True Patriot Love - The Cost of Shipping In Canada

00:00:00.000 In the last couple of days, we've been hearing that over the last six weeks,

00:00:04.000 the cost of shipping here in Canada has increased by 120%.

00:00:09.160 And I know what you're thinking, it's because of the price of oil right now,

00:00:12.820 but that's not the reason.

00:00:14.540 We're talking about logistics in Canada today on TPL Media.

00:00:22.140 As always, our in-house expert on all things finance and economy,

00:00:27.540 Paul Micucci is joining me to talk about this.

00:00:30.940 You know, Paul, there's no denying in my life

00:00:33.660 the amount of logistics and trucking that I see.

00:00:36.320 It actually impedes my mornings.

00:00:38.940 It impedes my drive home.

00:00:40.840 I live in an area where so much warehousing goes on,

00:00:44.860 so much trucking goes on that you can just see.

00:00:49.740 I mean, it's in my midst every day.

00:00:51.940 This is a booming business right now.

00:00:55.280 Oh, yeah.

00:00:55.700 Well, and the prices are escalating.

00:00:58.360 You started the show, Mike, with a great stat.

00:01:00.480 And one I picked up a week or two ago is I was shocked at the percentage increase

00:01:06.820 that containers, shipping containers coming from Asia.

00:01:11.060 Now, for the audience and for everyone, if they don't know,

00:01:15.580 most of your metal shipping containers do come from China.

00:01:19.420 Okay.

00:01:19.800 So the major manufacturer, and that's because their mass production capabilities,

00:01:25.100 their lower cost production they've got steel on hand they don't have great steel but quite frankly

00:01:30.680 you don't need great steel for shipping containers so it works perfectly into their business model

00:01:36.800 or their production model for china so most of your most of your containers are coming from china

00:01:41.240 so when you say you know uh shipments have gone up 120 percent coming from uh asia into the west

00:01:50.000 coast of canada that equates to about sixty two hundred dollars for a container right so you

00:01:56.400 figure 120 increase up to sixty uh six thousand two hundred dollars is pretty significant when

00:02:03.420 you look at you know that amazon thing you're getting or whatever you're you're buying that's

00:02:09.060 coming from asia that's a that means that cost is almost doubling that's incredible so if i ordered

00:02:15.460 something now shipping on it could be as much as or even maybe more than the actual item that

00:02:20.640 i'm purchasing just had it the other day i ordered something for five hundred dollars it was coming

00:02:24.400 from asia got the shipping cost they came in and gave it to me to sign i'm like what do you mean

00:02:29.180 this is twelve hundred dollars i'm like shipping is higher than the the item yeah it's higher than

00:02:33.760 the item so again you know that said to me forget it i'm not doing it and then i asked the question

00:02:39.340 i'm saying i go why is shipping escalating so crazy high like why and these are shipping

00:02:44.600 containers i'm talking about why is it started to to mess up all of our trade and of course the

00:02:51.880 first thing came more tariffs well yeah and in fact you're right uh businesses hate uncertainty

00:02:58.180 more than they actually hate the tariffs i think because what we're seeing is a massive influx

00:03:04.800 of pre-tariff importing and exporting yeah remember our gdp mike so we did a gdp for

00:03:12.400 for listeners if you have a chance go and listen to our gdp shows but we are actually we have some

00:03:17.600 graphs there that show gdp before the first quarter of 2026 was still growing yeah you know

00:03:24.560 month over month we had two three four percent growth in gdp all of a sudden the tariffs come

00:03:30.720 uh q1 you see the impacts boom we went below the line yeah we went to technical recession which

00:03:37.120 you know we also did a show about um but it's a very interesting now we're seeing the cause and

00:03:43.200 effect so we're seeing the cause which was tariffs and the tariff shows now we're seeing the effect

00:03:47.920 and we're seeing these shipping prices escalate people like well how like why would a tariff

00:03:52.640 cause well it caused all this dysfunctional trade so 100 so now you've got warehouses

00:03:59.840 Because right now, capacity is really at the burst point.

00:04:05.900 Rail capacity, trucking capacity, warehouse availability is almost non-existent.

00:04:13.300 It's very difficult to get a container right now.

00:04:15.640 In fact, I think it's near damn impossible to purchase a container anywhere in Canada right now.

00:04:20.640 And over the last couple of years, three years specifically, and more so in the last eight months, illegal container yards, illegal truck yards throughout Ontario are being shut down every day just because the capacity and the expense to house these vehicles to be part of this cloud or bubble, if you will, of shipping is unmanageable.

00:04:45.020 Yeah, yeah.

00:04:45.600 Well, and it's going to burst, right?

00:04:47.100 It's about to burst.

00:04:48.000 We're seeing it burst, to tell you the truth.

00:04:49.460 but you think about it for those of you and just a very uh basic example so um end of 2025

00:04:56.460 you were seeing a flurry of activity right we were shipping things so we were trying to ship

00:05:02.520 things as fast as possible as we could anywhere so good whatever we were making things we were

00:05:08.600 manufacturing auto parts we were double time triple time that's why the gdp was so high because

00:05:15.040 quite frankly it was showing that it was showing that we were preparing for doom we saw the tariffs

00:05:20.560 coming and we were starting to get things moving as quickly as possible and getting them out of

00:05:24.160 here the problem is how do they get out of here they get out of here in shipping containers right

00:05:28.960 so these chinese shipping containers that had landed in country were being filled up and trucked

00:05:34.560 over now what had happened was we were still trying to bring things in we're still trying to

00:05:40.160 bring materials in as fast as we could it wasn't working the supply chain was breaking and the

00:05:45.920 supply management chain was starting to become uh offset by this rapid exporting of goods to try to

00:05:52.720 get them out of the country before they got hit by tariffs so we shorted on we we basically shorted

00:05:58.720 containers and so now these containers so think about it so now china who's getting hit with these

00:06:04.880 tariffs right so they're anything there's you know doing with the u.s they're getting hit with

00:06:09.600 tariffs china is then looking and saying okay uh canada may not be a good bet u.s definitely not a

00:06:16.460 good bet i'm going to start sending these containers to australia and i'm going to send

00:06:21.440 them to middle east and i'm going to send them so they start redirecting containers of goods

00:06:26.300 so these containers are shifting off all of a sudden we don't have right shipping containers

00:06:33.120 See what happens, and we should explain this, it comes off the shipping container onto the truck, from the truck to the warehouse, the container is then emptied and put back into circulation.

00:06:44.680 But at the moment, it's all gone.

00:06:47.620 Everything we could do, we put into containers and used to ship away. 0.64

00:06:52.100 We have no new containers arriving from China because they don't want to take the risk on us at the moment.

00:06:57.140 Therefore, the influx of just the container units is just not there.

00:07:00.900 plus our warehouses are already full of everything we so now let's well let's talk well hold on

00:07:05.900 before i just want to think combine this before we get off it i just want to go through combine

00:07:11.000 this with a couple other things which i think our dollar is weakening against the u.s dollar

00:07:16.580 the containers are valued in u.s yen and uh u.s dollars so quite frankly we're weakening as a

00:07:24.420 currency which is not helping us either because it's costing us more because we're paying in u.s

00:07:29.480 dollars and other currencies so quite frankly uh chinese currency so we are seeing a shipping

00:07:35.880 cost increase just on our pure dollar so that on top of the supply availability issues are

00:07:41.480 cognizant and then all the time the war so now shipping is all screwed up again because we have

00:07:48.120 the iran war in the middle east so there's a whole bunch of other shipping containers that are all

00:07:53.560 misdirected and stuck so yeah we're we're starting to see the impacts of of well based on it sounds

00:08:00.760 ridiculous and someone's yelling at the screen i know you are and i know what you're saying

00:08:04.920 and you're saying don't we have lots of steel and shouldn't canadians be making their own shipping 0.91

00:08:09.960 containers i was going to yell that but i'm glad you calmed us down yeah well we should quite well

00:08:16.200 you know what i think that we overvalue our steel because it's a better quality than

00:08:20.040 and then our steel pricing is not exactly cheap right no it isn't but no it's not cheap and quite

00:08:25.800 frankly what we had a market so those people say well we've had shipping containers i've bought a

00:08:30.680 shipping container the shipping container that i buy in my business quite frankly is from china

00:08:36.760 but i buy it used so when a shipping container gets too old it gets too dinged up it gets whatever

00:08:42.680 they put it on the block of a used shipping container and i found about this market years ago

00:08:47.240 and i used it for many businesses when i needed excess storage or temporary storage rather than

00:08:52.760 pay the rental fee i found it was cheaper and for most most times for a 20-foot container i was

00:09:01.480 paying you know between fifteen hundred two thousand dollars and for a bigger 40-foot

00:09:06.520 container i was paying about three thousand now you can't get used containers i was going to say

00:09:12.520 if you could get into that market right now paul you'd probably make a buck

00:09:15.400 Yeah, or if you had a bunch stored up somewhere,

00:09:17.620 but they're nowhere now

00:09:18.600 because they've all been shipped out, bought up, done.

00:09:21.500 So that used container market has actually been soaked up

00:09:25.100 and it's off the market now.

00:09:26.400 How many of those containers do you have?

00:09:28.960 Six right now.

00:09:30.360 Paul's going away on the road.

00:09:32.460 Give me a call.

00:09:33.400 I can empty those containers, make an offer.

00:09:35.360 But you're right.

00:09:36.220 Now, here's the other thing.

00:09:37.100 When you talk about these containers,

00:09:38.620 they used to become available.

00:09:40.600 Yeah.

00:09:41.140 But let me assure you what's going on with them.

00:09:43.400 and i wonder about the safety of the products inside them truthfully oh yeah many of these

00:09:48.600 shipping containers are going to container yards where they're just sitting outdoors piled up

00:09:54.680 up vast kilometer by kilometer yards of these.

True Patriot Love - July 19, 2026

The Cost of Shipping In Canada

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