The president and CEO of the Port of Vancouver has hit out at government plans to privatise the port.
In a speech to the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade, Robin Silvester said selling the nation’s largest port was a shortsighted measure. He described privatisation as a “threat” to future growth.
Last month, the Justin Trudeau Liberal government hired Morgan Stanley Canada to review whether the country should sell its 18 federally run ports. A decision will be made in the new year.
The government is also looking at privatising the nation’s airports.
“The problem my organisation could end up being faced with is suddenly an amount of money we’ve been using to increase capacity in the gateway is now going toward servicing debt for a lot of money some entity has paid the government to take over the port,” Silvester said.
Silvester said his views were shared by many other Canadian port administrations.
