CIFFA 2024 Fall Forwarder

23 THE FORWARDER | FALL 2024 Export - We have a customer who dealt with an overseas buyer on longer contracts of sale (90 days to 1 year). As a result of the continued supply chain issues that have been happening in Canada, this buyer is now sourcing the majority of the volume from elsewhere in the world, and the Canadian exporter get a small portion of the volume they carried, and contracts of sale are on a single shipment of limited (30 day) basis.” There should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that disruptions divert traffic. Nor should you doubt that those disruptions can lead to permanent changes in shipping routes. An interview with a supply chain manager ** in Inside Logistics in November made this point: “In the past two years, we’ve seen East Coast ports steal import volume from West Coast ports as shippers looked to avoid backlogs and delays.“ Now as we look forward to the possibility of another disruption in the Port of Montreal, our members are seeing shippers begin to move away and find more reliable routings. There is no telling if these moves are temporary or permanent. Inflation costs have driven up worker demands while traffic has begun a significant decline – a decline that continues today. We fear it will be a difficult negotiation. To conclude my remarks: Following the west coast debacle this summer, Labour Minister O’Regan talked about an in-depth examination of the port industry, with a focus on the future of port labour. We would certainly be interested in such a study. We see European employers and unions cooperating to ensure competitiveness and decent wages, yet in Canada we seem condemned to strikes as a requirement of negotiation. We hope and believe it’s time for a better approach.” Notes ** Glenn Kopeke, who is general manager of network collaboration at FourKites - interviewed in November by Inside Logistics; Comment by forwarder: “The overall impact to us was not too significant, compared to what happened in Montreal a few years ago, which was brutal. I think a lot of this had to do with the fact shipping volumes are down significantly and in terms of getting cargo moving after the strike ended it actually cleared up pretty quickly. Coupled with this, many of our clients are still dealing with inventory surplus, again which would mitigate the impact of such a strike to a certain degree.” GLOBAL IMPORT/EXPORT CONSOLIDATION SERVICES OVER 25 DIRECT SERVICES WORLDWIDE NAVIGATING EXCELLENCE THROUGH EXPERIENCE L'EXPERIENCE EST LA "MER" DE L'EXCELLENCE WWW.GILLSHIP.CA AGENTS FOR IMPORT/EXPORT ICELAND MONTREAL 514-316-0630 TOLL FREE 1-800-501-1780 TORONTO 905-362-5500 TOLL FREE 1-800-501-1780 VANCOUVER 604-637-1044 TOLL FREE 1-877-445-5744 Vancouver Toronto Montreal Southampton HAMBURG Barcelona NHAVASHEVA SINGAPORE HONG-KONG XIAMEN KEELUNG NINGBO SHANGHAI QINGDAO BUSAN TOKYO XINGANG LEIXOES GENOA iSTANBUL LONDON ROTTERDAM PRAGUE