Evidence of meeting #37 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 41st Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was industry.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Vice-President, Operations and Safety, Canadian Trucking Alliance
Currently it doesn't, but there are plans in the works for that technology.
Conservative
Vice-President, Operations and Safety, Canadian Trucking Alliance
No, it's hard-wired into the engine.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
Is electronic stability control a standard technology on new trucks or is it an optional technology on new trucks?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Trucking Alliance
Currently two of the major truck OEMs have it as part of their standard new vehicle package. There are five or six others that don't make it part of their standard vehicle package, but we think they should.
Conservative
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Trucking Alliance
It's difficult to retrofit, but it's not expensive. It's about $1,000 or $1,100 a unit. When you consider a tractor-trailer combined in the dangerous goods field, it can be several hundreds of thousands of dollars. As I said, it's very cheap insurance.
What it does is to electronically make the brakes work before the driver can even think about it.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
Would any kind of requirement then result at some subsequent point in a gradual phase-in of that technology over time?
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
Okay. Very good.
Can your members refuse to carry any dangerous goods, or do you have an obligation that you must carry them?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Trucking Alliance
You're not obligated to carry anything.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
In rail, you are; in trucking, you're not. It's the contrast I'm getting at, which of course affects liability determination for the product.
I want to return to the question of liability. Mr. McGuinty began to probe it. If there's a spill, whichever agency would be charged with the cleanup would then have to pursue a claim with either the owner-operator or the trucking company if they were part of a trucking company. They would have to do that in court. Is that correct?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Trucking Alliance
Yes, it's through the court, but the laws are pretty clear in terms of determining responsibility. A lot of these things don't get to court. The carrier gets a bill and they'll.... Again, not every one of these things is challenged, because if you're at fault, you're at fault.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
How much insurance is an individual owner-operator or a trucking company supposed to carry for purposes of—
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Trucking Alliance
The legal requirement, the regulatory requirement, in most provinces is, I think, $1 million or $2 million for dangerous goods, but the vast majority of people in that business carry significantly more than that. Two million dollars, particularly in the United States where things are a lot more litigious, doesn't cover anything.
Conservative
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Trucking Alliance
It depends at what point.... They would be inspected roadside by Ministry of Transportation enforcement officials. In many provinces, policing agencies are also involved, or it can be done, in the case of an incident, by the environmental people or whoever the first responders are.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
Who inspects the choice of appropriate containment for a particular commodity?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Trucking Alliance
That is an inspection the federal government has jurisdiction over under the TDG regulations. There is also a committee that's administered by the Canadian Standards Association.
Specifically with respect to tank cars, it's the B620 committee which comprises manufacturers, regulators, carriers, and safety advocates. They basically develop the standards that Transport Canada then puts into regulation.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Thank you, Mr. Watson. Your time has expired.
We are getting close to the end, and Mr. Sullivan, Ms. Young, and Mr. Braid get two minutes each.
You have two minutes, Mr. Sullivan.
Mike Sullivan NDP York South—Weston, ON
Mr. Benson, fatigue management in the trucking industry is very highly regulated in the provinces. Am I right in saying that the hours of work and the hours of rest are set by regulation?
Lobbyist, Teamsters Canada
Fatigue management is different, the hours of service are different from provincial rules. Sometimes the provincial rules are better than the rules we have for fatigue management.
Basically, compared to all other industries, except for two instances, the actual science based on trucking would be a golden rule. Those two are simply, it's perhaps a little long...day work; also, we haven't dealt with awake on circadian low during the night. However, as a model, it beats the heck out of what's in rail, and it certainly is, I think, compatible. It meets the scientific tests, except for two very small things.
There's a difference between hours of work regulated by a province if you're a provincial carrier, which in a lot of cases are shorter, and what is dealt with interprovincially, but the fatigue management rules apply to everybody.
NDP
Mike Sullivan NDP York South—Weston, ON
—and they're regulated. It's not just safety management systems and leave it up to the truckers.
In rail, as we learned a couple of weeks ago, an operator can be called at one o'clock in the morning and threatened with discipline if he doesn't report to work on only one hour's sleep. Would that happen in trucking?