Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good morning, everybody, and thank you for the opportunity to present to the committee as well.
Essentially I'll echo Richard's comments.
The APTA is obviously the body that represents the Atlantic provinces. With more than 300 members, most of them hauling dangerous goods, this is an important topic for us and something that we're following very closely.
We are part of the CTA federation as well, so we are supporting the document that was presented to the committee earlier this year. The industry is well aware that transportation of dangerous goods is in the forefront these days. We feel that our industry is in good shape. It's very safe today, incidents are minimal, and most do not necessarily involve transportation of dangerous goods.
It seems that what is in place today is working well, although having said that, let me add that we share the road with the general public and so have a responsibility to continue to operate safely and to have vehicles that operate safely. As Richard mentioned, in order for us to keep doing that, we feel that some things should be in place, such as electronic on-board recorders, roll stability manufacturing standards, and speed limiters. Whether we're transporting dangerous goods or just a normal load, these three items would bring much value to the industry and would help us continue to operate safely.
If there are some areas for improvement in this review, here are a couple of things I'd like to mention, which Richard echoed as well. There should be a little more shipper responsibility for documentation, but as well there should be a little more focus on driver training and on the trainers who train those drivers.
As I mentioned, there are very few incidents today, so the system seems to be working quite well. But we're open to discussing our recommendations and any questions today.
Thank you.