{"id":55431,"date":"2026-05-22T00:13:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T00:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/55431\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T00:13:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T00:13:11","slug":"canadas-port-bottlenecks-threaten-trade-ambitions-carney-warns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/55431\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada\u2019s Port Bottlenecks Threaten Trade Ambitions, Carney Warns"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIf Canada<\/a> plans to bolster its economy and reach its goal to double non-U.S. exports<\/a>, the country needs to put its foot on the gas when it comes to updating its national ports<\/a> infrastructure, warned Prime Minister Mark Carney.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe have fallen way behind in terms of the productivity of our ports<\/a> and our trade corridors as a whole,\u201d said Carney, at an event in Vancouver, Wednesday morning. \u201cThe time it takes from a good showing up just off the coast to landing in central Canada<\/a> or the U.S. is measured in weeks, not days.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tEfficiency has not been Canadian ports\u2019 strong suit. Under the World Bank\u2019s latest assessment of global port performance, released in September, the Port of Vancouver ranked 389th out of 403 in terms of the time container ships spend in a port. Canada\u2019s other major West Coast port, Prince Rupert, did not fare much better at 362nd. The Port of Montreal was ranked 344th.<\/p>\n

\n\tMore recently, Vancouver had the fourth-largest increase in import dwell time worldwide, according to data from container tracking platform Vizion. While dwell times averaged 9.6 days in the period of May 4-10, they jumped 16.3 percent to an 11.2-day average in the May 11-17 week.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe prime minister\u2019s message follows a caution from the Bank of Canada earlier this month that the country\u2019s ports have become less directly connected to global shipping networks than ports in other countries.<\/p>\n

\n\tUsing satellite data from ExactEarth, the bank found that degree centrality\u2014an indicator of the number of unique destinations directly connected to a port\u2014declined significantly across Canada\u2019s five most connected ports between 2016 and 2023.<\/p>\n

\n\tAdditionally, the central bank said the total deadweight tonnage of all vessels departing from or arriving at Canadian ports fell from 167 million metric tons in 2016 to 119 million metric tons in 2023, a decline of 28 percent of maritime trade capacity.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe bank observed that Canadian ports have not adapted to the prevalence of ultra-large container vessels built in recent years, giving them a disadvantage compared to American ports.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThat\u2019s partly port capacity; it\u2019s partly\u2026rail interconnections. It is a variety of factors that are there, and we\u2019re looking to tackle all of those in a comprehensive way,\u201d Carney said, addressing the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade.<\/p>\n

\n\tAmid the concerns, stakeholders throughout the country have been making port investments. In January, Canada\u2019s Port St. John completed a four-year $178 million modernization project that expanded container terminal capacity from 150,000 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) to 800,000 TEUs annually. That expansion included a new 1,131-foot berth allowing the port to handle vessels of 10,000 TEUs or larger.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn March, the Canadian government set aside $5 billion Canadian dollars ($3.6 billion) in financing that port authorities and others, can access to expand trade corridors.<\/p>\n

\n\tAmong the first major infrastructure initiatives the Carney administration backed was a $2.3 billion-Canadian-dollar ($1.7 billion) expansion at the Port of Montreal<\/a>, which, when completed, would increase container handling capacity there by 60 percent.<\/p>\n

\n\tLast September, the Montreal Port Authority (MPA) and global port terminal operator DP World entered an agreement to expand port facilities at the Contrecoeur Terminal. But that project will take some time, with land-based construction expected to begin in 2027. The terminal is expected to be completed and commissioned by 2030.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn the other side of the country, the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority is also pursuing a project to expand capacity at the Port of Vancouver by 30 percent. The authority, which handles roughly $350 billion ($253 billion) of Canadian trade annually, is awaiting permit authorization from Canada\u2019s fisheries and oceans department.<\/p>\n

\n\tAccording to Carney, the Port of Vancouver will run out of capacity within the next decade.<\/p>\n

\n\tCanada is seeking to address its port capacity and efficiency issues as the country aims to build on its relationships with trade partners.<\/p>\n

\n\tLast October, in the wake of tensions with the U.S. over tariffs levied on the country\u2019s aluminum, steel and lumber sectors, Canada\u2019s federal government pledged to double non-U.S. exports<\/a> by 2035, or roughly $220 billion in new orders for Canadian commodities, goods and services.<\/p>\n

\n\tPrior to 2025, over three-quarters of all Canadian exports<\/a> were U.S.-bound, and about 20 percent of the country\u2019s economic output was linked to U.S.-Canada trade. Canada is the top export destination for 36 U.S. states, and nearly $3.6 billion Canadian ($2.6 billion) worth of goods and services cross the border daily.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If Canada plans to bolster its economy and reach its goal to double non-U.S. exports, the country needs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55432,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[17,1887,9514,111,24510],"class_list":["post-55431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mark-carney","tag-canada","tag-exports","tag-global-trade","tag-mark-carney","tag-ports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}