Inland port designated, aims to be trade hub
By: Bruce Owen | Winnipeg Free Press
Updated: September 11 at 08:44 AM CDT
There's not a heck of a lot there now -- mostly empty fields and the odd goose taking a breather before heading south for the winter.
Election offers opportunity to push inland port
But in the months and years ahead those fields northwest of the airport could help Winnipeg become the place it was always meant to be -- the gateway not only to the west, but every direction in between.
That process began Wednesday when the Doer government introduced legislation designating the area around Winnipeg's James Armstrong Richardson International Airport as an inland port.
The plan is to use the airport and its geographic location in North America as a hub to import goods from Asia and Europe and then distribute those goods throughout the rest of Canada and parts of the United States by air, rail and truck.
The inland port designation -- made official under the province's new CentrePort Canada Act -- also helps qualify the province and city for millions more in federal money to build new roads, rail lines and add new infrastructure like sewers and utilities around the airport.
"This is not going to be Winnport, this is going to be a success," Premier Gary Doer, referring to a similar plan 20 years ago that never got off the ground, said Wednesday. "We have everyone working together now. Why didn't past endeavours work? I don't think everyone was at the table."
The CentrePort process has already begun.
Two big things Manitoban's will notice first are improvements to roads. Inkster Boulevard will be twinned from Oakpoint Highway to the Perimeter Highway. The $68-million project, co-funded by Ottawa, will allow truckers to get in and out of the city faster and safer.
Last week, Ottawa and Manitoba pledged $85 million to fixing up Highway 75 from the Emerson border north to Morris. The project is also being done, in part, to deal with heavier truck traffic heading north and south.
The next step is realigning rail tracks. The CPR line runs north of the airport. With more cargo arriving by air from Asia and Europe, goods can be off-loaded to rail cars and shipped east, west or south.
Bob Silver, co-chair of Doer's Economic Advisory Council, said the hope is that when these things start coming together, more private investment will follow. That, in turn, creates jobs.
"Government will not build a building that says, "Centreport", said Silver, co-owner of the Free Press and president of Western Glove Works. "Private business will build the buildings when the infrastructure is there, the roads and sewers."
Millions more in infrastructure funding from Ottawa is available, but the province wants to push ahead quickly with the plan before other Canadian cities, like Edmonton, get their fingers on it.
"We see this as the best economic opportunity for the province," Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce president Dave Angus said of the CentrePort project.
Critics say the plan is out of touch with economic and geographic reality. They say Minneapolis-St. Paul is better suited as a distribution hub, as it's closer to major markets and also connected by rail to ports on the West Coast.
"All they're doing is banging their head against the wall," trucker George Smith said, adding higher Canadian fuel prices means more goods go through the U.S. rather than Canada.
"There are not enough loads," Smith said. "There ain't no intermodal hub for that."
Tory Opposition Leader Hugh McFayden said he supports the project, but want to examine the province's plan to use tax-increment financing (TIF) to fund it. The TIF legislation, introduced on the last day of the spring session, is designed to create "tax-increment financing zones," which are areas where increased tax revenue from improved properties are shovelled straight back into the same few city blocks.
McFadyen said he's concerned TIF has already been touted as helping fund a new football stadium to building affordable housing, and the province is juggling too many balls under legislation that hasn't yet been past.
bruce.owen@freepress.mb.ca
What's an inland port?
It's a port with no ships. Instead, it features planes,
trains and trucks.
How does Winnipeg fit into it?
We're the Heart of the Continent. Winnipeg sits in the middle of North America. It's also situated at one end of what some say will be the supply line between North America and China.
How can that be?
Barry Rempel, president and CEO of the Winnipeg Airports Authority (WAA), said big cargo jets are being made to fly longer, but they will never be able to fly faster. Right now many land in Anchorage, Alaska to refuel. In time, they'll fly right over Alaska from Shanghai, but they won't have enough fuel to make Chicago. Where do they land? Bingo.
Yeah, but...
Rempel said these big cargo jets make their owners money by flying. If they land in Winnipeg from Shanghai, why not unload, refuel and load up again with something else and go back to Shanghai?
So, then...
Yup, that's an inland port. And all that stuff unloaded off that plane has to go somewhere. It can be loaded on a truck or train and taken to Kalamazoo, Mich., or Piscataway, NJ., or wherever. And stuff that folks want to ship to Shanghai, well, it can be trucked
up to Winnipeg and flown to China.
When is this all going to happen?
Rempel said the airport has already seen a 55-per-cent increase in goods moving through the airport in the last while. More will come as government builds new roads to handle the higher number of trucks coming and going from the city. The process will take a few years, but it's hoped that when those big jets land and unload, they'll be full of unassembled materials or components -- say electronics. And with any luck, some smart businesspeople will set up near the airport to put those pieces together and ship them out.
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