QUESTION PERIOD — Transport
Shipping Delays
December 8, 2021
Honourable senators, this summer, the board of trade in Burnaby, British Columbia reported that its members were experiencing challenges dealing with incredible increases in container shipping costs, which are up by 400% since January. As a result of the pandemic, congestion at the Port of Vancouver has been a problem for quite some time, but the recent catastrophic flooding and landslides in B.C. have made a bad situation much worse.
Leader, the Burnaby Board of Trade asked your government to undertake several initiatives, including ones to investigate the inflation and accessibility challenges facing shipping in Canada and to work with the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority on efficiency. What will your government do to help ease congestion at the Port of Vancouver?
Thank you for raising this important question. The Port of Vancouver is a critically important port and has been badly affected by both the worldwide supply chain disruptions due to the pandemic and, of course, the catastrophic flooding that has hit your province, senator. The Government of Canada continues to work closely with its provincial counterparts and others to respond in a responsible and timely fashion to the requests that are being made of it.
As you say, the disruption to the global supply chain is a growing issue. In fact, I want to draw your attention to the recent words of a small business operator in your home city of Montreal whose lighting company has been waiting for three containers of product stuck in the Port of Vancouver. They told CTV News Vancouver that their products have already cleared Customs, but they cannot get it out of the port due to supply chain issues. This small business now has to pay storage fees of about $7,000. Sadly, this is not an isolated story. It can be repeated many times over by other small businesses right across Canada.
Leader, what will the Trudeau government do to help small businesses dealing with the impact of congestion at our ports? Why haven’t you brought forward a plan to fix this situation for everyone?
Thank you, senator. I’m aware of these challenges. They affect everyone in Canada who relies upon goods shipped through the Port of Vancouver or through other ports in Canada. Again, the government takes its responsibilities to work alongside provincial and territorial governments seriously and, where appropriate, other bodies such as port authorities, to try to improve the situation, which is regrettably, in some respects, beyond any government’s control.
