In September 2016 the Council of Ministers Responsible for Transportation and Highway Safety agreed to establish a new Federal/Provincial/Territorial taskforce to identify areas that would benefit from increased harmonization in the trucking sector.
The taskforce’s mandate is to study interprovincial truck-related legislation, regulations and policies, with a goal of improving the efficiency of inter-provincial/territorial trucking, including by harmonizing these where warranted. The work of the taskforce will complement the efforts of other committees, initiatives and forums that are already working with industry stakeholders including the National Task Force on Weights and Dimensions.
Over the course of 2017 the taskforce sought feedback from industry to identify barriers facing the Canadian inter-provincial / territorial trucking industry and suggest potential short and long-term solutions for easing these barriers.
“CTA applauds the Council of Ministers for their leadership on this effort. To assist the taskforce in their mandate, CTA and provincial trucking associations put their heads together and offered input on 11 key issues that can be addressed to improve harmonization for inter-provincial trucking operations that focused on productivity, a level playing field, safety and the environment,” said Stephen Laskowski, CTA president and CEO.
Highlights of CTA’s submission include:
- The need to move forward in a consistent and collaborative manner on electronic logging devices (ELD’s) as soon as possible;
- The need to harmonize hours of service regulations in all jurisdictions with the federal standard;
- A call for increased collaboration among federal and provincial governments on truck parking and the development of a national strategy;
- Progress by all governments with respect to mandatory entry level training for professional truck operators;
- The need for mandatory drug and alcohol testing for professional truck operators;
- All carriers, regardless of domicile (Canada or US) be treated and monitored equally by carrier profile systems;
- Canadian carrier profile, safety rating and audit systems be given a formal review to ensure consistency and fairness in their application;
- Government and industry move forward and establish a minimum baseline across the country for wide, single tires that works for the Canadian industry;
- Improvements be made to the national weights and dimensions memorandum of understanding for b-trains and tractors with larger sleeper berths are implemented consistently and in a timely manner;
- For provincial enforcement agencies to intervene and end the practice of emissions tampering and;
- All jurisdictions move forward and implement speed limiter regulations.
“This is a great opportunity for further collaboration between industry and government,” says Laskowski. “CTA commends the provincial trucking associations for their efforts in contributing to our submission and looks forward to working with all interests in addressing the issues identified.”
For a copy of CTA’s submission, please click here: CTA Submission -Trucking Harmonization Task Force_public