Val Litwin: Roberts Bank Terminal 2 a key solution to challenges facing B.C. businesses
July 3, 2019, The Province
Below is a GCT fact check and another take of recent oped submitted by the BC Chamber of Commerce CEO Val Litwin.
GCT: Why would the BC Chamber of Commerce, “with a mandate to drive business advocacy,” be taking sides against a local business to push the agenda of a public sector organization?
Val Litwin: Mitigating barriers to trade and congestion are essential to continued economic growth for B.C. and Canada.
GCT: We fully agree and therefore wonder why the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority (VFPA), our landlord and regulator, is stopping GCT, a privately held company, from advancing its proposed expansion of the existing terminal and spending government agency money to advance its own proposal, RBT2, instead. And, isn’t it curious that a Chamber of Commerce is NOT championing the local business with the better solution?
Val Litwin: While B.C. has one of the fastest-growing economies in the country, B.C. businesses see troubled waters on the horizon. If we want to sustain the growth we’ve seen over the past decade, we need to address some key challenges facing our province.
B.C. Chamber of Commerce’s most recent economic pulse check, the 2018-19 Collective Perspectives Survey, surveyed close to 1,000 B.C. businesses and identified several challenges. Almost 40 per cent of respondents said that the growing complexity and time required to gain approval for major construction projects is hurting their businesses. At the same time, a quarter identified Lower Mainland congestion as impacting their success.
GCT: Linking these findings to Roberts Bank expansion plans is quite a stretch -- the survey talked about passenger and road transportation congestion, not CONTAINER TERMINAL CONGESTION! The Chamber’s own report, on page 43, lists top 5 priorities for transportation improvement – not one of which relates to container terminals. They are, in order of priority, ride-sharing, LRT, provincial bus service, mobility pricing and BC Ferries.
Val Litwin: In short, mitigating barriers to trade and congestion are essential to continued economic growth for B.C. and Canada.
Both issues underscore why the Roberts Bank Terminal 2 project is key to securing B.C.’s long-term prosperity.
GCT: Again, a bit of a stretch... The report does not mention the words marine transportation nor does it mention container terminals. There is a nice picture of a container terminal on page 36, but that one’s not even in Canada.
Val Litwin: The proposed container terminal — which has undergone nearly a decade of planning and is currently under review by a federally appointed independent panel — represents a vital piece of infrastructure that will help meet the growth in trade forecasted to flow through our local port over the coming decades.
GCT: Sure. But at what cost and who is paying for it? The cost of RBT2 is said to be $3B. Is this expensive capacity, being proposed by government agency, and cost going to be passed along to exporters looking to move their goods through the Vancouver gateway? Are we building the best capacity that will maintain the Port of Vancouver’s competitiveness?
Val Litwin: That growth, driven by consumer demand for imported goods, and an increasing focus on trade by B.C. businesses, means that space in existing container terminals on Canada’s West Coast will be insufficient to meet demand. The looming shortage, which could become a reality as early as the mid-2020s, would have serious impacts on our provincial economy — with trade being diverted to ports south of the border, employment opportunities lost and costs eventually rising for both businesses and consumers.
GCT: That statement does not reflect current facts. As this study shows, there is plenty of existing container capacity being delivered by existing private sector terminal operators on the West Coast of Canada until at least 2030. And as this report shows, nearly 35% of all imports coming through Canada’s West Coast ports are destined for the USA already.
Val Litwin: As Canada’s gateway to the Pacific, these issues aren’t just specific to B.C. businesses — they impact our national economy. In fact, the Port of Vancouver generates nearly $12 billion in national GDP every year through its facilitation of trade with more than 170 world markets. Failure to plan infrastructure accordingly would undermine Canada’s ability to expand trade with Asia and diversify its trading partners. It will also impede Canada’s ability to take full advantage of our free-trade agreements, hampering our nation’s long-term competitiveness.
GCT: Indeed, Port of Vancouver generates nearly $12B in national GDP – through its private-sector terminal operators who invest in infrastructure, equipment and are actual direct employers and job generators. Vancouver Fraser Port Authority, on the other hand, which is advancing RBT2, is a government agency.
Val Litwin: While the economic rationale behind RBT2 is clear, it is also crucial that the project does not have significant adverse environmental impacts.
GCT: In fact, the economic rationale behind RBT2 is not clear. It requires a $2.7B borrowing approval from the Government of Canada and at the recent Review Panel Public Hearings a number of questions were raised about the financial feasibility of the project, since it has not yet been able to obtain a terminal operator.
Val Litwin: Due to the proposed location in deep, sub-tidal waters, the terminal would cause minimal negative effects on the sensitive intertidal habitat toward the shore, which is important to vegetation, birds, fish and other wildlife — a finding that has been investigated by over 77 individual studies and more than 35,000 hours of fieldwork by more than 100 scientists.
GCT: Why then do the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) and Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) have concerns? A 2018 submission by ECCC said of RBT2: “ECCC similarly characterizes impacts to Western Sandpipers as potentially high in magnitude, permanent, irreversible, and continuous,” and, more recently, in a Public Hearing, ECCC added, “In summary, ECCC maintains that only intertidal mudflats in a more natural estuarine condition within the Fraser River Estuary and delta are able to provide Western Sandpipers with the essential nutrients they require during northward migration. The inference from current patterns of usage is that biofilm on mudflats where a salinity-associated trigger is either naturally absent (Boundary Bay) or removed by modified hydrological regimes (Sturgeon Bank), such as predicted to result from RBT2, cannot provide the lipid-rich marine diatoms required by Western Sandpipers during northward migration to the breeding grounds.”
And DFO said in their April 2019 report: “The proposed Roberts Bank Terminal 2 Project will significantly alter the existing Roberts Bank ecosystem resulting in the loss of a large area of marine fish habitats and changes to water circulation and sediment transport processes…Based on the Project information to date - including the large-scale destruction of fish habitat, the high degree of uncertainty in predictions of incidental benefits and the small-scale of proposed offset concepts – DFO’s view is that the goal of sustaining the ongoing productivity of fisheries will not be achieved... The Project would result in loss and permanent alteration of large areas of Fraser River estuary habitat and it is uncertain whether predicted incidental benefits and proposed offsets would preserve fisheries productivity.”
Val Litwin: The Vancouver Fraser Port Authority — which has proposed to build new federal port land for Terminal 2 to be run by an independent operator — has also demonstrated a deep commitment to protecting the environment through award-winning initiatives like the Enhancing Cetacean Habitat and Observation program. This collaborative effort between government, industry, environmental groups and First Nations helps the port authority better understand and reduce the cumulative effects of shipping activities on at-risk whales in our region. Initiatives like this underscore why the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority is well-positioned to deliver this project in an economically efficient and environmentally conscientious manner.
GCT: See fact check above!
Val Litwin: Our members have been clear that it’s necessary for all levels of government and all stakeholders to work together to build trade-enabling infrastructure that will drive further economic growth. By ensuring RBT2 moves forward, we’re guaranteeing local companies have competitive access to key markets around the world that will help grow their businesses and create jobs for Canadians.
GCT: We fully agree with the first sentence. But the argument falls apart in the second sentence. RBT2 is not the ONLY solution. Learn more at www.betterdeltaport.ca
Val Litwin is president and CEO of the B.C. Chamber of Commerce, the largest and most broadly based business organization in the province.
Marko Dekovic is vice president of public affairs at Global Container Terminals Inc.