A tentative deal was reached Thursday in a nearly two-week strike at British Columbia’s ports that caused “significant” disruptions to Canada’s economy.

“The strike is over,” federal Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan confirmed in a tweet after the union representing about 7,400 posted on its website that the two sides had reached a tentative agreement.

O’Regan said the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the B.C. Maritime Employers Association had accepted recommended terms for an agreement that he had presented to them a day earlier.

An official statement from O’Regan and Transport Minister Omar Alghabra said the parties were finalizing details to resume work at the ports.

Few details were shared about the tentative four-year deal, which must still be ratified by both sides, but the employer said the contract “recognizes the skills and efforts of B.C.’s waterfront workforce.”

The development comes 13 days after the strike kicked off on July 1, stranding shipments coming in and out of the west coast province’s 30 ports – including Canada’s largest port in Vancouver

Port workers had been pushing for higher wages and protections against automation and contracting out work.

Politicians and business leaders had warned of disruptions to the broader economy and called for the strike to end as the labour action dragged on.

As of Wednesday, the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade said there were 63,000 shipping containers waiting to be unloaded at B.C. ports.

Bridgitte Anderson, president of the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade, said businesses and consumers are "breathing a sigh of relief” with the end of the strike in sight, and cautioned that it may take time for operations to ramp back up.

“People are going to have to be patient,” she told BNN Bloomberg in a television interview, noting that 28 ships are waiting to be unloaded. “It’s going to take some time for operations to resume to normal and to see supply chains come back, and for products to be on the shelf.”

Anderson said her organization has calculated that about $9.7 billion in trade has been affected by the strike. She also made the case that the federal government should use “every kind of tool that they have in their toolkit” if similar situations arise in the future.

The government has the power to use back-to-work legislation to compel workers back to their jobs during labour actions.

"I think anybody who has been involved in a labour dispute wants to see a resolution at the table,” she said. “But if that can't happen ... when it comes to an issue like the ports and all the goods that are traded through the ports, it's imperative that the federal government intervene as needed.”

O’Regan and Alghabra’s statement said that the impact of the strike “has shown just how important the relationship between industry and labour is to our national interest,” adding that the deals made through collective bargaining are “the best way to preserve the long-term stability of Canada’s economy.”

“The scale of this disruption has been significant,” they said. “We do not want to be back here again.”

With files from The Canadian Press