The leaders of the Ontario Trucking Association and Quebec Trucking Association are demanding both provinces develop a joint action plan to address the rampant non-compliance throughout the Quebec-Ontario trade corridor.
In a letter to transportation ministers Sarkaria and Guilbault, OTA president Stephen Laskowski and QTA president Marc Cadieux wrote how the exponential growth of the underground economy expands its grip on the trucking industry in both provinces.
Our member trucking companies base their business models on being compliant, safe, paying their fair share, respecting their workers and training them properly. Unfortunately, this is not the case for an increasing number of carriers that operate in the Ontario-Quebec corridor, particularly those domiciled in Ontario. The penetration of non-compliant operations in the corridor threatens the safety of the motoring public, other truck drivers and is causing safe and compliant trucking companies to exit the Ontario-Quebec marketplace,” they wrote.
This situation is being fueled by a lack of oversight and inconsistent enforcement that has enabled the takeover of the Ontario trucking industry by company owners who design their business model the underground economy and labour misclassification.
“While the policy and enforcement solutions to end this situation primarily reside in Ottawa, both governments and your respective ministries can take meaningful action to restore order before the industry is 100-percent in control of the underground economy.”
Some actions OTA and QTA believe could be taken by the provinces to address the problem, include:
- Truck inspection stations in the Ontario-Quebec corridor must transition to 24/7 operations; enforcement and inspection operations must also be enhanced on key trucking routes off Hwy 401 and Autoroute 20 & 40;
- Information sharing amongst transportation authorities to prevent jurisdiction shopping and chameleon carriers; and Ontario and Quebec need to highlight challenges with carrier safety fitness certificates nationally;
- Joint enforcement actions and blitzes with participation from provincial transportation ministries and federal and provincial labour, immigration, finance, revenue and tax authorities need to be institutionalized and enacted permanently.
- Truck operations found to be in gross labour non-compliance should have their CVOR or NIR Authorities reviewed, and if non-compliance continues, those operating privileges should be revoked;
- Adopt labour and tax compliance requirements upon application for CVOR/NIR certificates;
- Review and reconstruct truck driver training and licensing standards in both provinces, including a system of graduated licencing based on trucking configurations;
- Implement photo radar for trucks in the Ontario-Quebec corridor and reintroduce speed limiter compliance checks;
- Develop joint enforcement activities to detect non-compliance with diesel emissions controls on heavy trucks and make it illegal for heavy trucks to operate without emissions controls.
The letter also highlightedongoing work in the interprovincial trucking pilot to remove barriers for members transporting customers’ goods between the two jurisdictions.
OTA and QTA say a review of spring thaw regulations should be prioritized to determine how productivity can be improved on key road networks during the spring; as well as the revision of permit conditions in Quebec for Long Combination Vehicles to allow the transport of freight that does not require an emergency response assistance plan; and the adoption of permit conditions in Quebec for efficient car carrier configurations that are the same as Ontario.