Ron Crema, Port Alberni Port Authority (PAPA) chair and Ken McRae, vice chair, this month attended a gala reception in Vancouver on May 3 on behalf of the PAPA by invitation of the Federal Minister of Transport, Marc Garneau. Canadian Port Authorities fall under the Federal Ministry of Transport’s oversight.
The reception was the lead-in to the “Third Joint Ministerial Conference of the Paris and Tokyo Memoranda of Understanding on Port State Control.
The previous two conferences were held in March 1998 and November 2004.
Attending the gala gave McRae and Crema an opportunity to promote Port Alberni’s deep-sea port and its projects, such as PATH.
Both spoke directly with Garneau, which helped lay some ground work in advance of Zoran Knezevic’s, PAPA president and CEO, meetings in Ottawa last week that included a meeting with Garneau.
Federal contributions to address the aging port infrastructure and PATH are the priority discussion topics, according to PAPA director of public relations and business development, David McCormick.