1. “Capacity throughout our trade corridors is paramount to meet future demands, and pressure will continue to mount to provide transportation solutions not only on the dock but throughout entire gateways. Ports and all transportation stakeholders will need to respond rapidly or risk compromising the competitiveness of the industries they serve.  Increasingly, all levels of government will need to seize and optimize the potential opportunities today for the rewards from expanding transportation services … In Canada, we are hopeful that all levels of government will view our transportation corridors as extensions of our trade corridors to support new initiatives to capture new trade and opportunities and foster enhanced service to port customers.”

— Capt. Gordon Houston, President and chief executive, Vancouver Port Authority

 

“We have to work together with railways, trucking companies, distribution centers and other facets of the Canadian logistics chain to ensure that we can move these goods quickly and efficiently throughout the country.  There’s no sense in building more port capacity if we don’t have sufficient support infrastructure and carrying capacity on our intermodal system.”

— Capt. Gordon Houston, President and chief executive, Vancouver Port Authority

 

2. Five different projects at the Vancouver port, with an estimated cost of $ 1.5 billion, are being funded jointly by the Port Authority, the terminal operators and their government partners. The Federal and British Columbia governments have also pledged some $ 60 million toward the Prince Rupert project.

 

So far, so good … right?  Well, let’s see.

 

“Infrastructure”, (that ubiquitous catch-all), is defined by newer dictionaries as, “basic installations and facilities, as sewers, roads, power plants, transportation and communication systems of a community or nation, etc., etc.”

 

“Truck drivers” are defined by Mr. Bill Graves, President of the American Trucking Association, as the “vital link that keeps our national economy moving”.  The trucking industry, therefore, is not just any old link in the logistic supply chain “infrastructure”, it’s considered to be the vital link.

 

Wouldn’t it be logical to expect, then, that some of the millions being pledged by the Canadian governments, the port authority and terminal operators to port projects could be directed to this vital link?  As Capt. Houston even stated above, “There’s no sense in building more port capacity if we don’t have sufficient support infrastructure and carrying capacity on our intermodal system”.

 

The Vancouver Container Truckers’ Association has been asking for nothing more than a living wage for its members, but Vancouver port authorities have stated that the port “is not a party to this dispute”.  That certainly is an exaggeration.  Canada’s largest port, trading more than $ 43 billion in goods annually and generating about 70,000 jobs, is unquestionably a party to the dispute and could quickly resolve the matter with some of the “pledged” financing.  It would amount to peanuts.