Fair competition, safety, compliance, and law and order are critical components of Canada’s trucking industry that must be strengthened, Geoff Wood, Sr Vice President, Policy of Canadian Trucking Alliance, told the Canadian Senate Committee of the Whole this week.
Representing one of the very few industry associations invited to discuss Bill C5 – An Act to enact the Free Trade and Labour Mobility in Canada Act and the Building Canada Act – Wood was invited to address the Committee of the Whole. He outlined the trucking industry’s support for the removal of inter-provincial trade barriers, but also ensuring any policies don’t have unintended consequences of reducing road safety;negatively impacting fairness and compliance in the industry; or adding confusion and complexities to the enforcement of rules and regulations.
At the same time, the government must regain control of a trucking industry that has fallen prey to an underground economy, which is “runningamuck in the industry, primarily with respect to labour and tax non-compliance,” he said.
“We have been in a 10-year battle to bring law and order back to the industry and it’s been a slow-go, with little if any support from governments,” Wood told the Senate.
Wood explained that it’s a trade barrier that non-compliant trucking companies can go “jurisdiction shopping” and open up operations in another province or territory when running into compliance trouble.
“Unscrupulous trucking companies constantly search for the least restrictive regimes that have little to no accountability. This is directly related to challenges with jurisdictions not following various National Safety Code Standards and those standards being out of date,” he said.
In addition to developing an effective system of oversight and accountability for truck safety amongst the provinces and territories, Wood said other interprovincial trade barriers that need to be addressed include aligning winter road maintenance standards between jurisdictions, the need for more rest areas for trucks and commercial drivers on the national highway system, twinning of highway 185 in Quebec, amongst others.
He warned, however, the blanket term of “mutual recognition” as it relates to truck safety is not the answer for the trucking sector.
“The truck safety piece needs to get addressed, but in this instance mutual recognition is why we have this situation today; where there is no consistency, no information sharing, no accountability, no authority for other jurisdictions to prevent start-ups or the proper checks and balances to prevent operations from restarting and going jurisdiction shopping.”
CTA has been vocal in other trade barrier-related forums that mutual recognition does not work for trucking.
Wood stressed there needs to be political commitment and political will from the federal government, provinces and territories to dedicate the appropriate time to align regulations quickly so the systems are compatible.
Most importantly, as Canada embarks on various nation-building projects, Wood cautioned the government it must ensure labour rights protections and enforcement of labour laws for trucking companies that will be part of the government procurement process.
“All governments must ensure that no elements of the underground economy, and those organizations that practice labour misclassification are eligible to participate in these projects,” he said. “To be clear, from our perspective, if you want to work on these critical projects for our country, you need to comply with all your labour and tax obligations and all other laws.”
“We have concerns with respect to other ongoing government procurement where we don’t believe appropriate checks and balances have been addressed, nor is there a willingness to do so.”
CTA will continue to provide input to government committees as requested and will be providing all Senators forthcoming copies of the Alliance’s 2025 trade barriers and infrastructure reports.