The St. Lawrence Seaway strike is costing the Port of Windsor $1.3 million per day in lost economic activity, and it will only be a matter of days before local companies have difficult decisions to make that will only amplify that impact, Port Windsor CEO/president Steve Salmons said Monday.
About 360 workers who operate the locks on the Canadian side of the international seaway walked off the job at 12:01 a.m. Sunday to back their wage demands.
The Seaway corporation is contracted by the federal government to operate the system.
“As a shipping centre, we only have a certain number of days to our season,” Salmons said. “The end of December, we lose shipping and we can’t get these lost days back.
“Everyone was aware of the negotiations and there’s been some short-term preparations made for a stoppage. It’s still costing the economy $40 million per day.
“By the end of the week we’ll see some nervousness and by the end of the second week there’ll be extreme anxiety.”
The St. Lawrence Seaway is vital to North America’s commercial transportation system.
It supports 241,286 U.S. and Canadian jobs and generates $46.8 billion in annual economic activity.
Salmons said the timing of the strike is particularly troublesome for the agricultural sector. Record grain yields have been enjoyed by farmers on both sides of the border at a time when grain prices and world demand are high due to the Russia-Ukraine war.
“Grain has a limited shelf life, so there are provisions in (Canadian) law that allow for grain to be shipped during a strike,” Salmons said. “I would expect that might be the federal government’s first directive during this strike.”
The Seaway corporation has already filed a legal request to start the process to allow grain to be shipped.
Salmons said one of the local firms to be first impacted by the strike will likely be Archer-Daniels-Midland’s Windsor operation that crushes soybeans and canola for oils and handles wheat. A lot of those products are then shipped to Europe and South America.
“They buy 70 per cent of their grains and soya from farmers in Essex, Kent and Lambton counties,” Salmons said. “Once they run out of storage space, they’re going to tell the farmers they can’t buy any more of their crops.”
Salmons added the Windsor Salt Company, which has already endured a lengthy strike of its own, also can’t properly service its biggest markets in the Greater Toronto Area.
The Port of Windsor processed $400 million worth of goods last year.
In addition to grain and salt, the major goods moved by ship locally are specialty steel for the auto industry and aggregate materials for construction.
With winter approaching, the auto industry is normally stockpiling these specialty steels, which aren’t produced in North America, to last until the seaway re-opens after the cold weather.
He said the region’s large construction projects — Gordie Howe International Bridge and NextStar Energy battery plant — won’t be affected by the strike as the American-controlled Sault Ste. Marie locks are unaffected by the labour dispute.
Salmons said Windsor handled 600 ships last year and there were another 6,000 ships that passed in transit through the region.
If the work stoppage continues, he said it won’t be long before residents see ships dropping anchor in designated anchorage spots in the Detroit River and surrounding lakes.
All ships in passage through the seaway leading into the weekend were able to clear the locks given the union’s 72-hour strike notice.
For now, Salmons said his clients have told him they’ll ride out the turbulence. There have been no delays of commercial ships arriving in Windsor yet, but a European ship carrying steel for the auto industry is due to arrive locally by the end of the week.
However, HMCS Glace Bay’s week-long visit to Windsor for a marine career fair and public tours was cancelled. The ship was supposed to arrive locally Tuesday, but the Department of National Defence feared letting one of its warships sail into the western lakes and then getting trapped.
The strike isn’t just impacting major corporations.
The voice of small and medium business, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB), released a statement urging the federal government to get the St. Lawrence Seaway open quickly.
“Small businesses were seriously affected by the long strike at B.C. ports and the supply chain disruptions it caused this summer,” said CFIB’s vice-president for national affairs, Jasmin Guénette.
“The last thing the Canadian economy needs right now is another strike blocking a busy trade route and impacting businesses once again. Small businesses are already dealing with inflation, labour shortages, heavy debt loads and weak demand.
“They cannot suffer from another strike that would impact their bottom line.”
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HALIFAX – Ottawa is negotiating a $500-million bailout for Nova Scotia’s privately owned electric utility, saying the money will be used to prevent a big spike in electricity rates.
Federal Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson made the announcement today in Halifax, saying Nova Scotia Power Inc. needs the money to cover higher costs resulting from the delayed delivery of electricity from the Muskrat Falls hydroelectric plant in Labrador.
Wilkinson says that without the money, the subsidiary of Emera Inc. would have had to increase rates by 19 per cent over “the short term.”
Nova Scotia Power CEO Peter Gregg says the deal, once approved by the province’s energy regulator, will keep rate increases limited “to be around the rate of inflation,” as costs are spread over a number of years.
The utility helped pay for construction of an underwater transmission link between Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, but the Muskrat Falls project has not been consistent in delivering electricity over the past five years.
Those delays forced Nova Scotia Power to spend more on generating its own electricity.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
TORONTO – Roots Corp. may have built its brand on all things comfy and cosy, but its CEO says activewear is now “really becoming a core part” of the brand.
The category, which at Roots spans leggings, tracksuits, sports bras and bike shorts, has seen such sustained double-digit growth that Meghan Roach plans to make it a key part of the business’ future.
“It’s an area … you will see us continue to expand upon,” she told analysts on a Friday call.
The Toronto-based retailer’s push into activewear has taken shape over many years and included several turns as the official designer and supplier of Team Canada’s Olympic uniform.
But consumers have had plenty of choice when it comes to workout gear and other apparel suited to their sporting needs. On top of the slew of athletic brands like Nike and Adidas, shoppers have also gravitated toward Lululemon Athletica Inc., Alo and Vuori, ramping up competition in the activewear category.
Roach feels Roots’ toehold in the category stems from the fit, feel and following its merchandise has cultivated.
“Our product really resonates with (shoppers) because you can wear it through multiple different use cases and occasions,” she said.
“We’ve been seeing customers come back again and again for some of these core products in our activewear collection.”
Her remarks came the same day as Roots revealed it lost $5.2 million in its latest quarter compared with a loss of $5.3 million in the same quarter last year.
The company said the second-quarter loss amounted to 13 cents per diluted share for the quarter ended Aug. 3, the same as a year earlier.
In presenting the results, Roach reminded analysts that the first half of the year is usually “seasonally small,” representing just 30 per cent of the company’s annual sales.
Sales for the second quarter totalled $47.7 million, down from $49.4 million in the same quarter last year.
The move lower came as direct-to-consumer sales amounted to $36.4 million, down from $37.1 million a year earlier, as comparable sales edged down 0.2 per cent.
The numbers reflect the fact that Roots continued to grapple with inventory challenges in the company’s Cooper fleece line that first cropped up in its previous quarter.
Roots recently began to use artificial intelligence to assist with daily inventory replenishments and said more tools helping with allocation will go live in the next quarter.
Beyond that time period, the company intends to keep exploring AI and renovate more of its stores.
It will also re-evaluate its design ranks.
Roots announced Friday that chief product officer Karuna Scheinfeld has stepped down.
Rather than fill the role, the company plans to hire senior level design talent with international experience in the outdoor and activewear sectors who will take on tasks previously done by the chief product officer.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Companies in this story: (TSX:ROOT)
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VANCOUVER – Mediated talks between the union representing HandyDART workers in Metro Vancouver and its employer, Transdev, are set to resume today as a strike that has stopped most services drags into a second week.
No timeline has been set for the length of the negotiations, but Joe McCann, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1724, says they are willing to stay there as long as it takes, even if talks drag on all night.
About 600 employees of the door-to-door transit service for people unable to navigate the conventional transit system have been on strike since last Tuesday, pausing service for all but essential medical trips.
Hundreds of drivers rallied outside TransLink’s head office earlier this week, calling for the transportation provider to intervene in the dispute with Transdev, which was contracted to oversee HandyDART service.
Transdev said earlier this week that it will provide a reply to the union’s latest proposal on Thursday.
A statement from the company said it “strongly believes” that their employees deserve fair wages, and that a fair contract “must balance the needs of their employees, clients and taxpayers.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
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