Canadian Shipping Statistics, 2007-2008 to Recent Years

Updated 2026-11-10

Canadian ports handled about 469 million tonnes of cargo in 2007 and about 464 million tonnes in 2008, according to Statistics Canada's annual Shipping in Canada series. Roughly 29 to 30 percent of that was domestic movement and the rest was international. Seaway data show 36.95 million tonnes moving through the St. Lawrence Seaway system in the 2025 navigation season, almost exactly the 2024 level. This page gathers the figures for both periods and explains what the numbers cover.

Short answer

Three kinds of numbers circulate under the heading of Canadian shipping statistics, and they measure different things. Port statistics count every tonne loaded or unloaded at a Canadian marine terminal, whether on a Canadian or a foreign ship. Seaway statistics count cargo that passes through the locks between Montréal and Lake Erie, plus the Welland Canal, and include traffic of both countries. Fleet statistics count registered vessels and their gross tonnage. Mixing them produces errors, so the tables below label the source of each figure.

How the main data sets are built

Statistics Canada, Shipping in Canada

Statistics Canada has published Shipping in Canada under catalogue number 54-205-X for many years. Its tables report cargo in thousands of tonnes, loaded and unloaded, split into domestic cargo (both ends in Canada), cargo to and from the United States, and other international cargo. The series also groups ports into four regions: Atlantic, St. Lawrence, Great Lakes and Pacific. The tables quoted here come from the archived 2010 edition, which revised the figures for 2007 and 2008 to the versions that later users cite.

A caution on revisions. A Statistics Canada release dated 3 February 2009 gave a preliminary 2006 total of 466.3 million tonnes, down 1.1 percent from 2005. The archived tables later show 466.6 million tonnes for 2006. The gap is small, but it shows why figures from early releases and from later editions can differ in the first decimal.

St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corporation

The Seaway is operated in Canada by the St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corporation, which publishes monthly traffic results in thousands of tonnes. Its season totals cover the Montréal to Lake Ontario section and the Welland Canal combined. According to Wikipedia, the Seaway opened to navigation on 25 April 1959 and was formally opened on 26 June 1959. It has 15 locks, seven on the St. Lawrence River and eight on the Welland Canal. Ships up to 740 feet (225.6 m) long and 78 feet (23.8 m) wide fit the locks, a size class often called Seawaymax. The same article puts typical annual cargo at 40 to 50 million tonnes, so the 2025 total of 36.95 million tonnes sits below that usual range.

Transport Canada

Transport Canada reports on the registered commercial fleet and on the ports it oversees in its annual Transportation in Canada publication. The 2024 edition covers the calendar year 2024.

Canadian ports, 2007 and 2008

The table below shows national totals from Statistics Canada for 2007 to 2010 in thousands of tonnes. Handled cargo is loaded plus unloaded.

Reading the 2007 and 2008 rows together, total handled cargo slipped by about 1.1 percent. Domestic cargo rose about 2.0 percent, to 138.1 million tonnes, while trade with the United States fell by roughly 4.7 million tonnes. The share of domestic cargo in the total moved from 28.8 percent in 2007 to 29.8 percent in 2008.

The collapse of 2009 is visible in the table. Total handled cargo dropped by 11.7 percent from 2008, and domestic cargo fell by more than 29.8 million tonnes. A partial recovery followed in 2010, with the total up about 9.8 percent.

Loaded and unloaded cargo

Canada ships far more than it receives by sea. In 2007 the loaded side of the ledger totalled 281.9 million tonnes (domestic and international combined) and the unloaded side 187.4 million. In 2008 the figures were 272.5 million loaded and 191.6 million unloaded. Domestic cargo is counted once on each side, which is why the domestic loaded and unloaded totals are nearly equal (67.7 and 67.7 million tonnes in 2007, 69.0 and 69.1 million in 2008).

Containers

Containerized cargo was a small share of the total. International containerized tonnage reached 37.1 million tonnes in 2007 and 37.8 million in 2008, which is 11.1 and 11.6 percent of international tonnage respectively. Domestic containerized cargo was under one million tonnes in each year (991.4 thousand tonnes in 2007 and 992.7 thousand in 2008). Bulk cargo makes up most of what the Great Lakes and Seaway fleet carries.

Great Lakes and St. Lawrence regions

Statistics Canada's regional table covers international cargo only, so it understates the activity of lake carriers that move grain, ore and stone between Canadian ports. Within that limit, the regions show a clear contrast.

In thousands of tonnes. The Great Lakes region rose 1.2 percent in 2008 and then lost 28.9 percent in 2009. The table itself does not break the cargo down by commodity.

The St. Lawrence region, by contrast, changed little between 2007 and 2008 and absorbed the 2009 decline with a drop of 5.5 percent.

Leading ports

The archived Table 13 ranks the fifty leading ports for the 2010 edition. Its grand total matches the 2010 national total of 450,030.1 thousand tonnes. Metro Vancouver heads the list with 104.7 million tonnes. Among Great Lakes and St. Lawrence ports, Montréal and Contrecoeur handled 24.8 million tonnes, Sept-Îles and Pointe-Noire 24.6 million, Québec and Lévis 24.6 million, Port-Cartier 17.9 million and Hamilton 11.4 million. Thunder Bay handled 6.8 million tonnes, of which 4.9 million was domestic cargo.

The Seaway in 2024 and 2025

The St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corporation's final report for the 2025 navigation season, created on 6 March 2026, gives the following in thousands of tonnes.

The report lists these categories as separate lines. Grain was the clear gainer, rising by more than a million tonnes. General cargo, a group that includes steel and project cargo, lost nearly 30 percent. Coal, the third of the Seaway's classic dry bulk commodities alongside grain and iron ore, fell by about one sixth.

Total traffic stayed level at 36.95 million tonnes while vessel transits eased by 21, which implies a slightly higher average load per passage. Liquid bulk, the category that covers petroleum products and chemicals, grew by half a percent to about 4.0 million tonnes.

What the major commodities are

Official summaries group cargo broadly, so the commodities below come from different tables and years. Only the 2025 Seaway figures are current; the Statistics Canada changes refer to 2011.

• Grain. Statistics Canada's 2011 review lists wheat and canola among the drivers of domestic growth, with Great Lakes domestic canola up 0.6 million tonnes (57.6 percent) and wheat up 0.6 million tonnes (14.5 percent) in 2011.
• Iron ore. In 2011 the St. Lawrence region's domestic iron ore and concentrates rose 0.9 million tonnes (22.1 percent). Seaway iron ore was 4.9 million tonnes in 2025.
• Coal. Coal moves in both directions. In 2011 inbound coal from the United States fell 3.0 million tonnes (27.0 percent), and the Seaway recorded 1.6 million tonnes in 2025.
• Salt, stone and aggregates. Statistics Canada groups limestone and other aggregates under stone, sand, gravel and crushed stone. In 2011 Great Lakes domestic salt rose 1.0 million tonnes (33.3 percent), while stone, sand, gravel and crushed stone fell 0.8 million tonnes (20.8 percent).
• Petroleum. In 2011 domestic fuel oils rose 2.0 million tonnes (26.7 percent) and crude petroleum 2.2 million tonnes (8.3 percent). Liquid bulk through the Seaway was 4.0 million tonnes in 2025.

The fleet

Registered commercial vessels

Transport Canada's 2024 marine overview states that, as of December 2024, 210 commercial registered vessels of 1,000 gross tonnage and above were on the Canadian registry, with about 2.3 million gross tonnage combined. Canadian-registered vessels carry roughly 99 percent of domestic gross tonnage. The overview lists 68 passenger ferries registered nationwide in 2023.

The headline total does not describe the Great Lakes bulk fleet alone, since the registry also includes tankers, ocean-going ships, ferries and offshore vessels.

Canadian ships on Canada-United States routes

Statistics Canada's 2011 review states that Canadian-registered vessels carried 89.4 percent of Canada to Great Lakes tonnage that year, up from 86.4 percent in 2010. That share shows how heavily Canada-US lake trade relies on the Canadian fleet.

Ports and traffic overviews from Transport Canada

The 2024 overview records 17 ports run by Canada Port Authorities and 34 port facilities owned and operated directly by Transport Canada. Containerized volume at the four largest container ports rose 4.6 percent in 2024, led by Vancouver (up 11.1 percent) and Prince Rupert (up 5.0 percent), while Montréal fell 4.8 percent and Halifax 6.8 percent. Non-containerized throughput at those four ports rose 2.1 percent. Cruise passengers at major Canadian ports numbered 3.2 million in 2024, up 5.7 percent on 2023.

Timeline of data points

Reading the numbers correctly

Comparisons between sources go wrong mostly for three reasons.

Units come first. Statistics Canada and the Seaway corporation both report thousands of metric tonnes, but American sources often use net (short) tons, and a figure in short tons is about 10 percent higher than the same cargo in metric tonnes.

Coverage differs as well. A cargo of grain shipped from Thunder Bay to Baie-Comeau appears once in the Seaway data, as it passes the locks, and twice in port data, once loaded and once unloaded. Only domestic cargo is counted on both sides of the port table, which is why the loaded and unloaded domestic totals are nearly identical.

Finally, tables get revised. Archived tables have been restated since first release, and the Seaway final report for 2025, dated March 2026, supersedes any earlier season-end figures.

Frequently asked questions

How much cargo did Canadian ports handle in 2007 and 2008?

Statistics Canada tables show 469,332.4 thousand tonnes handled in 2007 and 464,044.5 thousand in 2008, a decline of about 1.1 percent. Of the 2008 total, 138.1 million tonnes was domestic and 326.0 million tonnes was international, including 118.6 million tonnes to and from the United States. Cargo volumes then fell sharply in 2009, to about 410.0 million tonnes.

How much cargo crossed the St. Lawrence Seaway in 2025?

The final traffic report of the St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corporation records 36,953 thousand tonnes for the 2025 navigation season, against 36,967 thousand in 2024. Grain rose 9.29 percent to 12,907 thousand tonnes. Iron ore fell 3.01 percent to 4,924 thousand, coal fell 16.25 percent to 1,584 thousand, and there were 3,931 vessel transits.

How many ships are on the Canadian registry?

Transport Canada states that 210 commercial registered vessels of 1,000 gross tonnage and above were registered at December 2024, with about 2.3 million combined gross tonnage. Canadian-registered ships carry about 99 percent of domestic gross tonnage. Vessels under 1,000 gross tonnage fall outside this headline total.

Which commodities dominate Great Lakes and Seaway traffic?

Seaway reporting highlights grain, iron ore and coal, along with dry bulk and liquid bulk categories. In 2025, grain was the largest named line at 12.9 million tonnes, ahead of iron ore at 4.9 million and coal at 1.6 million. Statistics Canada's lake-region commentary also names salt, stone and aggregates, wheat, canola and petroleum products.

Why do statistics for the same year sometimes differ?

Differences arise from preliminary versus revised releases, from different scopes (ports, Seaway locks or fleet registry), and from units such as metric tonnes and net tons. For example, the 2006 national total appears as 466.3 million tonnes in a February 2009 release and as 466.6 million tonnes in the later archived table. Citing the table and edition used avoids confusion.

How big can a ship be in the Seaway?

According to Wikipedia, the locks accommodate vessels up to 740 feet (225.6 m) long and 78 feet (23.8 m) wide. The system has 15 locks, seven on the St. Lawrence River and eight on the Welland Canal. Wikipedia adds that only about 10 percent of current ocean-going ships can transit the whole system.