It’s about building their community, not just making money.
Tsawwassen First Nation Chief Ken Baird had that to proudly say at a grand opening celebration of the Tsawwassen Container Inspection Facility today.
Having begun operations earlier this year, the state-of-the-art inspection facility for Canada Border Services Agency, located near Deltaport on TFN industrial land, is to increase security and the examination capacity for goods arriving at marine ports of entry, primarily Deltaport and Fraser Surrey Docks. Previously, all containers identified as requiring further examination had to be trucked to an inspection facility in Burnaby.
The 55,000-square-foot Tsawwassen facility is double in size to the one in Burnaby and is designed to not only increase the number of containers examined but also reduce the average wait times.
Baird was among several speakers to talk about the new facility’s benefits, including employment opportunities for TFN members, all the while protecting the country.
“This facility allows our borders to be secure and gives officers the opportunity to ensure nothing is coming into this country that shouldn’t be here. This is the kind of work that often goes unnoticed, so you might say it’s a bit of a thankless job,” he said.
The Port of Vancouver's Robin Silvester with TFN Chief Ken Baird. Silvester talked about the lack of capacity the port will face in the near future.
Baird noted the TFN appreciates CBSA taking the time to understand their First Nation culture and ways.
Among the many developments now taking place at the TFN can be seen at the industrial lands including a new business park aimed at easing the growing demand for warehousing and logistics centres in the Lower Mainland.
In a recent interview, Baird noted the TFN has taken a pause on further marketing more industrial properties in order to be more “selective” but the plan is to eventually move forward.
Port of Vancouver president and CEO Robin Silvester was also among the speakers at today’s celebration, reiterating how the projected increase in containers volumes at the port will soon exceed capacity, saying the west coast will run out of capacity by the mid-2020s.
“With this significant growth and the reliance on Vancouver as Canada’s primary western gateway, we of course, see some growing pains and some stresses on our regional infrastructure, and that’s where this facility plays an important role in helping to respond to and remediate some of those stresses. It was built to facilitate the growth of Canadian trade, to ensure the efficient movement of container traffic at Roberts Bank and to ensure that Canada Border Services Agency can meet inspection targets to keep us all safe,” he said.
Meanwhile, the public hearing for the port authority’s proposed Terminal 2 megaproject at Roberts Bank that began last month in Delta continues in various other communities throughout the province.
The CBSA says it risk assesses all marine containers in order to identify potentially high-risk shipments.
The independent federal review panel that’s gathering input on the container terminal expansion was asked to adjourn further consideration until a proposal by Global Container Terminals, the current operator of Deltaport, for an alternative to be properly assessed.
GCT’s proposal is expand its facility to a fourth berth. Silvester told the Optimist today that there’s a lot of misinformation as well as facts not being said, including no thorough environmental assessment having been conducted on the fourth terminal proposal, something that would take years.
