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Transportation

Canada’s Largest Port Ranks 375 Out Of 400 In The World

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Trade Diversification Ambitions Face a Container Port Reality 

Alberta recently submitted its West Coast pipeline proposal to Ottawa’s Major Projects Office, a major plank in the federal government’s goal to double exports to non-US markets by 2035. 

For that to succeed, more of Canada’s exports will need to move by water, already the largest mode for non-U.S. trade by value. And container shipping is part of that. 

So how do Canada’s container ports stack up?

 The short answer: Not well. Rectifying that would help Canada meet its trade-diversification goals. 

Roads were Canada’s dominant export mode over the 12 months ending in May, carrying 37 percent of export value. But those roads cross just one border. Strip out the United States and the picture flips entirely. Water carries 54 percent; air carries 41 percent. Road  falls to 3 percent. Put differently, the infrastructure we’ll need to reach the 2035 target looks almost nothing like today’s. 

What is the Container Port Performance Index?

The Container Port Performance Index (CPPI), produced by the World Bank, is a global scorecard for container shipping efficiency. Canada’s performance should raise alarm bells.   

The Index tracks total time a container ship spends under a port’s control, from the moment it arrives in the harbour to the moment it leaves the berth. Rather than grading ports on a traditional scale of zero to 100, the index uses a statistical baseline centred on the global average and adjusts for the size of a vessel and its cargo volume. A negative score means a port is operating below that benchmark. It simply means that for the same job, a ship sits idle longer than at an average gateway anywhere else. 

The Port of Vancouver, which handles fully 42 percent of Canada’s container shipments, ranks 375th out of 400 ports worldwide in the newly released 2025 ranking, with a score of minus 92. That’s actually an improvement on minus 159 in 2024: a dismal 389th. Vancouver was among the 20 most-improved ports in the world year over year. But even after climbing 67 points, a hole this deep still leaves you in the hole.  

Vancouver’s CPPI score has been negative in five of the last six years, including a catastrophic collapse to minus 394 and 395 scores in 2021 and 2022, which also coincided with a historic BC flood that severed rail lines into the port for more than a week, layered on top of a pandemic-era demand surge hitting ports worldwide. Even so, strip those two years out and Vancouver’s score still never turns positive again. 

Vancouver is part of a broader Canadian pattern. Prince Rupert ranks 322nd, despite handling a meaningful share of Canada’s transpacific container trade, and its year-to-year swings are significant: from minus 10 in 2020 to minus 248 in 2022 to minus 54 in 2024. Montreal sits at 338th. Saint John is slightly better at 268th. 

The one major exception is Halifax, which has become a genuine success story: 29th in the world in the latest data, up from a middling performance just a few years ago, and 55th last year. Three of Canada’s busiest ports still rank in the bottom fifth of the world. Halifax proved it doesn’t have to be that way. 

The World Bank isn’t the only one flagging this.

A recent Bank of Canada analysis of satellite vessel-tracking data found that Canada’s rank for total ship capacity moving through its ports fell from sixth in the world in 2016 to 23rd by 2023, a steeper drop than almost any other major trading nation. Part of the reason: the newest ultra-large container ships carry more than 20,000 containers while the largest vessels Canadian ports can handle top out around 15,000. As a result, some cargo bound for Canada comes through a US port. 

Infrastructure isn’t the whole story. Labour issues also lengthen the time ships spend in Canadian ports, and addressing them matters just as much as modernizing the infrastructure itself. 

After Nutrien decided to build its new billion-dollar potash export terminal in the United States rather than in Canada, Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon, made an unusually blunt admission for a sitting minister about his own file: Canada’s transportation policy and supply chain management need to be the best in the world given the country’s geography, and right now they aren’t.  

Nutrien’s decision came even after the 2025 federal budget had already been tabled. That budget dedicated $5 billion, or 4 percent, of its $115-billion  infrastructure plan to bolster Canada’s trade and transport infrastructure. Whether allocating more to such infrastructure would generate a bigger bang for the buck is a fair question. 

Carney’s Ambitions

The PM’s ambitions depend on a clear-eyed read of where Canada’s port performance actually stands. The pattern holds across almost every major Canadian port, year after year, even as Ottawa doubles down on trade diversification. Halifax shows that the climb from a lower tier is possible. Until the rest of Canada’s ports make it too, the 2035 target will likely stay out of reach. 

For the Silo, Charles Lammam -senior adviser at the C.D. Howe Institute. 

Earth

Green Economy Creating Abundance of Opportunities for Businesses Worldwide

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World Economic Forum
 
The Multi-Trillion Dollar Growth Opportunity: New Report Shows Green Economy Expected to Surpass $7 Trillion in Annual Value by 2030
The global green economy has surpassed $5 trillion usd/ $6.88 trillion cad and is projected to exceed $7 trillion usd/ $9.64 trillion cad annually by 2030, creating an abundance of growth opportunities for businesses worldwide.

New report reveals that green revenues are growing twice as fast as conventional revenues on average, while companies involved in green markets often secure cheaper capital and typically enjoy valuation premiums.

Yet green markets are moving at different speeds, with mature solutions such as solar, wind, batteries and electric vehicles achieving cost competitiveness at the global level, while costly technologies such as low-carbon hydrogen and carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) require substantial support to bend the cost curve.

Learn more about the report here. Follow the Annual Meeting 2026 here and on social media using #WEF26.

Geneva, Switzerland, December 2025 – Businesses across industries are already benefiting from the strong growth of the green economy, the second-fastest growing sector over the past decade. A new report, Already a Multi-Trillion-Dollar Market: A CEO Guide to Growth in the Green Economy, finds that the green economy has already reached $5 trillion a year and is on track to exceed $7 trillion within the decade.
 
Developed in collaboration with the Boston Consulting Group, the research indicates that despite economic uncertainty and diverging environments, investment in green technologies continues to reach record highs. The report identifies the green economy as one of the world’s fastest growing sectors, outpaced only by tech, and highlights the advantages enjoyed by many companies embracing green solutions.
 
“Two years ago, in the World Economic Forum’s Winning in Green Markets: Scaling Products for a Net Zero World, we argued that pioneering in green markets is a bet that would pay off and that large-scale green markets would become a reality proving the business case. Despite the current headwinds for global climate action, this report shows that the green economy is not a distant opportunity but already a major growth engine of this decade,” said Pim Valdre, Head of Climate and Nature Economy, World Economic Forum.
 
The research shows that companies with green revenues often outperform across multiple financial metrics. On average, green revenues grow two times faster than conventional business lines across the market, while the cost of capital for companies with green revenues is typically lower. Firms generating more than 50% of their revenues from green markets often enjoy valuation premiums of 12%-15% on capital markets, reflecting investor confidence in their long-term resilience and profitability.
 
Technological cost declines have accelerated this trend, although solutions are moving at different speeds across markets. Since 2010, the cost of solar photovoltaics and lithium batteries has fallen by around 90% and offshore wind by 50%, making low-carbon solutions increasingly cost competitive. The report estimates that 55% of global emissions reductions needed to decarbonize can now be achieved with solutions that are already cost competitive, with another 20% addressable at minor cost premiums and 5% requiring a behavioural change. However, an additional 20% of critical deep decarbonization technologies currently face major cost disadvantages and will require dedicated policy and industry support to achieve cost competitiveness.
 
These cost declines follow massive investment in clean energy, increasingly led by China. The report finds that in 2024 China invested $659 billion in clean energy and is responsible for over 60% of new global renewable capacity additions through 2030. It leads the world in patents for solar, electrical vehicles and battery technologies, reshaping global supply chains and shifting the centre of green innovation to the East.
 
Lessons from the Leaders
 
The report features 14 case studies from members of the World Economic Forum’s Alliance of CEO Climate Leaders, showcasing how pioneering companies have turned participation in green markets into a competitive advantage. The report concludes with a CEO playbook, which shows how leading companies leverage growth accelerators – scaling technologies to cost maturity, shaping regulatory ecosystems and unlocking diversified finance – to win in the green economy.
 
“Three things are striking: the resilience of the green economy, with investments in green technologies jumping from record to record against a change in public headlines and sentiments; China’s leadership in manufacturing, innovation and deployment of green technologies; and the opportunity for companies operating in green markets to outperform and earn a premium in capital markets,” said Patrick Herhold, Managing Director and Senior Partner, Boston Consulting Group. “With projections to become a $7 trillion market, there will be many more opportunities for companies that act boldly today.”

About the Annual Meeting 2026
 
The World Economic Forum’s 56th Annual Meeting, taking place 19-23 January 2026 in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, will convene leaders from business, government, international organizations, civil society and academia under the theme, A Spirit of Dialogue. Click here to learn more.