St. Lawrence Seaway strike costing Port Windsor $1.3M daily

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.”

Dwaddell@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/windstarwaddell