Ridley Terminals Inc : Ridley Terminals Inc. was created as part of a federal response to demands from the western provinces in the 1970s for support of coal development in the region. As part of the response, the National Harbours Board was given responsibility for facilitating the development of a terminal facility on Ridley Island in Prince Rupert, BC. The final result involved the creation of a new subsidiary corporation, owned in a partnership between NHB (90% ownership), and the Federal Commerce and Navigation Co. Ltd. (FCNCL), a private shipping company (10% ownership). RTI was thereafter incorporated and registered in Vancouver, British Columbia on December 18, 1981 under the Canada Business Corporations Act. Its mandated responsibilities were and continue to be "to construct, own, and operate docks, terminals, elevators, warehouses, storage facilities, and equipment to store and deliver bulk commodities." Construction on the terminal facility progressed between 1981 and 1983, and the first coal loading took place on January 7, 1984.
RTI's head office was re-registered in Prince Rupert, BC on April 7, 1993, and only a few months later, on July 31, 1991, FCNCL sold all of its RTI shares to the Canada Ports Corporation (CPC - the successor of NHB), making RTI a wholly-owned subsidiary of CPC. Not long after, the passage of the Canada Marine Act of 1998 precipitated the replacement of CPC with a different system that turned strategic ports, like Prince Rupert, into separate federal Port Authorities. On November 1, 2000, CPC was dissolved and the CPC shares of RTI were transferred to the Crown under the administration of Transport Canada at a value of $90,000,000. Afterwards, RTI became a Crown corporation under the responsibility of the Minister of Transport, as identified in s.143 of the Canada Marine Act. Its head office was re-registered in Vancouver on August 25, 2000. The terminal facility continues to sit in Prince Rupert, located on land leased from the Prince Rupert Port Authority.
Over its life within the Government of Canada, RTI saw varying levels of success and profitability following its incorporation. It was not until 2010 that RTI finally met the capacity that it had been built for back in the 1980s. Global market turbulence also precipitated attempts to diversify. Towards that goal, RTI pursued the Ridley Island Propane Export Terminal project, which was completed in 2019 as Canada's first west coast propane export terminal. The terminal is owned and operated by AltaGas, while residing on sub-leased RTI land.
There were four attempts to sell RTI to private interests over its lifetime. An attempt in the mid-1990s was unsuccessful, with no bidders. A second attempt in 2003-05 resulted in only a single viable offer, but Prime Minister Stephen Harper ordered a halt to the sale on his first day in office, citing the "fire sale" price. A third attempt occurred later in 2012 under the Harper government, when RTI had become more profitable, but the sale was reported to have stalled when accommodation issues with Indigenous groups could not be resolved. A fourth sale was attempted in 2018 under the Trudeau government and was successfully resolved in 2019, with a competitive sale process opening November 5, 2018, and a public sale announcement on July 11, 2019. Ownership of RTI was officially transferred to its new owners on December 20, 2019. The new majority-holding owners include Riverstone Holdings and AMCI Group. A 10-percent stake in the company was also transferred to the Lax Kw'alaams Band and the Metlakatla First Nation.
