Canada’s ports are less connected globally than a decade ago, exposing the country’s shippers to more supply chain risk, its central bank says. The warning comes as the country pivots its trade relations away from the US amid plans to invest billions in its ports.

The Bank of Canada (BOC), in a research report published last week, showed that the country’s five largest ports have seen major declines in their connections to other global ports since 2016. The researchers used satellite data of container ship and car carrier transits to measure the number of unique destinations.

That connectivity measure dropped 74% between 2016 and 2023, indicating “Canadian ports became relatively less central in global shipping networks compared with what they once were,” the BOC’s researchers said.

“Global maritime shipping networks have been reshaped in ways that have reduced Canada’s relative connectivity and carrying capacity,” the bank said. “This less-central role for the country could mean greater exposure to supply chain disruptions that could increase the cost of doing business.”

The report was released as BOC Governor Tiff Macklem testified before a Canadian Senate banking committee last Wednesday. 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.
The Bank of Canada researchers said some of the country’s declining port connectivity may stem from fewer, larger container ships than those measured in 2016. More of those larger ships, though, head to US West Coast ports, with imports into Canada having to absorb the extra cost of surface transportation from Southern California.

“Many imports coming on larger ships from southeast Asia, for example, must first travel to and be processed through the Port of Los Angeles before being shipped to Canada by train or truck,” the BOC report said.

The Port of Vancouver only sees about half or fewer of the large container ships on the trans-Pacific than the Southern California ports, according to data from Sea-web, a sister product of the Journal of Commerce within S&P Global.

In the last 12 months, ships over 11,000 TEUs in capacity made 410 calls to the Port of Los Angeles and 308 calls to Long Beach, Sea-web data shows. Vancouver saw 143 such calls over the same time.
Source:Platts