CLEVELAND -- Mayor Frank Jackson will get a firsthand look at business prospects for Cleveland during a tour Wednesday of a Canadian port.

Jackson will lead a 13-person delegation of port, civic and union leaders to the Port of Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Adam Wasserman, president of the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority, has said docks and warehouses on the downtown lakefront could realize more business by linking with Halifax.

Big, ocean-going freighters carrying containers could avoid the congestion of East Coast ports by docking at Halifax and transferring cargo to smaller ships, as Wasserman and other business-development specialists on the Great Lakes see it.

The ships would ply the St. Lawrence Seaway to Great Lakes ports, including Cleveland. The vision has drawn skeptics. Cleveland receives no containers now. And such a service would face challenges, including stiff competition from railroads that don't want to lose container-moving business from the East Coast.

Jackson, who supports Wasserman's efforts to lure containers here, will check out the Halifax port's container terminal, cruise ship docks and a nearby industrial park today. On Thursday, the delegation will meet with a group that's developing a deep-water port in Melford, also in Nova Scotia. The delegation returns Thursday evening.

"We're hopeful that a mutually beneficial relationship will develop between our two ports," Jackson said in a news release.

The trip is the latest of the mayor's trips beyond American borders in search of international commerce. He's marketing the city as a gateway to the Midwest.

Others joining Jackson include port board Chairman Steven Williams; board members Robert Peto and Brian Hall; Chris Warren, Jackson's chief of regional development; John Baker, assistant general organizer, International Longshoremen's Association; and Ronn Richard, president of the Cleveland Foundation.

The port authority will pay for the trip, estimated at $10,000 to $12,000, a port spokesman said.