by CanadianSailings | Sep 11, 2019 | Government and Regulation, Ocean, Other
Vancouver Fraser Port Authority announced that it has received a commitment for over $100 million of funding from the federal government’s National Trade Corridors Fund to support infrastructure projects.
“As a Canada Port Authority, our job is to make sure the port is ready to handle Canada’s growth in trade, but we are also undertaking a number of projects beyond the port to improve the flow of goods and seek to alleviate the impacts of growing trade on local communities,” said Robin Silvester, Vancouver Fraser Port Authority’s President and CEO. “With this federal funding, we are able to take on five new projects that will enable us to continue this critical work.” The five funded projects include three infrastructure projects in Richmond and Surrey to reduce interactions between the community and road and rail activities by building overpasses and making other improvements in operations. Additional funding will support two studies that will look at how to move goods more efficiently throughout the Lower Mainland.
The funded projects were identified in the Greater Vancouver Gateway 2030 Strategy, a strategic plan developed by the Gateway Transportation Collaboration Forum. The forum is an ongoing collaborative effort to ensure the Greater Vancouver gateway is ready to manage growing trade, and its membership includes Transport Canada, the B.C. Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure, the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority, TransLink and the Greater Vancouver Gateway Council.
by CanadianSailings | Sep 11, 2019 | Brian Dunn, Corporate events & profiles, Ocean, Other, Ports and Terminals, St. Lawrence, Seaway and Great Lakes
By Brian Dunn
As Laura Dawson, Director of the Wilson Centre’s Canada Institute, Washington, DC, sees it, a combination of U.S. unilateralism, a softening demand for Chinese exports and imports and the Brexit fiasco, has resulted in global instability. To make matters worse, President Donald Trump will probably get re-elected in 2020 as there’s no viable alternative.
“We feel Canadian trade representatives are doing a very good job (in the U.S.) and it’s a relationship to be managed, not cured. Our organization is non-partisan and we work with Canadian businesses to make sure Canada is not part of any collateral damage,” she said during the 18th annual conference of the Shipping Federation of Canada in Montreal on May 22. (more…)
by CanadianSailings | Sep 11, 2019 | Business and Economy, Ocean, Other
By Wendy Zatylny
In her insightful book on global shipping, Ninety Percent of Everything, author Rose George talks about “sea blindness” – that for most of us, the sea has become “a distance to be flown over, a downward backdrop between takeoff and landing”.
But, in recent years I have seen signs that this is changing. As our ports evolve and grow, they are also reaching out to work with partners and neighbours in meaningful ways, to draw everyone into the conversation about how the transformation that our ports are experiencing is transforming Canada as well. (more…)
by CanadianSailings | Jun 10, 2019 | Corporate events & profiles, Joseph Spears, Ocean, Other
By Joe Spears and Monica Ahlroos
The Finns know a thing or two about icebreakers, having constructed Arctic-capable icebreakers for well over 150 years even for the Russians, and it is not every day that they award medals for ice navigation to Canadians. In April 2018 at the Canadian Embassy in Finland, David (“Duke”) Snider, FNI, MM, President of Martech Polar Consulting Ltd. based in Victoria, British Columbia received the Canada-Finland medal metal recognizing his outstanding contributions for fostering good relations via arctic operations and navigation. Martech Polar was recognized by International Transport News Maritime & Shipping Awards 2018 as “Best Global Ice Pilotage and Navigation Specialists” and by CV Magazine’s Canadian Business Awards 2019 as “Best Polar Ice Navigation and Pilotage Specialists” (more…)
by CanadianSailings | Jun 10, 2019 | Ocean, Ocean Carriers, Other, Supply Chain and Logistics
By Guy M. Tombs
“An old military adage has it that amateurs concern themselves with tactics, but professionals worry about logistics.” So says Richard Fidler in his excellent book Ghost Empire. Reading this recently cheered me, as I am in logistics. But I quickly had the less comfortable thought that clever tactics frequently overwhelm elaborately thought-out logistics. The game we are all in of course demands of us both knowledge and wit. (more…)
by CanadianSailings | Jun 10, 2019 | Bruce Striegler, Business and Economy, Gateways and Corridors, Ocean, Ocean Carriers, Other, Ports and Terminals
By R. Bruce Striegler
Volumes of containers handled at the port of Vancouver’s terminals have grown substantially through past decades, increasing at an average rate of ten percent annually since 1995. Projections of growth up to the year 2040 are now predicted at about 8.0 million TEUs (or 20-foot-equivalent units), and to give some perspective, in 2018 Vancouver handled 3.4 million TEU’s. The port is deeply engaged in capacity expansion, either directly or in cooperation with private terminal operators, and it points to projects already approved or somewhere in the approval pipeline, designed to reduce the potential capacity jams. Capacity improvements are at the heart of an unpleasant row which has developed between the Port Authority and one of its larger tenants, GCT Terminals Canada. (more…)
