Business groups say the work stoppage at British Columbia ports is the latest in a series of supply chain disruptions affecting Canadian businesses and the country’s economy.

Employers at most of the province’s ports locked out their workers Monday in a dispute involving about 700 unionized supervisors. Workers represented by Local 514 of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union have been without a contract since March 2023.

“It’s been absolutely brutal. I mean, the timing is really difficult,” said Pascal Chan, senior director of transportation, infrastructure and construction at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.

Canadian supply chains have been under considerable pressure in recent years, from labor strife to wildfires and floods to the COVID-19 pandemic, he said.

The latest disruption comes less than a year and a half after a 13-day strike by various workers at most of B.C.’s port terminals and just months after a nationwide work stoppage at the two largest railway companies of Canada.

Greater Vancouver Board of Trade President Bridgitte Anderson said the shutdown would disrupt $800 million worth of goods every day, warning it could put upward pressure on inflation.

“The Port of Vancouver is by far the most important port we have in Canada,” said Fraser Johnson, a professor of operations management at the Ivey Business School at the University of Western Ontario.

He said the port handles about 45 percent of the total volume of Canada’s ports, with the second largest being Montreal at about 10 percent.

“I think a lot of people tend to focus on what’s happening in the country in terms of consumer goods, automobiles, electronics, especially at this time of year, as we approach the Christmas holidays. end of the year,” Johnson said.

“But there are a lot of things that are exported out of Canada. So lumber, products like coal, for example, iron ore, are all shipped out of Canada through our west coast ports .”

Johnson said the longer the port shutdown continues, the more business bottom lines and the economy will be hit.

If it lasts several weeks, consumers might also start to see a bigger impact, he said.

But for some retail products that aren’t stocked as far in advance, the impact could be more immediate, said Matt Poirier, vice-president of federal government relations at the Retail Council of Canada.

Retailers are still catching up from previous disruptions as they approach their busiest time of the year, Poirier said.

“Those last-minute holiday products are coming in and they’re discontinued, so it absolutely won’t be long before the empty shelves start showing up.”

The 2023 British Columbia port strike cost manufacturers an average of $207,000 per day, Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters President and CEO Dennis Darby said in a statement Friday.

Chan of the House urged the government in a statement to “use all tools at its disposal to resolve this dispute”.

The federal government was relatively hands-off in last year’s port dispute, Johnson said – unlike the rail shutdown, where the government asked the Canada Industrial Relations Board to order a return to work and binding arbitration , which he did.

Despite the importance of Canada’s ports, Johnson said rail disruptions pose a more imminent threat.

“Railways touch most of the products that people consume at some point in the supply chain, so they are truly the lifeblood of the Canadian economy,” he said.

“Closing a port for a few weeks probably won’t be something people will notice, but … a rail disruption would have a much bigger economic impact and a significant direct impact on consumers.”

Fertilizer Canada also sounded the alarm on Friday about an impending labor disruption, saying ports are essential for exporting potash abroad and a shutdown would cost the industry $9.7 millions of dollars per day in lost sales revenue.

The organization said the 2023 dispute cost the fertilizer industry more than $126 million and had repercussions beyond the 13 days workers were off work: in the months following the At the end, Canada lost significant market share to Russia in key markets. said.

“We are once again on the verge of losing access to a critical trade corridor, and potash fertilizer will be one of the hardest hit products,” President and CEO Karen Proud said in a statement.

The organization asked the federal government to amend the Canada Labor Code to “ensure the continued movement of fertilizer products in ports during labor disputes.”

Nutrien, the world’s largest potash producer, said its marketing and delivery subsidiary, Canpotex, was exploring alternatives to mitigate the shutdown’s effect on customers.

However, a prolonged disruption could negatively impact farmers and food security globally, Shawn Churchill, media relations manager, said in an emailed statement.

On the other side of the country, the port of Montreal is also in the midst of conflict, with two terminals closed until further notice while around 1,200 longshore workers began the strike at the end of October.

“It’s a double whammy for us,” said Poirier of the Retail Council, adding that the disruptions in Montreal disproportionately affect retailers because it involves container traffic.

Retailers have learned lessons from the supply chain disruptions of recent years, Poirier said.

“Some retailers have been avoiding ports for months already in anticipation of this,” he said.

However, small businesses don’t have the same flexibility as larger companies, Poirier said.

“When the costs are exorbitant, which they tend to be, then they’re the ones who are really…worst off.”

— With files from Chuck Chiang in Vancouver

This report by The Canadian Press was first published November 5, 2024.

Rosa Saba, The Canadian Press