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Port of Vancouver

Port in British Columbia, Canada

  • 13 min read
  • 7 chapters

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History

Predecessors

Prior to the formation of the new authority, there were three separate port authorities in the Metro Vancouver region: the Port of Vancouver, which was the largest port in Canada; the Fraser River Port Authority; and the North Fraser Port Authority.

The Vancouver Port Authority was responsible for the Port of Vancouver, which was the largest port in Canada and the Pacific Northwest. The port had 25 major terminals. The port first began operations with the opening of Ballantyne Pier in 1923. In 2005/2006, the port handled 79.4 million tonnes of cargo, 1.8 million containers, 910,172 cruise passengers, and 2,677 foreign vessels. The authority was responsible for 233 km of coastline from Vancouver to the Canada–United States border.

The Fraser River Port Authority was created in 1913 to manage ports along the Fraser River. It was the second largest port in Vancouver and extended along the main arm of the river eastward to the Fraser Valley at Kanaka Creek, and north along the Pitt River to Pitt Lake. The Port's jurisdiction encompassed 270 kilometres of shoreline that borders nine different municipalities in the Lower Mainland. In 2007, the port handled 36 million tonnes of cargo, 191,000 TEUs of containerized cargo, and 573 cargo vessels. The cargo at the port consisted of logs, cement, general cargo, steel, and automobiles. Its tenants included several large auto ports, making it the largest auto port in Canada. This entity was originally known as the New Westminster Harbour Commission, and then was known as the Fraser River Harbour Commission between 1965 and 1999.

The North Fraser Port Authority was incorporated in 1913 as the North Fraser Harbour Commissioners. It was the smallest of the three ports and was located on the north arm of the Fraser River from the University of British Columbia to New Westminster. The traffic of the port mainly consisted of logs and wood fibre. The port covered around 920 hectares of land and water lots and it handled nearly 18 million tonnes of cargo in 2004.

Merger

Although the ports were financially self-sufficient, the federal legislation governing the authorities generated some inefficiency because the legally separate port authorities were forced to compete with each other economically for business. This came to the attention of the local media in 2006 when it was found that the recently expanded Fraser Surrey Docks, operated by the Fraser River Port Authority in New Westminster, were sitting idle after their principal shipping partner, CP Ships, relocated to the Port of Vancouver, which was already nearing capacity. Some critics opposed the possible merger as they felt the new authority would not recognize the unique concerns of the Fraser River.

To increase the efficiency of the ports of Metro Vancouver, the federal Minister of Transport permitted the three authorities to study the benefits of amalgamation in June 2006. The resulting report highlighted several benefits of amalgamation, and on June 16, Transport Canada granted a "certificate of intent to amalgamate port authorities". On December 21, 2007, the government of Canada published a certificate of amalgamation that allowed the three port authorities to merge into one effective January 1, 2008. The resulting entity became known as Port Metro Vancouver.

Post-merger

Since 2013, the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority also merged with Canada Place Corporation, which formerly operated Canada Place as a subsidiary of Port of Vancouver.

On April 6, 2016, the port authority dropped "Port Metro Vancouver" from its branding and re-adopted "Port of Vancouver" to refer to Vancouver's port, while using "Vancouver Fraser Port Authority" when referencing activities or decisions of the port authority.

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