Canada’s Indo-Pacific Strategy unveiled late last year includes some encouraging signs that the region is moving to the top of the federal government’s trade development priority list.
And so it should, considering that the Indo-Pacific region is home to more than four billion people and an estimated $47 trillion in economic activity.
With its relative proximity to the region compared with the rest of Canada, B.C. stands to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of any national game plan to advance the country’s Indo-Pacific trade interests.
But with the devil always being in the details, Ottawa’s $2.3 billion commitment to fund Indo-Pacific initiatives is thus far detail-deficient in key areas, including one that is critical to the success of B.C.’s role as Canada’s Asia-Pacific Gateway.
The Indo-Pacific Strategy mentions transportation infrastructure as part of its investments in supply chain resilience. But, while it promises a commitment to continue to make “significant investments” in B.C.’s two main ports, it includes no specifics on how and where those investments will be allocated.
The historic West Coast supply chain logjams, which began in 2020’s second half and have only recently eased, resulted from a North American goods movement network that could not handle a sudden business surge.
The need for Canada, then, is clarity on where the government sees the priority for infrastructure investment to ensure that B.C. and the rest of the country can not only cope with rapid increases in trade from the Indo-Pacific region but also win business from its main North American competitors rather than remain a secondary player.
The length of time it has taken for the federal government to decide on increased container cargo handling capacity at the Port of Vancouver’s Roberts Bank inspires no confidence in the country’s ability to make agile infrastructure decisions needed to build a resilient and robust trading economy for Canada.
