Transport committee  I'm not sure what that means.

Transport committee  Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here today. I'm Karen Kancens, vice-president of the Shipping Federation of Canada. We're the national association that represents owners, operators and agents of ocean ships that carry Canada's imports and exports to and from world markets.

Transport committee  Sure. I hate to keep going back to the same point, but I think we need that national overview. We need that strategy so that we can look at ports—at the role they play in the economy, at the role they play on a national basis and for their local communities and populations. In terms of our approach to the ports review, you can look at it on a port-by-port basis, or you can look at the changes you need to governance in the Canada Marine Act.

Transport committee  Statistics Canada used to publish an annual report on transportation with marine stats called “Shipping in Canada”. The last year we saw that was 2011. Yes, there are statistics on a port basis, but there's no comprehensive source that pulls all of that together and gives us a good view of what's coming in which port, what's going out, what the volumes are, what the trends are, and how the numbers have changed over the years, not in general terms but in port-specific and commodity-specific terms.

Transport committee  We have made the request on numerous occasions. Again, I think it's difficult to make good decisions when you don't have the evidence basis on which to make them. You need numbers to back up infrastructure investments and to back up dollars, and you need that broader view. You need to be able to compare regions, compare ports and see trends.

Transport committee  As far as we know, we have the national trade corridors fund. We saw the first round of funding applications, and there were Transport Canada criteria for fulfilling those applications. However, we really don't see an overriding strategy. We need something national in basis that also has a regional lens.