Making Biggest Bigger: Port Metro Vancouver’s 21st Century Re-Structuring – Global Meets Local at the Asia Pacific Gateway

Abstract

Vancouver’s Port is Canada’s biggest. On January 1, 2008, it got bigger - restructuring the Port of Vancouver, the Fraser River Port Authority and the North Fraser Port Authority, into a single Vancouver Fraser Port Authority, marketed (as of June, 2008) as Port Metro Vancouver. This new entity was the culmination of a process of divestiture, re-organizational adjustment, shift to market orientation and consolidation that has played out over several decades across Canada’s ports. This article examines some of this recent history – both in terms of (i) divestiture and increased market orientation and (ii) more recently, major port consolidation - and governmental responses to ensure Vancouver remains Canada’s busiest port and a central part of the country’s Asia-Pacific Gateway and Corridor Initiative. (APGCI)