GODERICH, ON – Industry leaders are attending the Huron Marine & Economic Forum to discuss global trade on the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway, Thursday. The one-day event takes place at the Goderich Columbus Convention Centre. Jason Card is Vice President of External Affairs for the Chamber of Marine Commerce, a marine industry association with more than 100 members, in Canada and the U.S. He joined CBC Radio’s Afternoon Drive guest host Stu Mills to talk about the future of shipping on the Great Lakes. The following has been edited for clarity and length.
Stu Mills: People don’t always think of the Great Lakes as mainly a shipping corridor. Can you give us a snapshot to bring that into focus? What’s on the move in the Great Lakes at the busiest ports?
Jason Card: We have the numbers that show tha
t marine shipping on the Great Lakes – St. Lawrence Seaway contributes $66.1 billion annually to the North American economy and supports about 360,000 jobs.
I often refer to us as the plumbers of the North American economy because we do our thing and no one notices. If we were to stop, everyone would notice all at once.
Our members are moving the bulk commodities upon which society is based. So, your grain that underpins the food supply, the iron ore that makes steel, the road salt that protects municipalities and keeps everyone safe driving in the winter and the cement for construction.
We do our very best to move it as efficiently and as inexpensively as possible because when you start adding costs to what we do, you see the cost of living go up almost everywhere.
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SM: We’re always worried that the economy isn’t growing fast enough or that it’s stagnant. I wonder if for this part of the economy, the marine shipping economy, is this the Golden Age or was it ever busier?
JC: We could see a doubling of traffic on the on the seaway infrastructure and they could still handle it without having to add anything new. There’s a lot of high and heavy project cargoes that are moving right now with data centres and windmills, that kind of a thing. They get efficiently moved on our vessels. And of course, we can’t forget critical minerals.
SM: What would you say is the biggest challenge facing shipping companies who operate on the Great Lakes?
One of the things that I would point out would be investment in infrastructure. More than 80% of what you need comes to vessel. We are the primary conduits for trade and when it comes to our members, we’re the primary conduits for Canada, U.S. trade in in many regards. So we would like to see some bespoke funding, particularly for our port infrastructure, given their importance.
About 30% of the Mariner workforce is going to retire by 2029. We need to get people into those jobs. We need to build capacity at the few schools that do the training because they’re fabulous careers.
We also need to attract talent from other countries. This is a global issue in terms of needing more Mariners and we we’re finding that the government is now catching on to this. We know that the provinces have been after this and working with the schools and their backyards to try to develop the capacity.
There was a commitment in last year’s budget to name two more ports, the first arrival in Quebec City and Hamilton. They made good on Quebec City and we’re expecting that they’re going to make good on Hamilton- Oshawa Port Authority soon. But we’d like to see more support to ports.
SM: Where do you see the industry heading next?
There’s a lot of opportunity. We’re looking at getting in on what’s happening with critical minerals. There’s a desire to move more petroleum, and to different nations. We’re arguing that we can move down the Great Lakes. Why build a pipeline when you can take boats that are double hull protected and designed to carry these kinds of cargoes effectively?
To succeed in that regard, we need to have seaway extension and we need to see more ice breaking. That would extend the season. Instead of operating nine to ten months of the year, we’d be operating for 11.
We’d become an even more attractive means of moving things for the Canadian economy.
CBC News
