CentrePort
trucking industry is located in and around CentrePort Canada.
Winnipeg lies just an hour north of the American border and is
within a 24-hour drive of more than 100 million people. It’s also
the northern end of the so-called “NAFTA highway” road net-
work that rumbles south through the American heartland to
the Mexican border.
“It’s an interesting challenge with so many stakeholders and
such a large, ambitious concept to keep things moving forward
in a project that is going to take decades to fully develop,” says
Gray. “There are so many moving parts. We had to bring essen-
tial infrastructure such as hydro and natural gas into what was
essentially agricultural land.”
Gray says the concept of CentrePort Canada as an “inland
port” is somewhat new to Canadians who are used to thinking
about ports strictly in terms of waterfront docks, oceangoing
freighters and squawking seagulls.
“It’s a business concept that’s probably better understood in
the U.S. than in Canada. You think of established American cen-
tres like Kansas City, Chicago, Dallas and Memphis as inland
ports,” she adds.
Inland ports integrate serviced industrial land, multiple
transportation modes, business support such as foreign trade
zones and built-in supply chain efficiencies for prospective
tenants.
Gray says understanding your strengths and selling points is
essential for a project like CentrePort Canada in a highly com-
petitive business world still emerging from a serious economic
downturn. Winnipeg’s and Manitoba’s strengths include the
lowest electricity costs in North America, a skilled workforce
and natural geographic locale.
“You can’t be all things to all people. Companies know where
their customer base is. If you’re serving western and northern
Canada and the upper American Midwest, then CentrePort
makes a lot of sense,” says Gray.
While there’s a natural inclination in the entrepreneurial
world to take your business dream and run with it, Gray says
CentrePort Canada is going to be developed in measured stag-
es that make responsible, economic sense. To date, about
250 acres are in various stages of development, involving 44
companies.
The current five-year focus is on developing the 700-acre
Rail Park, designed to meet the needs of rail-intensive business
partners. The first anchor will be BroadGrain Commodities’
$25-million bulk grain handling and bean processing complex.
A key initiative going forward is the promotion of a “sin-
gle-window” approach to help potential CentrePort Canada
investors navigate the development process.
“We want to help streamline the development decision
process — to take the guesswork out of the equation for compa-
nies,” says Gray. “Companies are looking for consistency and we
want to make the process transparent, to make the rules clear
from Day 1.”
CentrePort Canada has identified six areas of particular eco-
nomic focus in its development plans: agribusiness and food
processing, manufacturing, mining and energy, biomedical,
transportation and logistics and e-commerce.
28 • SUPPLYCHAINCANADA.CA • SCMA
“Those priorities are in alignment with Manitoba’s cur-
rent economy, but we also want to drill down more into
sectors like agribusiness. We want to see if there are advan-
tages at CentrePort Canada that we haven’t fully considered
yet,” says Gray.
With the future of NAFTA and international trade in general
a hot button issue under the Trump administration, CentrePort
Canada has been vigorously pursuing potential new opportuni-
ties with the Mexican government and business partners.
“We think we can play an important role in fos