VANCOUVER, (July 22, 2005) — Patience is wearing thin for several Canadian business groups whose members depend on the Vancouver port for their goods.

The Canadian Association of Importers and Exporters, whose members account for a significant percentage of Canada’s growing imports and exports, is one group urging the 1,200 independent container haulers on the Lower Mainland to get back into their trucks.

The owner-ops — represented by the newly created Vancouver Container Truck Association — have been off the job for nearly a month. They’re protesting wages, length of workday, and that they aren’t being compensated for rising fuel costs.

Talks between the truckers and carrier companies have broken down on two separate occasions. The two sides haven’t met formally since government facilitator Vince Ready was unable to broker a deal last week.

At the time, Bob Simpson of Team Transport Services said the truckers’ demands of a 30 percent rate increase were unrealistic and blamed the failed negotiations on the truckers’ “ransom-like” contract demands.

But after nearly four weeks, shippers and retails have had enough. “There must be a quick resolution to the Vancouver container trucker strike, which has transformed Canada’s largest port into a choke point of international trade,” the CAIE stated in a release. “Dialogue and compromise between the truckers and the trucking company-brokers must urgently replace confrontation.”

The group wants the truckers to show good faith by returning to mediation and to resume transport services while talks progress. “We can sympathize with the demands of the truckers to increase their revenues to offset soaring fuel costs,” the group continued, “but one must urgently look at the overall economic realities.”

Large retailers have begun implementing contingency plans by diverting large volumes of goods from Asia t o other ports on the coast. Smaller importers, says the CAIE, are being hurt as many of their containers are grounded at the Vancouver Port’s docks. And with the Christmas-stocking season around the corner for retailers, the worst is yet to come, says the CAIE.

“Surely, the independent owner-operators stand to lose more business if current cargo diversions to U.S. ports on the Pacific Northwest also become permanent ship diversions.”

Retail BC, the province’s retail trade association representing about 3,000 stores, is also pressuring the Minister of Transportation and law enforcement officials to step in and resolve the truckers’ strike immediately.

“BC retailers are incensed that the products they have bought and paid for continue to sit in containers instead of on their shelves,” says Mark Startup, president and CEO of Retail BC. “Stock is depleting rapidly and retailers are caught in the middle of a strike with no control over the situation – in short, they are being held hostage by an unorganized group of truckers who have set up illegal blockades.”

Startup says customers are losing patience and have started demanding refunds on their deposits, as they have not yet received their goods. “Retailers have already lost sales,” he says, “they are the victims who are subsidizing this strike.

‘This is one of a retailer’s worst nightmares… They have bought and paid for goods they cannot sell, while at the same time they are obliged to pay their overheads.”

But perhaps most damaging of all, adds the CAIE, is the perception among shippers that Vancouver is becoming an unreliable Pacific gateway — especially at a time when trade is booming with Asia.