ICBA has written to Dominic LeBlanc, the minister responsible for One Canadian Economy, urging the federal government to list the Roberts Bank Terminal 2 project as a project of national interest.
The case is not complicated. RBT2 would raise the Port of Vancouver's container capacity by nearly 50%, open up $100 billion a year in trade capacity, add more than $3 billion a year to GDP, and support over 18,000 construction jobs.
It would also fix a problem our members pay for every day. The World Bank ranks Vancouver 375th out of 405 container ports worldwide. Containers wait close to six days for a train — double the port authority's own three-day target. When the gateway jams, the steel, glazing, elevators and mechanical systems our members are waiting on show up late. Schedules slip, crews sit idle, escalation clauses kick in, and the contingencies in every bid climb. That cost lands on every home, school and hospital built in this province.
Then there is the permitting record. RBT2 has been in the federal system since 2013. It was approved in 2023 after a ten-year review, with 370 binding federal conditions and 16 provincial ones. Three years on, it still waits for final permits. As ICBA President and CEO Chris Gardner writes, "Canada's permitting system is where good projects go to stall." This is not a project that has escaped scrutiny — it has endured thirteen years of it.
ICBA also told the minister that every contract on RBT2 should be tendered on an open, competitive and labour-neutral basis. More than 85% of BC's construction workforce does not belong to a building trades union. A union-only procurement model would shut out the large majority of the tradespeople needed to build it.
Read the full letter HERE.