Canada Ports & Corridors
Special Report
Multiple projects planned
The report was released shortly after BOC Governor Tiff Macklem testified before a Canadian Senate banking committee. He said the country needs to invest more in its transportation infrastructure, citing the ability of Southern California ports to handle much larger vessels than those calling Canada.
Canada’ s government wants to reduce that dependency on Southern California ports, along with the US overall as a trading partner. Prime Minister Mark Carney has pledged some C $ 5 billion in federal funding for trade infrastructure projects, including ports.
The biggest piece of that puzzle will be the Contrecoeur marine terminal at the Port of Montreal, which has started initial work on the C $ 1.6 billion project. Quebec may become home to another marine terminal after local operator QSL received preliminary approval from Canada’ s customs agency for receiving international freight at the proposed site at Quebec City.
DP World Canada has also unveiled a new ultra-large container ship berth at its Port Saint John terminal. On the country’ s West Coast, the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority and Global Container Terminals have pledged to work together on studying development of the proposed 2.4 million-TEU Roberts Bank terminal.
Outside of infrastructure, Canada also wants to turn the tide on the longshore labor disruption that has plagued its ports. Canada’ s parliament could take up negotiations on how to reform the country’ s labor laws, which might come ahead of the 2027 expiration of the longshore labor contract at Vancouver.
email: michael. angell @ spglobal. com sus other West Coast regions. Thus far in 2026, Western Canadian share stands at 16.9 %, the best performance since 2020, but still down almost a full percentage point from then.
Of course, a major driver of arrival volumes at Vancouver and Rupert are the flows of import containers inland, both to Canadian and US regions. The third table, built using IANA ETSO data, shows the annual trends in these ISO container flows by region. Again, the results are indexed with the year 2020 set at a level of 100.
Vancouver and Rupert have been climbing out of a deep hole, and the journey is not yet complete.
The 2025 story is similar but a bit weaker than the import TEU numbers. The number of ISO containers coming out of Western Canada on rail in 2025 was almost 7 % lower than in 2020. The US Pacific Northwest( primarily Seattle / Tacoma) numbers were down even more. All the growth action was in the Southwest region, encompassing Los Angeles, Long Beach and Oakland.
How do things look thus far in 2026? International volume coming out of the West Coast regions was down 6 % through April. All regions showed declines, with Western Canada dipping 2 %, the Southwest down 7 %, and the Northwest dropping by a huge 20 %. Even though Western Canadian originations are down, the region is still the best of the bunch.
The bottom line is that Western Canada is in the midst of a long-term recovery from severe disruptions
www. joc. com
Table 2
Annual percentage share of West Coast import TEUs
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
2026 |
Port region |
2020 |
2021 |
2022 |
2023 |
2024 |
2025 |
YTD |
LA-LB 64.4 % 65.7 % 65.6 % 66.6 % 68.2 % 68.1 % 68.1 % Northern California 7.3 % 6.9 % 7.0 % 6.8 % 6.5 % 6.5 % 6.6 % PNW 9.4 % 10.0 % 9.0 % 9.2 % 9.0 % 8.1 % 7.4 % Southern Calif. w / o LA / LB 1.2 % 1.3 % 1.5 % 1.6 % 1.3 % 1.4 % 1.0 %
Western Canada 17.8 % 16.1 % 16.8 % 15.9 % 15.0 % 16.0 % 16.9 %
Sources: IANA ETSO, port reports, PIERS and GTC analysis © 2026 S & P Global
Table 3
Index of annual ISO container originations( 2020 = 100)
Region 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 Western Canada 100.0 95.0 92.1 80.5 85.4 93.2 Southwest 100.0 106.5 92.9 83.3 115.4 118.9 Northwest 100.0 101.4 83.5 81.6 100.0 90.8
Total West Coast 100.0 101.0 91.6 81.9 100.7 104.8
Sources: IANA ETSO, port reports, PIERS and GTC analysis © 2026 S & P Global
that occurred in 2023 and 2024. Current growth, rather than indicating a new superiority for the region, represents another step in the process of regaining what had previously been the region’ s normal role.
email: lawrencejgross @ gmail. com
August 3, 2026 | Journal of Commerce 37