Marine Mode - Canadian Marine Transport Ports and Harbors

Canada has a number of laws and regulations that tend to limit the scope of the marine fleet registered in this country. Many other countries including the US have similar restrictive laws that lead to registering ocean going ships in countries where the laws are favorable. This leads to so called 'Flags of convenience'.

Marine Terminals - Ports Harbors

There are harbors that are only anchorages to protect vessels from unfriendly water & weather. Useful harbors have docking facilities that allow transfer of goods, passengers and often land vehicles to and from the water craft. Such arrangements are usually referred to as PORTS and have some form of MARINE TERMINAL. This latter term is often used more restrictively to describe storage and modal transfer facilities.

A modern harbour may have some or all of specialized bulk cargo, container, vehicle, and passenger handling facilities. Small ports may have only limited shore side and docking facilities for the water craft.

Regardless of the kinds of traffic that use a port the terminal functions are essentially the same. In modern practice the actual facilities provided and used tend to be highly specialized and individualized.

Efficiency considerations dictate that transport vehicles spend as little time in terminal activity as possible. This means that marine terminals all tend to be focussed on loading and unloading the water craft quickly. If there is a transfer to land transport vehicles efficiency demands that a supply of trucks or rail cars must be moved quickly to & from the dockside.

Marine terminal design, operation and management essentially deals with making the transfer between modes and using the available land efficiently.

The harbour an the marine terminal functions are somewhat separate. The harbour function is to provide the facilities for safely getting the water craft to, from and stopped at the marine terminal. "The Canadian Marine Sector contributes $2 billion a year to the gross domestic product and moves 224 million tonnes of international trade." (Ref. 1, Report of Standing Committee on Transport, House of Commons, May 1995)

"Transport Canada's commercial ports are divided into three systems... The major system which handles approximately 50% of total ports tonnage, includes seven, semiautonomous Local Port Corporations (LPC's) - Saint John's, Halifax, Saint John, Quebec, Montreal, Vancouver, and Prince Rupert and seven smaller Divisional Ports: Sept-Isles, Port Saguenay, Belledune, Trois-Rivieres, Prescott, Port Colbourne, and Churchill.

All of these ports are administered by the Canada Ports Corporation, a Crown Corporation under the Canada Ports Act (1983). Since 1978 (to end of 1994) this group of ports has paid dividends of $78 million and made cash contributions of approximately $270 million to the government. How ever since 1978 the government has forgiven debts of $735 million and made capital grants of approximately $370 million since 1982."

"The second system comprises nine Harbour Commissions located in Ontario & British Columbia: Ottawa, Toronto, Hamilton, Windsor, Thunder Bay, North Fraser, Nanaimo, and Port Alberni. Toronto and Hamilton are governed by their own acts, while the remaining Harbour Commissions come under the 1964 Harbour Commissions Act. These Commissions serve regional and local markets and handle around 13% of the tonnage."

"The third system, which is administered directly by the Harbors and Ports Directorate under the Public Harbors and Port Facilities Act is composed of 524 public ports, harbours and sites. Some of these make an operating profit while many others receive federal operating and capital support which amounted to approximately $40 million for the fiscal year 1993-94. They handle roughly 20% of the total tonnage."

"There are 52 privately owned commercial ports which handle an impressive 17% of the total tonnage."

"Finally there is a fourth regime which is composed of more than 2,100 fishing and small craft harbours owned and operated by Fisheries and Oceans." 

  Canada has a significant number of ships and other craft such as:
   a. A tanker fleet.
   b. Coastal and ferry vessels, mainly operated by Marine Atlantic which
 serves the east coast, and BC ferries which serves the west coast.
   c. Great Lakes cargo vessels that transport cargo in the Great Lakes
 and St. Lawrence Seaway system.
   d. Coast Guard vessels that maintain navigation aids & carry out
 ice breaking.
   e. A large number of small and medium sized commercial fishing boats.
   f. Public & private ferries that are part of the highway or rail
 systems.
   g. A variety of local sightseeing and touring vessels.
   h. Fisheries and police patrol boats.
   i. Harbour, inland waterway, and ocean going tug and pilotage boats.
   j. Numbers of specialized barges for bulk, and specialized cargo.
   k. Specialized vessels for Petroleum, Salvage, Construction, etc.
   l. A NAVY composed of Patrol, Supply and Submarine vessels.
There are also Naval Architecture, Marine Engineering, Ship Building, and Repair facilities in eastern and western provinces. The marine transport mode is vital to Canada's international trade. The role of Ocean Shipping is very dynamic and the competition is intense