OTTAWA, Ont. — Canada’s major container ports have held their own against their U.S. counterparts, but according to Statistics Canada the battle may soon heat up for overseas container traffic.

The ocean container shipping industry is undergoing changes that will impact on their relationships with ports, generating fierce competition.

A recently released Stats Can report, entitled The future for Canada-U.S. container port rivalries, explores how Canadian ports might fare in this increasingly competitive environment, based on their natural and artificial attributes, their competitive stance and their potential to meet the evolving ocean container industry.

The keys to the success of Canadian container ports have been a combination of natural endowments, investments in intermodal facilities and competitive pricing. These factors are likely to continue into the future; however, south of the border industry consolidation and publicly funded intermodal terminal and corridor projects are changing the rules of the game.