VANCOUVER—Dozens of cargo ships sit in the narrow inlet just outside Canada’s largest port, waiting.

On most days, there are about 25 ships in Vancouver’s Burrard Inlet.

Today, there are 50.

Dotting the water, they are reminders of the Indigenous pipeline fight that has disrupted Canada’s supply chain from coast to coast.

Inside the ships, hundreds of likely restless sailors are also waiting. They may not touch land for weeks due to a backlog at the Vancouver port.

“They have very little access to the outside world, so they are quite isolated,” said Peter Smyth, a senior chaplain with the Mission to Seafarers.

Smyth has met thousands of ship workers — seafarers — in the four years he has worked at the mission. When ships dock at the Port of Vancouver or nearby Deltaport, Smyth and others from the mission go to the vessel to see what the workers may need. Mission to Seafarers helps sailors access services when they land, facilitating money transfers, offering rides to a local mall and delivering parcels.

Workers on ships often don’t have access to wi-fi, Smyth explained.

“Most end up using a satellite phone on the ship or maybe a member of the crew has a SIM card and they will share it.”

Canada’s ports on both east and west coasts are working hard to mitigate the impact of the past week’s rail disruptions. It’s unclear yet what, if any, long-term impact there will be in Halifax and Vancouver.

But in the immediate term, at least some signs of strain are evident.

Thursday on the West Coast, there were 50 ships at anchorage, according to Danielle Jang, spokesperson for the Port of Vancouver.

Ships do not have permission to dock at the port if their cargo has not arrived yet and, because so much rail-shipped cargo has been delayed, the ships are having to wait outside of the port.

The congestion means the port has almost reached its limit on the number of vessels allowed to anchor near it, as the local port authority must ensure anchorages are still available for essential services. The Canadian Coast Guard said it has positioned an emergency tow vessel nearby in case any of the cargo ships need assistance.

The Port of Vancouver is as big as the next five largest ports in Canada combined. It enables the trade of about $200 billion worth of goods. One out of every three dollars of Canada’s trade beyond North America comes through Vancouver, according to the port.

“So any disruption is impactful,” said Jang.

According to the port, average anchorage time is one to two weeks. But if rail disruptions continue, the ships currently anchored at English Bay will likely be waiting far longer than that, said Robert Lewis-Manning, president of the Chamber of Shipping, an organization that represents the marine transportation industry in Canada.

Logistics companies already have a tough job matching up land, ocean, and air transport schedules. Any disruption to that system could take weeks to recover from, he said.

“You’re trying to match cargo coming from somewhere inland to a ship that is arriving from somewhere else in the world. Hopefully the two arrive at the same time and then you have an efficient loading,” he said. “As you can imagine, that is not the scenario we have at the moment.”

Protests in solidarity with the hereditary chiefs of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation in their attempt to halt construction of Coastal GasLink’s natural gas pipeline in northern B.C. have led to rail blockades across the country. CN Rail and Via Rail were forced to suspend large portions of their train service last week, leading to a flurry of temporary layoffs among railworkers and longshoremen.

Lewis-Manning spent 24 years as a senior officer in the Royal Canadian Navy, sailing around the world. Anchoring for long periods of time is unpleasant for any mariner, he said.

But the larger problem is one of reputation, he said.

“If carrier companies delay arrival, or starts diverting to other ports in North America, that tarnishes the reputation of Canada’s supply chain.”

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One carrier on the East Coast has done exactly that. The CEO of one of the world’s major container shipping lines said this week he’s diverting his ships away from the Port of Halifax and toward U.S. ports amid the protests.

Atlantic Container Lines (ACL) CEO Andrew Abbott said Thursday his container ships, which usually dock twice a week in Halifax, will instead be sent to ports in New York and Baltimore.

“It’s real simple: The trains aren’t running,” said Abbott. “With no trains, there’s no cargo, so we’ve re-routed everything via the U.S. There’s no possibility of getting that cargo in, so obviously there’s no sense to go to Halifax right now.”

ACL’s ships carry a thousand containers a week through Halifax ports. For the immediate future, those containers will pass through other ports, although Abbott said he’ll return ACL ships to Halifax as soon as the rail situation is settled.

“Hopefully it’ll just get resolved and it goes into the history books and we can move on quickly,” Abbott said. “That’s what I’m hoping for.”

The last report on the Port of Halifax’s impact on the economy of Halifax and Nova Scotia put the figure at about $2 billion. The ongoing rail shutdown, and subsequent diversion of vessels and cargo from Halifax ports will certainly take a bite out of that number, said port authorities, but how much exactly will remain uncertain for some time.

“We’ve been saying from the beginning that the longer this carries on, that there will be a cascading effect if this disruption continues, and that’s what we’re seeing right now,” said Lane Farguson, spokesperson for the Port of Halifax. “The impact is greater than just one shipping line. It is the simple reality that if there’s no cargo to pick up and you can’t drop cargo off, then there’s less reason for ships to call.”

Peter Hall, a professor at Simon Fraser University who studies ports and logistics, said the absolute economic impact of the rail disruption has been small so far — especially in Vancouver.

Whereas Halifax has one rail line, the CN railway, transporting goods in and out of the city, there are multiple rail lines feeding into Vancouver, including Canadian Pacific and Canadian National rail lines, as well as several American rail routes, said Hall.

“When a supply chain gets disrupted, there’s all sorts of activity that shifts from one place and one person to another,” he said.

“There is a disruption and it is inefficient, but the value doesn’t disappear, for the most part.”

Hall said if the rail disruption continues, logistics companies may start to divert cargo off rail lines and onto trucks, or companies may direct ships to drop off their cargo at the nearest U.S. port instead, as ACL has already done.

Kevin Piper, president of the International Longshoremen’s Association in Halifax, said he’s worried that the diversion of vessels might have long-term consequences.

“ACL has made this decision that their vessels are going to bypass Halifax until this blockade is over. And I see this as just being the tip of the iceberg unless something happens in the short term.

“The bigger picture is that once shippers and customers start using other ports, there’s always the potential that that cargo won’t come back to Halifax.”

The amount of time a container spends in a port is called the dwell time. Under normal cirumstances, the dwell time of a container in a Halifax port is measured in hours. Now, with the railway not running, that time is being measured in days.

“Now we’re at the point we’re (looking at) days and potentially weeks now,” he said. “So most of our containers are (usually) in and out of here within 12 to 24 hours, instead of being in here for seven to 10 days”

Piper said he’s also concerned about the finances of his members. His union represents about 600 longshoremen in Halifax. They don’t work on salary, so when ships aren’t coming in to Halifax ports, his members don’t get paid.

“We’ve got a lot of members that are going without paycheques for the last 10 days. And that’s only scratching the surface. If this goes on, it’ll be a huge financial burden on a lot of the members in Halifax.”

As the sun set Thursday over Vancouver’s English Bay, seafarers in the 50 cargo ships were waiting for good news.

“When they are at anchor, in some cases, they may not have been ashore for the previous five months as is,” said Smyth.

“There’s just the sheer stress of that extra time at anchor — you want to go home, but you can’t go home and there is a uncertainty.”

SM Steve McKinley is a Toronto Star reporter based in Halifax.

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