page_title: Hamilton-Oshawa Port Authority
section_title: Hamilton and Short Sea Container Shipping
hierarchical_section_title: Hamilton-Oshawa Port Authority / Port of Hamilton in Great Lakes, Canadian and North American Maritime Shipping Industry / Hamilton and Short Sea Container Shipping
caption_attribution_description: English: Container ship OOCL San Francisco, Halifax Harbour
context_page_description: The Hamilton-Oshawa Port Authority is a port authority that controls the ports in both Hamilton and Oshawa in the Golden Horseshoe region of Ontario, Canada. It was created in 2019 when the Hamilton Port Authority and the Oshawa Port Authority were merged by the Government of Canada. The amalgamated port authority replaced the Oshawa Port Authority created in 2012 and the Hamilton Port Authority which succeeded the Hamilton Harbour Commission in 2001. The port of Hamilton, located in Hamilton Harbour, is Ontario's largest and among the busiest ports in Canada. Both ports are located on opposite ends of the Greater Toronto-Hamilton Area.
  One of 17 Canadian port authorities created by the federal government, Hamilton-Oshawa derives its mandate from the Canada Marine Act. A 2010 study by Martin and Associates revealed that cargo transiting the Port of Hamilton is connected to $6 billion in economic activity and 38,000 jobs in the province of Ontario.
context_section_description: Beginning in the early 2000s the Port of Hamilton began investigating the viability of a variety of shipping routes to allow the port to expand into regular, containerized short sea shipping between producers and consumers in the Golden Horseshoe and the Port of Montreal and Port of Halifax. The port sees short sea shipping as a way to capture a share of the growth in regional road and rail shipping to and from eastern Canadian container ports. In 2015 27% of the Port of Montreal's expanding container shipping volume came from or was destined for Ontario with much of the trade volume shipped by transport truck down Highway 401. With increased Canada-Europe trade as a result of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, the development of larger container vessels and expansion of deep sea ports in the Maritimes "interlined" shipping to/from Halifax, Port of Saint John, and if developed Port of Sydney, Nova Scotia and inland Great Lakes ports including Hamilton could become viable.
  There is a significant public interest in increasing the role of short sea shipping in regional logistics. The public interest includes (1) reducing greenhouse gas emissions, (2) lessening traffic congestion on Highway 401 particularly between Montreal and Toronto and (3) maximizing capacity utilization of existing infrastructure, the St. Lawrence Seaway, which is currently only operating at about 50% capacity.  In a report submitted in February 2019 to the Canadian Parliament entitled "Establishing a Canadian Transportation and Logistics Strategy" recommendations included increasing usage of the seaway to reduce transportation bottlenecks.
  As of 2019, regular short sea container shipping between Hamilton and eastern Canadian, deep water ports has not been realized. However, most major ports in the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway system continue to advance the idea of short sea shipping generally, through initiatives such as the Highway H2O  marketing campaign, as most Great Lakes ports see potential for an increased, less commodity/industry specific role in regional logistics for marine traffic. Increasingly, government is also seeing the role increased regional maritime shipping can play in offsetting pressure on other infrastructure such as Highway 401 by allowing underutilized infrastructure such as the seaway to capture a greater share of the modal split between major, inter-provincial population centres.
caption: Small container ship (~5500 TEUs) in Halifax Harbour which exceeds St. Lawrence Seawaymax limits
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