Transport committee  Thank you. Good morning, Madam Chair, and members of the committee. Welcome to Vancouver. On behalf of GCT, Global Container Terminals, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today as you undertake this important study on Canadian transportation and

Transport committee  We have two terminals in the Port of New York and New Jersey. One of them is on Staten Island.

Transport committee  There probably isn't much. In fact, the learning would probably go the other way.

Transport committee  Just to give you an idea, New York and New Jersey is not a gateway port. It's a massive local market. There is a lot of trucking, yet there has been no truck reservation system in place. We had a truck reservation system in place for a while. We actually transferred that knowledg

Transport committee  They're pretty similar.

Transport committee  I'm not the expert on that, so I could get back to you, but overall it's a very different taxation model because the port authorities and everything that happens there are very much state-owned and state-run.

Transport committee  You have the rail capacity where we're looking to invest in the south shore, our GCT Vanterm terminal. Rail capacity is key to the investments the government is making in the south shore with the port and the private sector. It's key to enable that ongoing and continued investmen

Transport committee  That's a great question. We're all as strong as our weakest link in the supply chain, so yes, with larger ships, we need to be investing in land-side surge capacity. That means the terminal operators and the railways have to be making the necessary investments and we as terminal

Transport committee  Yes. Currently, at the port of Vancouver in particular, GCT Deltaport is equipped to handle the largest vessels that could call or that are in the trans-Pacific trade. We can receive vessels of up to 22,000 TEUs at Deltaport.

Transport committee  Those are very good questions. Thank you. On densification, I mentioned a rail project as an example. We have managed to increase our overall terminal capacity by 33% just by redoing the layout, semi-automation and densifying of the tracks on the terminal, and changing the way w

Transport committee  I think we, as was mentioned, as a general concept would think of utilizing the existing operation as much as possible before we look at creating a new footprint as the approach. We know that our competitor and neighbour, DP World, is growing their terminal at Burrard Inlet. I me

Transport committee  Maybe I'll start. The rail capacity in particular on the south shore is something that is of key interest to us, because, as you've heard from the previous testimonies, the south shore rail corridor is constrained. As we plan our capacity expansion, it is hard to nail down or hav

Transport committee  GCT in particular is not currently doing anything active with Ashcroft. We have, for a number years, had ongoing discussions and information sharing with them to look at identifying potential opportunities. That hasn't happened as of yet, and we did recently note that they've bee

Transport committee  We have a history of collaboration on the west coast, be it through the Asia-Pacific corridor initiative, and then subsequent investments. Right now there is the Gateway Transportation Collaboration Forum. We think it's a good mechanism to have that dialogue.

Transport committee  Bill C-69 is generally a step in the right direction, but the key will be the execution. The concept is good, but much like some other regulatory processes, while it looks good on paper, it is how it is executed and how the timeline is kept. Therefore, we are supportive of its