Containers stacking up in Halifax, Montreal amid dockworkers strike

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By Andrew Rankin

Container traffic intended for the East and Gulf Coast ports in the United States is trickling into the Port of Halifax and more is on the way.

Since Tuesday, dockworkers at more than 30 ports from Texas to Maine have been on strike, halting the flow of about half of America’s ocean shipping.

Paul MacIsaac, Port of Halifax senior vice-president, said a few container ships have already been diverted to Halifax and more are expected soon.

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That leaves those who run Canada’s largest Atlantic port with two jobs.

“Our interest is in keeping the supply chain fluid and ensuring that our regular customers are not impacted,” MacIsaac said.

Some cargo landing in Halifax will be shipped by rail to the U.S., mainly to the New York area. Most containers, though, will sit dockside in Halifax until the strike ends, he said. At that point, they will be picked up by container ships and delivered to the U.S.

Right now, that’s not a problem. The city’s two terminals are operating at 40 per cent capacity, MacIsaac said. But things could get very tight quickly.

“The port works in a fluid manner,” he said. “The boxes come, they are delivered, they sit on the docks usually two or three days, and they’re evacuated by rail and by truck. It won’t take long to utilize that additional capacity.”

There’s only so much help Halifax can offer. The Atlantic port can accommodate about 600,000 containers a year, roughly a tenth of the four million containers New York handles annually.

“We have the ability to help in the short term, but certainly we can’t do this forever,” MacIsaac said. “We’re hopeful that the situation in the U.S. ports corrects itself sooner rather than later, because what’s really most important to us is we want to make sure our regular services are not impacted in any way and cargo moving continues to do so with the efficiency and reliability we’re known for.”

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While 45,000 U.S. longshoremen are off the job, Montreal dockworkers are staging a three-day strike of their own. The work stoppage, over wages and automation, closed two of the port’s seven terminals to all vessel, truck and rail traffic. Containers are piling up.

As for Canadian consumers, there is no need to worry — yet, said Sylvain Charlebois, director of Dalhousie University’s Agri-Food Analytics Lab. Grocery stores and big-box outlets have overstocked in preparation of the port shutdowns. But he said things could get ugly after a couple of weeks.

“Beyond that, everything is off the table,” he said.

Large companies such as Amazon.com Inc. and Walmart Inc. will prioritize the much more lucrative U.S. market, which could lead to shortages in Canada.

“Eventually the U.S. port situation could be a problem for Canadians,” Charlebois said.

• Email: arankin@postmedia.com

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