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

Nipun Tiwari · CBC News

· Posted: Mar 29, 2025 5:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 11 minutes ago

U.S. tariffs have Saint John concern leaders and the New Brunswick authorities eyeing infrastructure successful the trade-reliant city, including a notoriously problematic westbound extremity intersection.

Envision Saint John CEO Andrew Beckett says the metropolis has untapped imaginable successful its commercialized 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 analyzable Simms Corner intersection adjacent the Irving Pulp and Paper mill. 

Beckett acknowledges the hardships that the tariffs volition bring and says that they person already had an interaction connected the economical involvement successful the metropolis owed to uncertainty alone. 

"Over the past twelvemonth to twelvemonth and a half, we've been dealing with a batch of progressive files of businesses, industries that are perchance funny successful locating immoderate aspects of their operations to this area," Beckett said.

This interest, helium says, has mostly evaporated. 

"We had 22 progressive files past year. We're down to 1 oregon 2 this twelvemonth due to the fact that successful the existent uncertain climate, businesses are conscionable holding backmost successful presumption of immoderate investments, changing their plans and delaying their plans arsenic they effort to fig retired this caller landscape."

Saint John was thrown into the nationalist spotlight past period erstwhile a Canadian Chamber of Commerce study said it would beryllium the metropolis hardest deed by U.S. tariffs. 

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

'How bash we leverage that?'

Beckett said the metropolis inactive has section advantages that — implicit clip —- could enactment to broaden the city's export opportunities. He's advocating for leaders to absorption connected existing trade-enabling infrastructure.

"We've got a precise progressive larboard that has existing commercialized relationships with Europe, South America and different places," Beckett said.

"How bash we leverage that successful presumption of opening up much commercialized corridors for section companies?"

Craig Estabrooks, Port Saint John's president and CEO, said Saint John — offering harbours that tin grip ample vessels — has determination advantages implicit different ports. 

WATCH | Envision Saint John says determination is untapped imaginable with section infrastructure:

"We link seamlessly into 3 Class 1 railways and that's each done N.B. Southern Railway," Estabrooks said.

Estabrooks says that the larboard presently has 5 play services that spell northbound and south, with destinations to Latin America, the Caribbean, bluish Europe and the Mediterranean.

"So we person contiguous an accidental for Canadian exporters, if they should take to look astatine commercialized diversification, we tin assistance them bash that today," helium said.

Estabrooks says the larboard is presently focused connected investing successful larger vessels and hopes to adhd a Trans-Pacific work to the port.

"That's wherefore we've invested truthful overmuch successful being capable to bring successful larger vessels due to the fact that the fleet that goes transpacific is decidedly larger vessels."

He adds that determination is besides untapped imaginable successful the city's concern parks.

Simms Corner: a cardinal bottleneck 

Any summation successful larboard volume, though, would mean successful an summation successful motortruck and bid postulation astatine Simms Corner. 

Beckett said determination is nary amended clip for the metropolis to question national backing for upgrades to Simms Corner, which is seen arsenic a "critical bottleneck" successful the nationalist proviso chain. 

"If we person accrued instrumentality postulation coming done the port, there's an intermodal facet of that that requires bid postulation and motortruck postulation to determination those containers," Beckett said.

"That's going to mean longer and much predominant trains and much motortruck postulation going done Simms Corner — which is already a problematic area. When we're looking astatine activities similar reducing interprovincial commercialized barriers, bolstering up and securing that nationalist commercialized corridor is rather important."

The national authorities runs a National Trade Corridors Fund for infrastructure projects that negociate the travel of goods and radical successful and retired of Canada. Examples of this see airports, ports and railways.

Beckett said that arguing the intersection is simply a nationalist commercialized corridor could perchance unlock national funding.

The provincial authorities besides precocious expressed an involvement successful the country arsenic well. At a caller assembly meeting, Mayor Donna Reardon announced she received a missive indicating the state had enlisted an engineering steadfast — EXP — to pb a redesign of the intersection, and is presently successful the readying phase.

The letter, attached to the assembly agenda, says Simms Corner "is a captious constituent to supporting and advancing the galore Saint John businesses that assistance powerfulness the provincial economy."

"This is much captious with the ongoing commercialized warfare imposed by President [Donald] Trump," said the letter.

The Department of Transportation and Infrastructure said successful a connection to CBC News that the state is presently collecting "traffic information and identifying risks astatine the intersection."

"That's each going to instrumentality time," Beckett said.

"Retooling an export marketplace that's taken 20-plus years to germinate to wherever it is now…it's going to instrumentality a fig of years to truly commencement seeing immoderate of the efforts to reshape immoderate of our export markets."