Despite a rail strike, a collapsed rail bridge, and now a grain workers strike, it's business as usual at the Port of Thunder Bay.
More than 600 workers with the Grain Workers Union Local 333 who are off the job, set up pickets at six grain terminals in Metro Vancouver on Tuesday. The labour dispute revolves around work hours and pay, and is causing farmers concern during harvest season.
Chris Heikkinen, chief executive officer of the Port of Thunder Bay, said the strike is unlikely to impact operations in Thunder Bay, and it depends on how long the strike lasts.
"The majority of the grain moving off the west coast is destined for Asia, which is their main market. To move that through Thunder Bay is quite a significant variation in the routing, and it's not very economical to move stuff through Thunder Bay and then all the way around to Asia," Heikkinen said.
He added that grain farmers are likely preparing for all scenarios, including shipments to Thunder Bay.
"Another potential barrier to (shipping excess grain to Thunder Bay) is that it's already a busy time in the Great Lakes and they could run into ship-supply issues," he said. "The lakers are booked pretty solid."
In the unlikely event more grain arrives at the port, Heikkinen says that would be no problem, saying the port has the capacity to handle it.
"One of our advantages is there's a significant volume of grain storage capacity here in the port, and it depends if they can find some ships that are available to carry the product," he said.
Meanwhile, operations are back to normal following a brief rail strike in late August.
"Fortunately, the labour disruption was resolved pretty quickly, and the Canadian National (CN) Rail bridge outage in Fort Frances had a more profound impact," Heikkinen said.
He said the collapsed rail bridge has since reopened but impacted grain movement in Thunder Bay during the closure.
"The grain that would have been brought on that route had to be rerouted during that time and that impacted the efficiency of getting the product to market," he noted.
For now, Heikkinen says the port will focus on the markets that it primarily serves while ensuring that both railways are operational to the port.
"We're very relieved about that," he said. "Now, during our busiest time of year, we are ensuring that we will be serving our markets to the best of our ability. And if some excess grain comes this way that would otherwise go in another direction, we are able to accommodate that in Thunder Bay."
It has been a busy season with a variety of different shipments moving through Kiefer Terminal. Infrastructure work also continues on two main capital projects.
Sandi Krasowski is a Local Journalism Initiative Reporter with the Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal
