Clearing the backlog at the ports will take time

It's going to take weeks to clear the backlog of traffic that was stagged as a result of the B.C. port strike.

A lot of cargo is sitting waiting to be loaded onto vessels and moved out of the port.

CN's assistant vice president of grain, David Przednowek says the recent strike caused a number of delays for traffic flow.

"We're focused right now on implementing an orderly plan to resume our carloads and intermodal movements. So we've had a lot of traffic staged, waiting to move forward, pending a resolution and the fluidity of all of the facilities on the waterfront that were affected by the labor disruption. So, of course, there's all kinds of traffic that was stalled in the port that's got to move inland east, and we've got a bunch of traffic that's loaded that wants to move west."

He says for every day that the supply chain was shut down it will take many days to get back to normal.