The Port of Vancouver is the largest port in Canada and the fourth largest in North America by tonnes of cargo, facilitating trade between Canada and more than 170 world economies. The port is managed by the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority, which was created in 2008 as an amalgamation of the former Port of Vancouver, the North Fraser Port Authority, and the Fraser River Port Authority. It is the principal authority for shipping and

port A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Hamburg, Manch ...

-related land and sea use in the

Metro Vancouver The Metro Vancouver Regional District (MVRD), or simply Metro Vancouver, is a Canadian political subdivision and Corporation, corporate entity representing the metropolitan area of Greater Vancouver, designated by provincial legislation as o ...

region.

History

Predecessors

Prior to the formation of the new authority, there were three separate port authorities in the

region: the

Port of Vancouver The Port of Vancouver is the largest port in Canada and the fourth largest in North America by tonnes of cargo, facilitating trade between Canada and more than 170 world economies. The port is managed by the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority, whic ...

, which was the largest port in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

; the Fraser River Port Authority; and the North Fraser Port Authority. The Vancouver Port Authority was responsible for the

, which was the largest port in Canada and the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (PNW; ) is a geographic region in Western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though no official boundary exists, the most common ...

. The port had 25 major terminals. The port first began operations with the opening of

Ballantyne Pier Ballantyne Pier (also called the Ballantyne Cruise Terminal) was a commercial and passenger dock of the Port of Vancouver, Canada, located at 851 Centennial Road. It sat at the west side of Rogers Sugar across the Canadian Pacific Railway tracks ...

in 1923. In 2005/2006, the port handled 79.4 million tonnes of cargo, 1.8 million containers, 910,172 cruise passengers, and 2,677 foreign vessels. The authority was responsible for 233 km of coastline from

Vancouver Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...

to the

Canada–United States border The international border between Canada and the United States is the longest in the world by total length. The boundary (including boundaries in the Great Lakes, Atlantic, and Pacific coasts) is long. The land border has two sections: Canada' ...

. The Fraser River Port Authority was created in 1913 to manage ports along the

Fraser River The Fraser River () is the longest river within British Columbia, Canada, rising at Fraser Pass near Blackrock Mountain (Canada), Blackrock Mountain in the Rocky Mountains and flowing for , into the Strait of Georgia just south of the City of V ...

. It was the second largest port in Vancouver and extended along the main arm of the river eastward to the

Fraser Valley The Fraser Valley is a geographical region in southwestern British Columbia, Canada and northwestern Washington State. It starts just west of Hope in a narrow valley encompassing the Fraser River and ends at the Pacific Ocean stretching from th ...

at Kanaka Creek, and north along the

Pitt River The Pitt River in British Columbia, Canada is a large tributary of the Fraser River, entering it a few miles upstream from New Westminster and about 25 km ESE of Downtown Vancouver. The river, which begins in the Garibaldi Ranges of the Coa ...

Pitt Lake Pitt Lake is the second-largest lake in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. About in area, it is about long and about wide at its widest. It is one of the world's relatively few tidal lakes, and among the largest. In Pitt Lake, there is o ...

. The Port's jurisdiction encompassed 270 kilometres of shoreline that border nine different municipalities in the

Lower Mainland The Lower Mainland is a geographic and cultural region of the mainland coast of British Columbia that generally comprises the regional districts of Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley. Home to approximately 3.05million people as of the 2021 ...

. In 2007, the port handled 36 million tonnes of cargo, 191,000 TEUs of containerized cargo, and 573 cargo vessels. The cargo at the port consisted of logs, cement, general cargo, steel, and automobiles. Its tenants included several large auto ports, making it the largest auto port in Canada. This entity was originally known as the New Westminster Harbour Commission, and then was known as the Fraser River Harbour Commission between 1965 and 1999. The North Fraser Port Authority was incorporated in 1913 as the North Fraser Harbour Commissioners. It was the smallest of the three ports and was located on the north arm of the Fraser River from the

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a Public university, public research university with campuses near University of British Columbia Vancouver, Vancouver and University of British Columbia Okanagan, Kelowna, in British Columbia, Canada ...

New Westminster New Westminster (colloquially known as New West) is a city in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia, Canada, and a member municipality of the Metro Vancouver Regional District. It was founded by Major-General Richard Moody as the cap ...

. The traffic of the port mainly consisted of logs and wood fibre. The port covered around 920 hectares of land and water lots and it handled nearly 18 million tonnes of cargo in 2004.

Merger

Although the ports were financially self-sufficient, the federal legislation governing the authorities generated some inefficiency because the legally separate port authorities were forced to compete with each other economically for business. This came to the attention of the local media in 2006 when it was found that the recently expanded Fraser Surrey Docks, operated by the Fraser River Port Authority in

, were sitting idle after their principal shipping partner,

CP Ships CP Ships was a large Canadian shipping company established in the 19th century. From the late 1880s until after World War II, the company was Canada's largest operator of Atlantic and Pacific steamships. Many immigrants travelled on CP ships fr ...

, relocated to the Port of Vancouver, which was already nearing capacity. Some critics opposed the possible merger as they felt the new authority would not recognize the unique concerns of the

. To increase the efficiency of the ports of

, the federal

Minister of Transport A ministry of transport or transportation is a ministry responsible for transportation within a country. It usually is administered by the ''minister for transport''. The term is also sometimes applied to the departments or other government a ...

permitted the three authorities to study the benefits of amalgamating in June 2006. The resulting report highlighted several benefits of amalgamation, and on June 16,

Transport Canada Transport Canada () is the Ministry (government department), department within the Government of Canada responsible for developing regulations, Policy, policies and Public services, services of road, rail, marine and air Transport in Canada, tra ...

granted a "certificate of intent to amalgamate port authorities". On December 21, 2007, the government of

published a certificate of amalgamation that allowed the three port authorities to merge into one effective January 1, 2008. The resulting entity became known as Port Metro Vancouver.

Post-merger

Since 2013, the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority also merged with Canada Place Corporation, which formerly operated

Canada Place Canada Place, co-named Komagata Maru incident, Komagata Maru Place, is a building situated on the Burrard Inlet in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It is home to the Vancouver Convention Centre East Building, the Pan Pacific Hotels and Resor ...

as a subsidiary of Port of Vancouver. On April 6, 2016, the port authority dropped "Port Metro Vancouver" from its branding and re-adopted "Port of Vancouver" to refer to Vancouver's port, while using "Vancouver Fraser Port Authority" when referencing activities or decisions of the port authority.

Responsibility

The Port of Vancouver is managed by the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority, formerly called Port Metro Vancouver. It was created with the responsibility for the stewardship of the federal port lands in and around Vancouver, British Columbia. It was created as a financially self-sufficient company that is accountable to the federal minister of transport and operates pursuant to the ''

Canada Marine Act The ''Canada Marine Act'' (CMA; ) was passed in 1998 under the stewardship of David Collenette, who was Canada's Minister of Transport at that time. It was intended to modernize Canada's most important ports and make "the system of Canadian p ...

.'' The port authority and port terminals and tenants are responsible for the efficient and reliable movement of goods and passengers, integrating environmental, social and economic sustainability initiatives into all areas of port operations. In 1999, the local port authority took responsibility for dredging the deep-sea navigational channel in the South Arm of the Fraser River. Previously, dredging of the South Arm and other secondary channels was funded by the federal government and undertaken by the

Canadian Coast Guard The Canadian Coast Guard (CCG; ) is the coast guard of Canada. Formed in 1962, the coast guard is tasked with marine search and rescue (SAR), communication, navigation, and transportation issues in Canadian waters, such as navigation aids and i ...

. the port authority spends CAD$15 million annually to dredge the shipping channel to a , although it recovers CAD$10 million of the cost by selling the dredged sand to cement manufacturers. Dredging occurs along the final of the deep-sea channel between Sand Heads and New Westminster. The annual dredging season starts in the middle of June and finishes at the end of the following February. Because of the dredging program, the Fraser River can handle vessels that are up to

length overall Length overall (LOA, o/a, o.a. or oa) is the maximum length of a vessel's hull measured parallel to the waterline. This length is important while docking the ship. It is the most commonly used way of expressing the size of a ship, and is also ...

(LOA), beam, and

draft Draft, the draft, or draught may refer to: Watercraft dimensions * Draft (hull), the distance from waterline to keel of a vessel * Draft (sail), degree of curvature in a sail * Air draft, distance from waterline to the highest point on a v ...

with tidal assistance. The draft limit was increased to the current maximum in 2003. Previously, the maximum draft was , which was increased from in 1976. The

under keel clearance In seafaring, under keel clearance (UKC) is the vertical distance between seabed and the keel or hull of a ship. It is used to ensure sufficient navigable water is available for ships at sea. Master mariners should ensure there is sufficient mini ...

(UKC) is for vessels shorter than in length. For vessels exceeding that length, the UKC is . The maximum

air draft Air draft (or air draught) is the vertical distance from the surface of the water to the highest point on a vessel. This is similar to the '' deep draft'' of a vessel which is measured from the surface of the water to the deepest part of the h ...

is . In 2014, the Port of Vancouver was the fourth largest port by tonnage in the Americas, 29th in the world in terms of total cargo and 44th in the world by container traffic. The port enables the trade of approximately $240 billion in goods. Port activities sustain 115,300 jobs, $7 billion in wages, and $11.9 billion in GDP across Canada.

Major initiatives

The Container Capacity Improvement Program (CCIP) is the port's long-term strategy to meet anticipated growth in container traffic, which is expected to triple by the year 2030. The program consists of projects that both improve the efficiency of existing infrastructure and explore opportunities to build new infrastructure as demand rises. CCIP projects include the Deltaport Terminal Road and Rail Improvement Project (DTRRIP) and the proposed Roberts Bank Terminal 2 project. DTTRIP will result in infrastructure upgrades that would increase Deltaport's container capacity by 600,000 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units), within the terminal's existing footprint. The Roberts Bank Terminal 2 project is a proposed marine

container terminal A container port, container terminal, or intermodal terminal is a facility where cargo containers are transshipped between different transport vehicles, for onward transportation. The transshipment may be between container ships and land v ...

that could provide an additional capacity of 2.4 million TEUs per year to meet forecasted demand until 2030.

North Shore Trade Area projects

* Western Level Lower Level Route Extension * Pemberton Avenue Grade Separation * Low Level Road Realignment * Neptune/Cargill Grade Separation * Brooksbank Avenue Underpass * Lynn Creek Rail Bridge Addition

South Shore Trade Area projects

* Powell Street Grade Separation * Stewart Street/Victoria Overpass

Environmental initiatives

* Enhancing

Cetacean Cetacea (; , ) is an infraorder of aquatic mammals belonging to the order Artiodactyla that includes whales, dolphins and porpoises. Key characteristics are their fully aquatic lifestyle, streamlined body shape, often large size and exclusively c ...

Habitat and Observation (ECHO) Program (2014-2021)

Terminals and facilities

Port of Vancouver offers 29 deep-sea and domestic marine terminals that service five business sectors: automobiles, break-bulk, bulk, containers, and cruise.

Automobile terminals

* Annacis Auto Terminals * Richmond Auto Terminal

Break-bulk terminals

* Fraser Surrey Docks * Lynnterm

Bulk terminals

* Alliance Grain Terminal *

Cargill Cargill, Incorporated is an American multinational food corporation based in Minnetonka, Minnesota, Minnetonka, Minnesota, and incorporated in Wilmington, Delaware. Founded in 1865 by William Wallace Cargill, it is the largest privately held c ...

* Cascadia * Chemtrade Chemicals * Fibreco * Fraser Grain Terminal * G3 Terminal Vancouver * IOCO * Lantic Inc. * Neptune Bulk Terminals * Pacific Coast Terminals * Pacific Elevators * Parkland Terminal * Richardson International * Shellburn * Suncor Energy - Burrard Products Terminal * Univar Canada Terminal * Vancouver Wharves * West Coast Reduction * Westridge Marine Terminal * Westshore Terminals

Container terminals

* Centerm * Deltaport * Fraser Surrey Docks * Vanterm

Cruise terminals

Incidents

In January 2019, the cargo ship Ever Summit crashed into a crane. There was no death or injuries.

Smuggling

The port of Vancouver is controlled by the East End Vancouver chapter of the

Hells Angels The Hells Angels Motorcycle Club (HAMC) is an international outlaw motorcycle club founded in California whose members typically ride Harley-Davidson motorcycles. In the United States and Canada, the Hells Angels are incorporated as the Hells ...

. In August 1994, a report co-written by Mike Toddington and Gary Fotia of the Canada Ports Police stated: "The Hells Angels have extensively infiltrated the operations of the port. Angels are among the first to board arriving ships. They unload the goods, place them for storage, load them onto trucks and prepare the necessary documents for shipping". Local 502 of the

International Longshore and Warehouse Union The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) is a labor union which primarily represents dock workers on the West Coast of the United States, Hawaii, and in British Columbia, Canada; on the East Coast, the dominant union is the Intern ...

(ILWU) was "littered with members and associates of the Angels. They are placed in key positions that enable them to commit crimes". In 1994, ten "full patch" Hells Angels worked at the port of Vancouver along with at least 30 people with Hells Angels associations. John Bryce, the president of the East End chapter, was a full time employee of the Port of Vancouver as was Robert Robinson and Al Debruyn of the White Rock chapter. Fotia told the journalists

Julian Sher Julian Sher is a Canadian investigative journalist, filmmaker, author and newsroom trainer based in Montreal, Quebec. He was an investigative producer for ten years then a senior producer for five years with the CBC's '' The Fifth Estate''. He has ...

and William Marsden: "They're he Hells Angelsin key positions to have anything moved to where they want it to be moved". Toddington noted that a number of the Hells Angels worked as foremen and that "you could have people putting the containers anywhere they want". In July 1997, the government of Jean Chretien abolished the Canada Ports Police and replaced the ports police with private security guards. The private security guards were and are paid low wages, which saved money as compared to the salaries of the Ports Police, but also made them open to corruption. Furthermore, the private security guards had no weapons, no powers of arrest, and no powers of investigation with the security guards required to report to the local police forces if they saw anything suspicious on the docks. The decision to disband the Canada Ports Police to save $11 million per year has been widely condemned by the police chiefs in port cities as marking the effective end of any effort to stop drug smuggling. Peter Bell, the senior strategic intelligence analyst for the B.C. Organized Crime Agency stated in 2003 that the Hells Angel control not only the waterfront, but also the trucking, maintenance, laundry and garbage services at the port of Vancouver. Bell stated "We see a gathering of players when a certain vessel arrives". Bell noted that a ship came in from Asia in the summer of 2002 at the Fraser Surrey port, a number of Hells Angels who worked as foremen at the Delta and Vancouver ports suddenly moved over to the Fraser Surrey port. Bell stated of the way that a senior foreman and a Hells Angel suddenly took a demotion to work as a junior foreman at the Fraser Surrey port: "It stinks. It sends alarm bells off to use; we knew something was going on". In September 2010, a government report stated: "“The presence of numerous members of organized crime groups (OCGs) as dockside employees of the Port of Vancouver, coupled with the ability to access the port by members of OCGs employed in the trucking industry creates a high-risk for smuggling at the port." A Transport Canada report in 2012 stated that the a number of Mexican cartels such as the

Sinaloa Cartel The Sinaloa Cartel (, , after the native Sinaloa region), also known as the ''CDS'', the ''Guzmán-Loera Organization'', the ''Federation'', the ''Sinaloa Cartel'', or the Pacific Cartel, is a large, drug trafficking transnational organized cri ...

Los Zetas Los Zetas (, Spanish for "The Zs") is a Mexican criminal syndicate and designated terrorist organization, known as one of the most dangerous of Mexico's drug cartels. They are known for engaging in brutally violent " shock and awe" tactics suc ...

, the

Knights Templar Cartel The Knights Templar Cartel (, ) was a Mexican criminal organization originally composed of the remnants of La Familia Michoacana drug cartel based in the Mexican State of Michoacán. The Knights Templar Cartel used to indoctrinate its operati ...

and the

South Pacific Cartel The South Pacific Cartel (Spanish: ''Cártel del Pacífico Sur'') is a Mexican organized crime group composed of the remnants of the Beltrán-Leyva Cartel. It is based in the Mexican state of Morelos. The gang has been significantly less activ ...

are smuggling cocaine into Canada via the port of Vancouver. The port of Vancouver is used to smuggle cocaine, methamphetamine, and heroin into Canada while also being used to smuggle cocaine and methamphetamine into Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia. Superintendent Mike Porteous of the

Vancouver police The Vancouver Police Department (VPD) () is the police force in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It is one of several police departments within the Greater Vancouver, Metro Vancouver Area and is the second largest police force in the provinc ...

stated in 2014: "Vancouver is an international hub for distribution to Southeast Asia and other countries across the water, where as you know the prices are significantly higher". Andy Smith, the president of the British Columbia Maritime Employers' Association, stated in May 2015 about the employment of Hells Angels at the port: "Yes, we are aware of who they are. They make no secret of it". A number of high-profile Hells Angels such as Larry Amero, Vince Brienza, Norm Krogstad, John Bryce, and Gino Zumpano have worked at the port of Vancouver. The hiring of workers at the port is controlled by the ILWU and the B.C. Maritime Employers' Association is merely responsible for training workers sponsored by current members of the ILWU. Several people on the executive board of local 502 of the ILWU have criminal records or ties to organized crime. A report by

in April 2017 stated that Port of Vancouver is corrupt as the reported concluded: "To facilitate their smuggling activities, OCGs rganized crime groupsare involved in the corruption of port workers, and have embedded members and associates within port facilities by way of legitimate employment... That it is certain that organized crime groups and transnational criminal organizations will continue to exploit vulnerabilities at B.C.’s marine ports to facilitate smuggling both into and out of Canada (emphasis in the original)". Australian officials have complained that most of the cocaine and methamphetamine in Australia comes from the port of Vancouver. Commander Clint Sims of the

Australian Border Force The Australian Border Force (ABF) is a federal law enforcement agency, part of the Department of Home Affairs (Australia), Department of Home Affairs, responsible for offshore and onshore border control, border enforcement, investigations, comp ...

told

Kim Bolan Kim Rosemary Bolan (born 1959) is a Canadian journalist who has been a reporter at the ''Vancouver Sun'' since her journalism career began in 1984. She has reported on minority, women's, education, and social services issues; wars in El Salvador, ...

, the crime correspondent of ''The Vancouver Sun'' that gangsters': "...tend to use some of the more trusted countries, if you like, that have good reputations around the world and also have a high volume of legitimate cargo coming out to transship illicit goods. We see cartels, particularly from Mexico, moving drugs to countries like Canada for that reason". Assistant Commissioner Mike Pannett of the

Australian Federal Police The Australian Federal Police (AFP) is the principal Federal police, federal law enforcement agency of the Australian Government responsible for investigating Crime in Australia, crime and protecting the national security of the Commonwealth ...

told Bolan that: "Vancouver port is a significant location for us as far as importation of drugs and transshipment of drugs. We see transshipments through a whole lot of ports. Vancouver is one of the bigger ones obviously". Michael Outram, the commissioner of the Australian Border Force stated: "Our per capita drug-consumption rate is amongst the highest in the world. And we also pay very high prices in Australia compared to a lot of other countries. So that makes, unfortunately, the illicit drug market in Australia very lucrative for organized crime and transnational organized crime. We’ve seen some high numbers of detections and seizures at the border". In Australia, one kilogram of methamphetamine sells for $200,000 Australian dollars ($180, 000 Canadian dollars) while in Canada one kilogram of methamphetamine sells between $3, 500-$4, 000 Canadian dollars. The Canadian Hells Angels have identified as key figures in smuggling drugs into Australia via the port of Vancouver along with the Australian Comanchero gang who distribute the drugs once they arrived in Australia. In January 2024,

Mike Farnworth Michael C. Farnworth (born July 23, 1959) is a Canadian politician who has served as British Columbia's Minister of Transportation and Transit since 2024. A member of the British Columbia New Democratic Party (BC NDP), Farnworth represents the ...

, the Solicitor-General of British Columbia, asked the federal government of

Justin Trudeau Justin Pierre James Trudeau (born December 25, 1971) is a Canadian politician who served as the 23rd prime minister of Canada from 2015 to 2025. He led the Liberal Party from 2013 until his resignation in 2025 and was the member of Parliament ...

to restore the Canada Ports Police, stating the "ports are a porous sieve for a lot of criminal activity that is taking place in this country, and we need to be doing a far better job of getting a handle on it than we have been to date". Farnworth stated that the way that Hells Angels control the port of Vancouver to smuggle drugs into Canada and out to nations such as Australia and New Zealand were a serious concern that could be best addressed by restoring the Canada Ports Police. On 23 August 2024, the city of

Delta Delta commonly refers to: * Delta (letter) (Δ or δ), the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet * D (NATO phonetic alphabet: "Delta"), the fourth letter in the Latin alphabet * River delta, at a river mouth * Delta Air Lines, a major US carrier ...

passed a resolution asking for the federal and provincial governments to reestablish the Ports Police under the grounds that smuggling at the Deltaport was rampant. George Harvie, the mayor of Delta, stated to the journalists Srushti Gangdev and Charles Brockman: "It’s no surprise we’re having such vast quantities coming in, because it’s very low risk for the cartels and the gangs that are shipping these products into our country; there’s very little risk for them to be actually caught". Peter German, an expert on money laundering stated for all of the year 2020 106 kilograms of methamphetamines worth $13.5 million were seized by officials at the Deltaport. By contrast, German noted that in 2023 one shipment of 6,330 kilograms of methamphetamine worth $1.5 billion dollars were seized by officials on a container ship that was destined for Australia at the Deltaport. German noted that the drug seizures represented only a small fraction of the drugs that were either shipped out or shipped in. German told Ganddev and Brockman: "Of great concern is the reality that Canada, once a source country for marijuana, nicknamed ‘B.C. bud,’ is now producing deadly drugs for export".

Books

References

External links

International Shipping in British Columbia
{{coord, 49.28795, N, 123.11267, W, display=title Transport in Greater Vancouver

Economy of Vancouver Port authorities in Canada