Automakers and other manufacturers are looking to the skies as they seek alternatives to move products caught up in Canadian trucking protests that have hit supply chains on both sides of the Canada-US border, union and industry executives said on Thursday.
Protesters have occupied key border crossings between the US and Canada as part of demonstrations against COVID-19 pandemic restrictions and vaccine mandates.
With more than two-thirds of the C$650 billion (US$511 billion) in goods traded annually between Canada and the US moving via roads, the choking of key arteries has upended already stressed supply chains.
Photo: EPA-EFE
That has manufacturers, including automakers such as Ford Motor Co, looking for alternative routes and forms of transportation to move supplies.
Ford is looking at flying in some auto parts to a plant in Windsor, Ontario, that produces engines for popular models, an official with the union representing auto workers at the plant said.
Mike Stopay, the director of Toronto-area cargo specialist Pacer Air Freight, said he had received requests from some auto parts and pharmaceutical companies to transport products by air due to the protests on the Ambassador Bridge, which links Michigan and Ontario.
“All these parts are needed just in time,” Stopay said. “I can’t take the chance to sit around at the border for eight hours.”
“We are looking at all options to keep our plants running,” a spokesperson for Ford’s Canadian division said.
A spokesperson for Magna International said that the Canadian parts supplier “had to be a bit creative” by using other ports of entry into Canada and the US.
Matt Poirier, director of trade policy for the Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters trade and industry association, said that some companies were looking at alternative routes, but were running into roadblocks, as other sites were backed by traffic and protests, raising costs.
“What complicates it for manufacturers is that not only do they have to figure out the logistics of getting a truck there, but then all the paperwork they’ve done to move stuff across the border changes too,” Poirier said.
“So administratively it’s a nightmare,” he said.
The protests are the latest challenge for the auto sector on both sides of the border, which has already been wrestling with a global shortage of semiconductors.
Toyota Motor Corp, General Motors Co, Ford and Chrysler parent Stellantis said that they were forced to cancel or scale back some production because of parts shortages due to the protests.
Dino Chiodo, director of automotive at Unifor, Canada’s largest private-sector union, said that the union had heard that Ford was looking at alternatives such as flying to bring in parts to support production at an engine plant in Windsor.
“They’re looking at alternative methods to get the parts into the Windsor Essex engine plant so they don’t negatively impact their production,” Chiodo said.
Chiodo questioned how a group supposedly protesting for more freedoms was now leading to the closings of workplaces.
“The reality is that they are the ones causing us to be shut down,” he said.
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