[3] The Port of Vancouver is also the world hub for Canadian shipping company, Asia Pacific Marine Container Lines.

[4] In 2005 the port handled 1.8 million total containers, 910,172 cruise passengers, and 2,677 foreign vessels.

Studies indicate that container traffic on the West Coast of North America is expected to triple in the next 20 years.

In order to meet future requirements, the VPA has examined options to increase the port's container terminal capacity.

With the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914, Vancouver's seaport was able to compete with the major international ports for global trade because it was positioned as an alternative route to Europe.

During the 1920s, the provincial government successfully fought to eliminate freight rates that discriminated against goods transported by rail through the mountains, giving the young lawyer of the case, future Vancouver Mayor and Canadian senator, Gerry McGeer, a reputation as “the man who flattened the Rockies.”[10] Consequently, Prairie wheat came west through Vancouver rather than being shipped out through eastern ports.

[11] The CPR, lumber exporters, terminal operators, and other companies based on the waterfront banded together after World War I to establish the Shipping Federation of British Columbia as an employers’ association to manage industrial relations on the increasingly busy waterfront.