Our Ports Are Jammed, Tariffs Are Flying, So, Now What?
Rail chokepoints, tariff whiplash, and a governance model caught between business and bureaucracy, here’s the playbook for keeping Canada’s gateways open before the world sails past us for good
Every extra day a container sits on Canada’s waterfront costs the economy roughly C $50 million in lost output and higher prices.*¹
I’ve walked docks in Singapore, Montreal, Vancouver, Portsmouth (UK), and Mumbai, both in Royal Navy uniform and in private‑sector hi‑vis. I’ve smelled roasted coffee drifting across Montreal’s Old Port, heard gulls wheel above frigates in Portsmouth’s historic harbour, felt the pier tremble as Vancouver’s cranes groaned through another record year, and tasted the thick, salty air rolling off Singapore’s container yards. Yet from that global vantage, the story never really changes: Canada declares itself a “gateway nation,” spends months patting itself on the back, then spends years stuck in the same traffic jam.
Today the jam feels tighter. Volumes are up, railcars are scarce, and a fresh tariff fight with Washington threatens to erase what little price edge we still hold. If you import, export, or just like having groceries on the shelf, that should bother you.
Why Your Stuff Is Late (Again)
Too much cargo, not enough rail fluidity. Vancouver moved a record 158 million tonnes in 2024², yet ships still bobbed at anchor for days. Containers bound for Asia waited up to four weeks at the worst of the crunch; average dwell still ran 12–15 days³, triple the global top‑quartile benchmark. Think of it like a kinked garden hose: one stalled train in the Fraser Canyon builds pressure, nothing moves, and penalty clocks tick for exporters. Terminals, railways, and truckers squeezed every lever they could, but the system’s rigid design left little slack when volumes spiked.
Weather, labour, déjà vu. A brutal atmospheric river, the 2023 West‑Coast strike, and an aging terminal network all piled on. Gate hours, truck appointment windows, and chassis supply issues add friction long before a box hits the rails.
World‑class… sluggishness. In the World Bank’s 2023 Container Port Performance Index Halifax limped in at 108th. Montreal placed 344th, Vancouver 352nd, and Prince Rupert 401st, out of 405 ports measured worldwide⁴. Participation ribbons, nothing more.
While We Debate, Others Deliver
On the Atlantic, Montreal, Halifax, and an energized Saint John are elbowing each other for inland cargo. Saint John, after a decade of upgrades, was the only Canadian port to grow boxes last year.⁵
To the south, U.S. West‑Coast gateways have their own congestion demons, yet Seattle/Tacoma’s dwell times still undercut ours by half in peak season.⁶ Mexican Pacific hubs, Lázaro Cárdenas and Manzanillo, now market direct rail service to the U.S. Midwest, offering shippers a third door if we fumble.
Rotterdam’s Maasvlakte 2 clears a box with half the crane moves we use; Singapore’s Tuas Mega‑Port will double capacity by 2040 on the same shoreline. If we stay slow and get expensive, cargo will shrug and route elsewhere. Loyalty lasts exactly as long as the math works.
Who’s Actually in Charge Here?
Most port authorities and terminal operators are wringing every ounce of efficiency they can from ageing assets, but the structure they operate under caps both their flexibility and their investment horizon.
The Canada Marine Act (1998) birthed 17 Port Authorities, supposedly arm’s‑length, commercial creatures. In practice Ottawa still caps their borrowing, appoints most directors, and can rewrite the rules mid‑voyage. Stakeholders tell Transport Canada the model is opaque and uncoordinated; environmental advocates call it unaccountable; construction firms run head‑first into federal‑property quirks (see Pomerleau v. Sept‑Îles).
Transport Canada’s answer so far? More oversight powers, more data reporting. Maybe that helps. Maybe it just adds another layer of forms.
“Just Merge Them!” (And Other Easy Answers)
Every policy panel eventually floats a mega‑port merger. Yes, pooled procurement and shared digital platforms could trim costs, but a shotgun wedding would also mash together six collective‑bargaining agreements, three provincial tax regimes, and enough local politics to fill a grain silo. Coordination is good; compulsory consolidation is a divorce waiting to happen.
Fixing It, For Real This Time
Sort out governance: Finish the Ports Modernization Review. Make board seats a competence contest, not a patronage prize. Publish dashboards the public can actually read.
Unclog the rail arteries: Double‑tracking the 120‑kilometre Fraser Canyon segment alone would cost roughly C$2 billion (industry estimate)⁵ and add up to 12 trains a day⁵ to the West‑Coast pipeline. Public dollars should unlock private ones, not replace them.
Wire the system: Rotterdam and Singapore treat data like oxygen. We still swap spreadsheets. Real‑time, door‑to‑door visibility is essential in 2025.
Reward collaboration, expose freeloaders: Tie federal funding to shared metrics, dwell time, on‑time departure, emissions per box. Celebrate the performers, name‑and‑shame the laggards.
Build inland relief valves: Dry ports in Regina, Brampton, or Edmonton pull boxes off the waterfront faster and cut truck congestion.
Plan for the next crisis. Climate shocks: floods, wildfires, shut mainlines almost yearly now. Since 2017, they’ve idled our mainlines for a combined 51 days⁵. Indigenous nations, rightly, expect a seat at the design table. Bake both into every capital plan.
But Wait, Are We Overreacting?
Tariffs could fizzle. U.S. election cycles are unpredictable; a new administration might shelve the duties. Betting the farm on that outcome is risky but worth acknowledging.
Capacity is coming. DP World’s Centerm expansion in Vancouver, PSA’s new berth in Halifax, and CPKC’s longer trains will add throughput. History says new capacity gets swallowed quickly, yet it is progress.
Methodology matters. The World Bank index weights vessel time heavily; ports handling many bulk ships (slower by nature) score poorly. Our rankings, while sobering, aren’t the whole story.
“The market will fix it”. Maybe, but shippers won’t fund public overpasses or Indigenous consultation. Governments exist to plug those gaps.
“We can’t afford new track”. We also can’t afford 18‑day dwell times that bleed GDP. One Fraser River washout in 2021 cost the economy an estimated C$170 million a day⁷. Prevention is cheaper.
Fair points, none erase the structural drag we see year after year.
The Takeaway
Canadian ports keep Canada fed, fueled, and employed. They also keep investors, and now U.S. trade lawyers, awake at night. If we don’t have a national port‑rail action plan in place by early 2026, before tariff schedules lock in, we’ll be reacting, not competing.
The ships are already inbound. Either we widen the channel or watch the convoy pass us by.
Selected References
Statistics Canada. (2023). Input–Output Tables and Port Disruption Cost Estimates.
Port of Vancouver. (2025). Port of Vancouver moves record trade in 2024 (News Release).
FreightWaves. (2025, March 18). "Canada ports facing container delays due to weather, rail issues."
World Bank & S&P Global Market Intelligence. (2024). Container Port Performance Index 2023.
House of Commons Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities. (2023). Report 14: Large Port Infrastructure Expansion Projects in Canada.
Northwest Seaport Alliance. (2024). Port Metrics Dashboard.
Progressive Railroading. (2025, March 20). "Tallies, totals and other trend data in the freight transportation realm."
Holland & Knight. (2025, March 7). "U.S. Proposes Port Fees on Chinese‑Built Ships."
Edward Jones. (2025). Potential Tariff Impact. Market Pulse.
Maritime Executive. (2021, November 8). "Canada Significantly Out‑Investing U.S. for Port Infrastructure."
Langer, O.E. (2018). Submission to Transport Canada regarding Ports Modernization Review.
Note: Statistics are the most current publicly available as of April 12 2025. Rankings and tariff proposals may shift; readers should verify figures against the latest releases before making decisions.
The Port of NY and NJ reworked and built short line rail to carry cargo to inland brown field facilities for redistribution throughout the Eastern Seaboard . The governing authority PANYNJ used its clout to arrange for government financing of this redevelopment with bonds and private financing backed by government guarantees. It also combined with the Federal government to upgrade the regular rail capacity to connect with inland destinations. The latter effort ran into some difficulties because the project took too long.
You are correct that port authorities here should be amalgamated to ensure a consistent approach to commercial cargo operations. But Canada needs to also invest in new rail infrastructure to move cargo( and people). Cargo transport is multimodal and should not be parsed into private fiefdoms.
Climate change, security and resilience in a complex world demand redundancy, treating seaports as potential pathways for health risks, sabotage and pollution requiring consistent and unified oversight, and as a primary pathway to ensure that Canadians have access to needed goods. Redundancy, defense and oversight work better as government functions.