Ep. 247: Is the Port of Vancouver overstepping its bounds?
Guest: Doron Grosman, Global Container Terminals
The Port of Vancouver is a busy mix of traffic on the water – cruise ships, grain ships, automobile transport ships and container ships to name but a few of the 12,000 ships that call in to port every year.
Vancouver is one of the most complex ports in the world. The reasons are many: the port is federally controlled, it’s within the province of British Columbia and there are 16 different cities or municipalities and several Coast Salish First Nations lands that are home to shipping facilities.
There are so many elements within the Greater Vancouver region that intersect with the cities that play host to the Port; it’s hard to know where city boundaries end and the Port’s jurisdiction begins. There is a vast array of roads and rail lines that are all on Port land and while you may have some access to certain stretches of the shoreline, it’s up to the Port to decide if you can get close to the water.
The Port owns the land, it controls its use and it is responsible for many of the transportation decisions throughout the region. The expansion of the Port Mann Bridge and highway, as you will recall, was to enhance the “Gateway” image.
It has worked. Port Metro Vancouver is a success. It is Canada’s largest port and it handles an enormous amount of cargo. In fact it is the most diversified port in North America. In 2018, more than 146 million tonnes of product worth more that $200 billion passed through the port.
In total, there are 27 major marine cargo terminals that are served by three Class 1 railroads and related services. And let’s not forget the Canada Place cruise terminal, which is homeport to the Vancouver–Alaska cruise industry.
The economic impact of the Port is substantial. More than 115,000 people are directly or indirectly reliant on the Port for their paycheck which totals more than $7 billion annually in wages.
The port authority manages over 16,000 hectares of water, more than 1,000 hectares of land and close to 350 kilometres of shoreline.
Not wanting to sound like an advertisement for Port Metro, but I encourage you to go to its website where it lists its responsibilities, which include but are not limited to safety and security, permitting, environmental reviews planning, transportation operations, infrastructure development, customer service, communication, collaboration and real estate management.
The latter of which brings me to our Conversation today.
The Port of Vancouver is so big and it works with enormous companies and it’s all just over there beyond your view – until today, when our guest, the President and CEO of Global Container Terminals, said you as a taxpayer deserve to know how the administrators of the Port do business.
He claims they are about to make a land use and terminal decision that is a conflict of interest. Doron Grossman says the port wants to bump his company off the bidding list to expand Deltaport to double its current capacity by 2030.
We invited Doron Grosman to join us for a Conversation That Matters about where to draw the line when an authority with too much power determines it can do as it pleases.
