Hamilton, Oshawa councils lobbying Ottawa for extra seat on the merged port authority board

Five years after the Hamilton and Oshawa harbour organizations merged to create the Hamilton Oshawa Port Authority (HOPA) the two cities still have to share the single seat allotted to the respective municipal councils on HOPA’s board of directors.

The merger was made official June 8, 2019 and both municipal councils have been calling for an extra seat on the board since then.

The two councils established a working group to figure out how to lobby Ottawa for the extra seat at the table and are looking – pending Council approval – to send a joint letter to the federal Ministry of Transport requesting the Letters Patent be “immediately amended” to allow for two municipal appointees, one from each municipality, on the board.

HOPA is Canada’s busiest Great Lakes Port, welcoming 665 vessels last year (603 in Hamilton and 62 in Oshawa) and handling nearly 11.3 million tonnes of cargo – about 30 per cent of Canada’s Great Lakes traffic.

HOPA was also named Bulk Port of the Year by the International Bulk Port Journal.