Our role
The National Supply Chain Office will work with industry and government partners in the context of major disruptions to Canada's supply chains (such as major weather-related events affecting infrastructure and operations), to: (a) better understand impacts on businesses, workers and supply chains; and b) support supply chain restoration and streamline requests for assistance from other industry, labour or government partners; for example by establishing a focal point to exchange information on operational impacts, as well as facilitating consequence management and capacity to support priority needs as required.
The National Supply Chain Office wants to understand how disruptions affect the transportation sector – now and during future disruptions. This information will help us improve how the government responds to disruptions and develop models to anticipate and estimate the impacts of major disruptions.
We want to hear from you
To help us understand how a disruption is impacting your organization, please see the questions below for some ideas on the information you can send us.
Please email feedback to: SCOffice-Impacts-BureauCA@tc.gc.ca. Include your name and the best way to reach you (contact information) in your email.
General information
- Which industry does your organization belong to?
- In which province/territory is your company located?
- Is your product a high priority or essential good? Please explain why. For example: safety and security, food/water/shelter, health/medical, energy, communications, transportation, hazardous materials, perishable goods etc.
- Where are your major markets located?
- Which are the most common modes of transportation (road, rail, air, marine) that your organization uses?
Impacts on your organization
- How are you affected? What are all of the disruptions experienced by your organization? (flooding, roads/highways, railway, power outages, evacuation orders, pipeline disruptions)
- How are your organization’s operations affected?
- What have you done to reduce the impact of supply chain disruptions?
- How much product do you need to move in the immediate future? Please specify the volume of goods and timeframes (for example: urgent need to move 10 railcars of grain in next 48 hours).
- How much volume/products do you currently have in storage?
- At what point does a delay become a significant impact? Explain.
- Can the product be moved/delivered via another route/port or a different mode?
- Explain what you’ve done to explore alternate producers/suppliers
- Is coordination with other organizations needed in order to smoothly restart?
Things that could get worse over time
- How many hours can you run your operations before significant impacts occur? For instance, when will you run out of storage, inventory etc.?
- Please explain how your organization will be impacted if your products don’t move soon (for example, would it impact communities, or lead to layoffs, production shut-downs, etc.). Please be as detailed as possible.
- Could you do more, if you had more support or could work with others on the issues?
- Have you tried all other options?
Recovering after a disruption
- How many days did it take to clear your shipments/return to normal?
- Did your organization shut down and, if so, for how long?
- By percentage, roughly how much did annual sales decrease during the year of the disruption? By percentage, roughly how much have sales recovered, or do you expect to recover?
- Did the disruption impact jobs? Please explain.
- Did your organization shift focus during the disruption? Please explain.
- Did your organization experience any other impacts?
Are there any other considerations, details, or comments?
Privacy disclaimer
You are submitting information or documents to Transport Canada on a voluntary basis, for internal use. The information will be treated confidentially by Transport Canada employees. Responses may be shared with other federal government departments and agencies in accordance with applicable federal laws. If information is shared outside of the government, it will be anonymized to ensure the protection of commercially sensitive or personal information.
Transport Canada may use the information for internal policy analysis to improve qualitative/quantitative economic models to estimate the impact of transportation disruptions to the Canadian economy. The information will also help improve the quality of disruptions response.
Transport Canada may be required to disclose information pursuant to any applicable federal laws, including the Access to Information Act (ATIA) and the Privacy Act. Transport Canada will use the mechanisms provided under the ATIA to protect confidential and/or commercially sensitive third-party information from disclosure to the extent possible in accordance with applicable exemptions under the ATIA.