to Mark to provide some additional context to this, but what I was trying to frame up is that we're at an all-time low of average in store in Vancouver. There's nothing I'm aware of that is stopping us from handling a significantly

Agriculture committee  Once again, I'll offer up a view from the port's perspective. We track vessels coming in of all varieties, and consistently with the previous system under the Wheat Board and even today, the average duration of port call for grain vessels is higher. A number of reasons for that

Agriculture committee  From a port perspective I think we're the convergence of a number of supply chains across commodities. At the centre of that, of course, is rail service and nobody is better placed to do that forward planning than the commercial partners involved in that, both rail and grain term