The federal government of Canada and the provincial government of British Columbia finally came out on Thursday, offering to help settle the trucker strike at the port of Vancouver that has resulted in a huge loss and exasperated local business community.

The two levels of government are prepared to play a major role in helping reach a deal between the Vancouver Container Truck Association and the brokers, British Columbia Labour Minister Mike de Jong said Thursday.

With the talks stalled earlier on Thursday, mediator Vince Ready is expected to present the two sides with a set of recommendations on Friday aimed at ending the five-week strike, reports reaching here cited de Jong as saying.

He said he had spoken with Ready and was convinced a deal is close. He also said he was in hourly contact with federal Labour Minister Joe

Fontana throughout Thursday to ensure that the province and Ottawa can help pave the way to settle the strike.

The strike, which began on June 27, is costing the Canadian economy at least 75 million Canadian dollars (61.5 million US dollars) a day, the Vancouver Board of Trade estimated.

British Columbia's business community, which has been suffering the worst, has been demanding the federal government step in to end the strike. The Canada-China Importer and Exporter Association (CCIEA) staged a demonstration Wednesday through Vancouver and Richmond, sending letters to the mayors of the city.

Zhao Ting, a leader of CCIEA, voiced anger over the mayors' failure to meet the demonstrators and announced that a second protest will take place on Friday. She urged the governments to stop shifting responsibility onto each other and help end the strike as soon as possible.

The container truck association represents about 1,000 container truck drivers working for about 40 brokers. The truckers haul 40 percent of the goods arriving at the city's ports. The remaining 60 percent goes directly onto rail cars.

Source: Xinhua