From pains to gains: How Saint John wants to improve trade infrastructure amid tariff worries

U.S. tariffs have Saint John business leaders and the New Brunswick government eyeing infrastructure in the trade-reliant city, including a notoriously problematic west end intersection.

Envision Saint John CEO Andrew Beckett says the city has untapped potential in its trade infrastructure, and with ongoing tariff struggles from the U.S., the timing is ripe to broaden export horizons. 

Part of this involves improving the famously complicated Simms Corner intersection near the Irving Pulp and Paper mill. 

Beckett acknowledges the hardships that the tariffs will bring and says that they have already had an impact on the economic interest in the city due to uncertainty alone. 

"Over the past year to year and a half, we've been dealing with a lot of active files of businesses, industries that are potentially interested in locating some aspects of their operations to this area," Beckett said.

This interest, he says, has largely evaporated. 

"We had 22 active files last year. We're down to one or two this year because in the current uncertain climate, businesses are just holding back in terms of any investments, changing their plans and delaying their plans as they try to figure out this new landscape."

Saint John was thrown into the national spotlight last month when a Canadian Chamber of Commerce report said it would be the city hardest hit by U.S. tariffs. 

Out of the 41 cities in the report, Saint John came in No. 1 by a wide margin.

'How do we leverage that?'

Beckett said the city still has local advantages that — over time —- could work to broaden the city's export opportunities. He's advocating for leaders to focus on existing trade-enabling infrastructure.

"We've got a very active port that has existing trade relationships with Europe, South America and other places," Beckett said.

"How do we leverage that in terms of opening up more trade corridors for local companies?"

Craig Estabrooks, Port Saint John's president and CEO, said Saint John — offering harbours that can handle large vessels — has location advantages over other ports. 

WATCH | Envision Saint John says there is untapped potential with local infrastructure:

Saint John's business group sees opportunities to expand export markets

3 days ago

Duration 3:40

Envision Saint John says the city's strategic location and the current trade landscape present an opportunity to improve trade infrastructure — and to diversify exports.

"We connect seamlessly into three Class 1 railways and that's all through N.B. Southern Railway," Estabrooks said.

Estabrooks says that the port currently has five weekly services that go north and south, with destinations to Latin America, the Caribbean, northern Europe and the Mediterranean.

"So we have today an opportunity for Canadian exporters, if they should choose to look at trade diversification, we can help them do that today," he said.

Estabrooks says the port is currently focused on investing in larger vessels and hopes to add a Trans-Pacific service to the port.

"That's why we've invested so much in being able to bring in larger vessels because the fleet that goes transpacific is definitely larger vessels."

He adds that there is also untapped potential in the city's industrial parks.

Simms Corner: a key bottleneck 

Any increase in port volume, though, would mean in an increase in truck and train traffic at Simms Corner. 

Beckett said there is no better time for the city to seek federal funding for upgrades to Simms Corner, which is seen as a "critical bottleneck" in the national supply chain. 

"If we have increased container traffic coming through the port, there's an intermodal aspect of that that requires train traffic and truck traffic to move those containers," Beckett said.

"That's going to mean longer and more frequent trains and more truck traffic going through Simms Corner — which is already a problematic area. When we're looking at activities like reducing interprovincial trade barriers, bolstering up and securing that national trade corridor is quite important."

The federal government runs a National Trade Corridors Fund for infrastructure projects that manage the flow of goods and people in and out of Canada. Examples of this include airports, ports and railways.

Beckett said that arguing the intersection is a national trade corridor could potentially unlock federal funding.

The provincial government also recently expressed an interest in the area as well. At a recent council meeting, Mayor Donna Reardon announced she received a letter indicating the province had enlisted an engineering firm — EXP — to lead a redesign of the intersection, and is currently in the planning phase.

The letter, attached to the council agenda, says Simms Corner "is a critical component to supporting and advancing the many Saint John businesses that help power the provincial economy."

"This is more critical with the ongoing trade war imposed by President [Donald] Trump," said the letter.

The Department of Transportation and Infrastructure said in a statement to CBC News that the province is currently collecting "traffic data and identifying risks at the intersection."

"That's all going to take time," Beckett said.

"Retooling an export market that's taken 20-plus years to evolve to where it is now…it's going to take a number of years to really start seeing some of the efforts to reshape some of our export markets."