The interest in the progress of the Fairview container port continues to provide a wealth of material for the Daily news. Wednesday’s paper featured two separate stories on the port, one a review of the thoughts of one of the participants at the Change Brings Opportunities conference in the city last week and the other story a criticism of the absence of the MP for Skeena, who did not attend the conference.
George Stalk, of the Boston Consulting Group looked to the future (and his previous comments about the "wimpy" project) to make his points about the potential for the port which Stalk feels should grow much larger after the first phase of development.
In the second story, Kevin Falcon the province’s Transportation Minister expanded his scope when it comes to criticizing NDP members, moving on from Gary Coons the local MLA to taking a few shots at Nathan Cullen the local MP.
Falcon is becoming a bit of a constantly barking dog when it comes to the NDP in this part of the province. We can understand his interest in Coons who has been more than accommodating in the point-counter point aspect of their relationship, but his shots at Cullen seemed to come out of nowhere and frankly seem a tad silly.
And while Cullen himself uses a rather weak reason for not attending, that of protecting a minority government from falling, (there is no danger of this while the Liberals continue to try and find a leader, and at any rate MP’s regularly pair off when they have to leave the House, to make sure they cancel each other out. Cullen would have been better off stating he was working on his Environmental critics portfolio at the time, for which he received a bit of fame from last week), the issue created by Falcon, seems a bit more of a creation for the purposes of grand standing rather than of real concern over proper representation.
It was a business conference, important yes to the concept of the container port but in the end it was just that a convention. Delegates attended and took in the trade show so to speak, while a few business relationships might have been formed, we didn’t hear of any great employment opportunities being generated by the two day event.
We’re quite sure that if any of the participants wish to contact Mr. Cullen he wouldn’t be a particularly hard guy to find. In the end Cullen’s best work on the port issue will be done in Ottawa, trying to free up more funding from the Feds for future expansion, Mr. Falcon should keep that in mind when he chooses to point fingers...
Falcon would be best to focus on what is important to his agenda and leave the snide shots directed at others aside. He’s surely got more than enough on his plate with the BC Ferries file, that he doesn’t need to start a spitting match with the local MP.
The Daily makes the best of its conference notes with two stories of interest to the North Coast, all be it relayed a week after the conference came to an end.
MAKE PORT ‘BIG AND SPECIAL’
By Leanne Ritchie
The Daily News
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Pages one and three
According to George Stalk of the Boston Consulting Group, you can’t sell a barbecue in August.
And that is the Port of Prince Rupert’s advantage.
Speaking at the Change Brings Opportunities Conference last week, Stalk, who gained local notoriety of describing the port’s container handling plans as ‘wimpy’, explained how congestion delays are costing North American retailers millions of dollars.
“The biggest problem is not the cost of what’s happening out there, but the cost of delays… and the cost of delays are huge,” said Stalk.
“It’s the cost of not having what’s selling and having too much of what’s not selling.”
Stalk used the example of a barbecue. Retailers and manufacturers want barbecues on the shelves in the beginning of the summer because that’s when consumers are buying. If the delivery is delayed, and the barbecues do not hit the shelves until August, it results in huge sales losses.
While the transportation system in North America may have been able to deliver goods reliably and on time back in 2001 and 2002, growth in imports from Asia is putting strain, not on the ocean carrier’s, but on the system moving those goods from the ships to markets.
“It’s a system under strain and people are starting to get worried,” Stalk said.
“We are talking about capacity and demand that are about to converge and when that happens, things slow down.”
The demand for container capacity on the West Coast is growing at the rate of one Port of Vancouver per year, which is about two million TEU’s or average sized containers, he said.
The ports of Vancouver, Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, Oakland, Long Beach and Los Angeles currently handle close to 20 million TEU’s (average sized containers) per year.
If all these ports can achieve their anticipated growth, they will be able to handle about 28 million containers per year.
But work done by the Boston Consulting Group shows it is unlikely all these projects will come to fruition because of opposition to port development in already-congested urban areas as well as environmental concerns.
“People who think ports are a beautiful thing are rare... and there are environmental issues. So we don’t think this is actually going to happen,” he said.
So while Asia is building enormous new ports for their exports – for example, the Shanghai Yanghsan port development will bee able to handle 25 million TEU’s per year – the best guarantee the West Coast of North America has to offer is two million TEU capacity for Phase One and Two of the Fairview Container Terminal.
Other companies are looking to take advantage of the congestion by offering alternative delivery methods. Stalk noted Fed Ex and UPS are placing huge orders for new airbus planes at $250 million per plane.
To put that in perspective, each plan alone is worth more than Phase One of the terminal development.
“When I was talking about ‘wimpy’, I wasn’t talking about you guys, I was talking about your government. The Pacific Gateway project,” he said, urging the port and government to think big.
”I can sympathize. You’ve got to start somewhere, but you have to keep going you can’t stop.”
Because that is where opportunity lies- offering reliable and speedy service when no one else can, he said.
“Prince Rupert has the opportunity of becoming more than just another port, delivering service you could get at any other port. Or it has the opportunity to be special, to be preferred as a place where customers want the products to go,” he said.
“It has to be big, it has to be worth going to and it has to be special with speed and reliability.”
ABSENCE OF MP AT BIG PORT SESSION DRAWS FIRE
By James Vassallo
The Daily News
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Pages one and two
While last week’s Change Brings Opportunities’ conference was a smashing event by all accounts, the absence of the region’s highest-ranking elected officials has drawn criticism from some.
Although North Coast MLA Gary Coons was called away to deal with the illness of a family member, the decision of Skeena-Bulkley Valley MP Nathan Cullen not to attend left some unhappy.
“This is the largest gathering, the largest conference in the history of Prince Rupert in terms of people coming together,” said Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon.
“Almost 375 people will be coming together… and the tragedy is I don’t see any NDP members there.
“That’s a tragedy because all politics aside, this is something that’s going to be important.”
The Skeena-Bulkley Valley said he is a big booster of the port and he sent a staff member to gather notes on his behalf, but simply couldn’t leave Ottawa for the event.
“I was very committed to making it until they put it in the middle of the week in a minority Parliament,” said Cullen. “I just can’t leave my duties in terms of potentially having a government fall because I’m at a conference, however important that conference is.
“My first choice would be to be there and address the conference and hear what kind of results they get, but I don’t think there’s anybody doubting my support for the initiative.
“It’s the nature of the beast for a minority parliament, it takes me two days to get there and back and you just can’t do it when, on any given day, the government can hang in the balance.”
Instead, the Skeena-Bulkley Valley representative is focusing on the fight in the nation’s capital and continuing to push for a better deal for West Coast port funding.
“(The government has) made some dangerous noises in reducing, in a sense, some of the money that will come to the West Coast,” he said.
“They have not yet committed to putting anybody from the Northwest onto the committee that will make the decisions as to how the money will get spent.”
Cullen said he believes the feds aren’t doing enough to support the port project and said they should show-up with committed funding for the second phase of the development.
“They talk a good talk, the federal government does. They’ve said nice noises, but the proof is in the pudding. They showed up with a bit of money initially ($30 million)… (and) they showed up with a bit more for some of the security,” he said.
“I think hey really need to strike this committee which will decide how to spend this Gateway money… and they need to put somebody on it from the Northwest/
“Those types of moves will give me a lot more confidence and trust in the process and (ensure) that all the money doesn’t get sucked up into the Lower Mainland.
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