February 20, 2023 | Category: Published Articles

(Published by The Hill Times)

The golden hour in transportation is now
It’s time for action to support the ailing transportation industry.

For 50 years, the Western Transportation Advisory Council (WESTAC) has been navigating the challenges of promoting system-wide, strategic advancement of transportation and goods movement in Western Canada. The organization was envisioned at a Vancouver transportation conference, where it was understood that a comprehensive, multimodal, interdisciplinary, and regional outlook was necessary to address transportation issues.

Today, the council is still comprised of a group of committed, experienced industry, labour, and government leaders who recognize that transportation issues have long horizons and require a sustained, collective commitment. Many of the same issues that led to the creation of WESTAC continue to be relevant to the sector.

WESTAC conducts an annual survey that gathers critical insights, expectations, and plans articulated by leaders and executives in Western Canada’s transportation sector. This data is shared with the broader transportation community in the Compass Report, a health check on the state of transportation and supply chains in Canada.

The 2023 Compass results are in, and the patient is dying. Compass respondents indicate that Canadian competitiveness is declining, and our reputation is worsening, as are our resiliency and overall business outlook. Surprisingly, even views on the ability of supply-chain partners to collaborate effectively have significantly deteriorated. We seem to be in the transportation equivalent of the golden hour, the period that critically injured patients need to receive care, after which mortality significantly increases.

Transportation leaders in Canada understand that a long-term, coordinated infrastructure plan is required to save the patient. There has been a call for such a plan for years, most recently in the report produced by the National Supply Chain Task Force appointed by Minister of Transport Omar Alghabra. The task force report included short- and long-term recommendations to increase competition, access, reliability, resiliency, efficiency, and investment in the transportation supply chain. The most notable recommendation was to create a long-term transportation supply-chain strategy, including initiating a review and revision of regulations. 

As a resource-abundant trading nation, Canada must urgently respond to the task force recommendations. Our economic success is founded on our ability to move goods to market promptly and predictably. As our transportation systems falter, so does our economic prosperity.

Just as the federal government and provinces are seeking agreement on a generational fix for our ailing health care system, a similar focus is needed on Canada’s trade transportation network to support increased exports and provide governments with the revenue to fund health and other priority areas. The government needs to focus on infrastructure renewal, speed up approval processes, and harden transportation assets for climate change.

As WESTAC celebrates its golden anniversary, Canada’s transportation network faces its golden hour. WESTAC has a history of providing the information needed by leaders to tackle the strategic issues facing the industry and a collaborative forum to generate solutions. WESTAC remains ready and willing to facilitate an industry-led process to develop a Western Trade Corridor Strategy. In the spirit of the inaugural WESTAC meeting, it is time for industry, labour and government to recommit to the cooperative approach to addressing issues that ail the transportation system in Western Canada.

The golden hour in transportation is now.

Read about other Compass 2023 findings here.

Lindsay Kislock was appointed president & CEO of the Western Transportation Advisory Council (WESTAC) in January 2021, bringing extensive public policy and government relations experience to the position. Before joining WESTAC, Lindsay served as the vice president of corporate affairs for the Mining Association of B.C.