Evidence of meeting #137 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was buses.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:05 p.m.
Liberal
12:05 p.m.
Phil Benson Lobbyist, Teamsters Canada
Good morning.
Teamsters Canada represents more than 125,000 workers in all sectors of the economy. Teamsters Canada is Canada's supply chain and transportation union. Teamsters Canada represents drivers in the coach and school bus sectors.
In preparing our submission, Teamsters Canada sought opinions and thoughts directly from the shop floor of the members, and the experience of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in states where seat belts are mandated on school buses.
A decade or more ago, I took part in school bus seat belt discussions. The science was clear: the egg-crate passive system was inadequate; it did nothing for higher-speed collisions, T-bones and rollovers. Seat belts were needed, but there would be no seat belts until the U.S. got on board. As U.S. children would never wear seat belts, it wouldn't happen, and the cost of implementation...just don't go there.
We heard from the members about the need for strong, mandated maintenance schedules rigorously enforced by governmental agencies. Technology has advanced. All buses should have ABS emergency braking, anti-roll prevention, newer technologies, pre-collision pedestrian detection and blind-side warnings. These stay-in-lane features should just be part of every bus.
In the charter and tourist sector, our members told us the new buses are equipped with seat belts. In the industrial setting, transporting workers to and from the job, there are two experiences. In some provincially regulated workspaces, for example the oil sands, seat belts are mandatory health and safety equipment. In the federally regulated workspace, no seat belts are used. There appears to be no issue surrounding seat belt use when they're available on those forms of coach transportation.
School buses often travel on highways. The expectation is the best safety equipment should be available to all children, starting with well-paid professional drivers behind the wheel. The teamsters place safety of the public and the members at the forefront. We believe some issues will have to be addressed if the government moves forward on implementing the mandatory use of seat belts on school buses.
We represent more than 1,000 school bus drivers in Quebec alone. We transport hundreds of thousands of children every day. The members made it very clear that drivers must always remain at the wheel to maintain full control of the vehicle while conducting safety-critical functions. They must also maintain visual contact with vehicular traffic and with children, outside and inside the bus, while preparing to move safely to the next stop. Drivers cannot leave their station, cannot be responsible for buckling and unbuckling children, and must not be held liable if children are not buckled in. Vehicles cannot move until all passengers in a vehicle are securely buckled in.
Complying with a seat belt rule may not be an issue for older students, but it is foreseeable that it will be for kindergarten and elementary students, or for unruly students of any age. Parents and teachers are not allowed to go on a school bus to buckle and unbuckle children. Drivers are not allowed to touch students or leave their place behind the wheel. Delays in completing a route in these circumstances are foreseeable.
The members are very concerned over the safety of the students when an accident does occur. If evacuation of students is required, the driver would be, of course, assisting in unbuckling children. What if the driver is incapacitated? This foreseeable scenario would be especially difficult if the trip involved junior-age children.
In our discussion with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, we found that where states mandate the use of seat belts on school buses, a monitor is on the school bus to buckle and unbuckle children, if needed, and to manage unruly students. Children with special needs are transported separately on the school bus system. Our investigation in Canada showed that some school board monitors are currently on school buses, and further, that children with special needs are transported separately from the school bus system.
We heard that retrofitting of seat belts in school buses was given up to $20,000; on a 50-seat bus, that's $400 amortized over the life of the bus. It works out to a cup of coffee a trip, or perhaps a few pennies. A monitor is a cappuccino. The mandate of Transport Canada puts costs and profits of industry first, passes light through public safety and ignores all else. It cannot look at the cost of accidents, treating serious injuries, the health costs nor the social-moral costs to individuals, boards and politicians. This mandate must change.
Even if it is only a cup of coffee a trip, we expect companies and boards to try to recover incremental increases in costs. Teamsters Canada will fight to ensure the costs are not borne by drivers through decreased wages. School bus drivers earn no more than $25,000 to $30,000 a year. They work split shifts, with two or three trips in the morning and two or three trips in the afternoon. They can't get another job. Just like everywhere else, they have stagnant wage growth.
Shortages of workers, school bus drivers, truckers...well, it seems every time a commodity price increases, prices go up, except for labour.
Workers in this sector earned 8.5% less on average in 2015 than comparable jobs in the private transportation sector, and the gap is widening.
We're also concerned that if it's not done right, there will be delays and drivers being disciplined for being late and perhaps feeling forced to go faster, defeating the purpose of doing it.
I'm almost wrapped up.
12:10 p.m.
Lobbyist, Teamsters Canada
The feds regulate; the provinces implement. If seat belts are to be mandatory, it must be done right or the introduction of regulations will lengthen the working day, fail to achieve safety goals for our children and complicate the lives of drivers.
I do want to recognize Minister Garneau for having the courage to take this on. It is a difficult area with a lot of complications, and it does take courage.
I'll be pleased to answer your questions.
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
Matt Jeneroux Conservative Edmonton Riverbend, AB
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, everybody, for appearing before us here today.
I want to start with Mr. Switzer.
We understand that the changes to seat belt requirements on coach buses were, in part, an effort to harmonize the Canadian and U.S. regulations. In your view, was this a good move by Transport Canada?
12:10 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Ontario Motor Coach Association, Motor Coach Canada
It's an overdue move. My frustration as a lobbyist—and I suppose everyone's frustration—was that I understood that the government's attitude was that it couldn't bring in a different law than what the Americans have, that that was fine, that it would wait until the Americans did what they were going to do, and that then it would copy and paste from their regulation. Our frustration was that the Americans brought in their regulation and that for several years thereafter, the answer was that the government was studying the U.S. regulation. Are we just copying and pasting to harmonize? If we're going to have a different rule, why didn't we have a different rule in the first place?
Yes, it's an excellent move, but it's overdue. Frankly, it's a little bit irrelevant at this point, since most coaches already have three-point seat belts as standard equipment. It's important because some people do take the belts off, so we do have to have that rule there, but it's less relevant than it would have been, say, 10 years ago.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Matt Jeneroux Conservative Edmonton Riverbend, AB
Yes.
Could all or some of your current fleet accommodate seat belts?
12:15 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Ontario Motor Coach Association, Motor Coach Canada
That's complicated. The issue of retrofitting is easier with more recent equipment. I think Mr. Parsons addressed that issue. Some coaches that were built, say, in the last 10 years already have the structural integrity to take belted seats. They already have the rails in them. However, if you're looking at a much older coach, one that's near the end of its lifespan, a 15-, 16- or 18-year-old coach, it probably doesn't have the structural integrity. It would be worse to slap down a couple of strips of nylon and staple gun them onto the seats. That would be worse than not putting anything on. So, whether retrofitting is viable or not depends on the coach and the age of the coach.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Matt Jeneroux Conservative Edmonton Riverbend, AB
Yes. I think one of the issues when thinking about this particular motion before us is this: Who's ultimately responsible for making sure that people, whether they be kids or adults, are putting their seat belts on? Is it the coach company? Is it the Teamsters? Is it the individual? Who is it at the end of the day? I think that's something that successive governments have also had to struggle with.
I'll open it up to all of three of you at this point. Could you provide some insight on what you think in terms of who is ultimately responsible for making sure that seat belts end up getting buckled?
12:15 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Ontario Motor Coach Association, Motor Coach Canada
That's a really complicated issue. Like a lot of things you're looking at, there isn't one industry here that you're talking about. There are all kinds of different facets of people who operate motorcoaches, school buses, scheduled services versus charters. On scheduled service, so the Greyhound bus, there's unlikely to be another person on there to check out whether people are wearing their belts or not. As for school buses, yes, you can put a monitor on, as Phil suggested, and that's a great idea. It's easy to do—again it's a different market—because you only have one payer, the government. The government is the client for school bus services, so it can say, “Look, we're the client. We want this.” The school bus company will say, “Fine. The cost is x.” You negotiate, and then you can add it. So, it's easier to do because you're the client.
With regard to a charter service, you would have coaches for hockey teams and teachers for school trips, so on a lot of charters, there actually probably is another person or a tour guide.
The answer to that question depends a lot on what that bus is being used for. Is it a scheduled service? Is it a charter? Is it a school bus? Who's operating it? On most charters, I would say that it's probably the responsibility of the tour guide or the coach or whoever arranged the tour. On the 2 a.m. Greyhound from Saskatoon, there's just the driver.
12:15 p.m.
Lobbyist, Teamsters Canada
Clearly our position is that the driver can't be liable. The driver's job is to sit at the wheel and take care of the vehicle.
From our experience—from members who do charter coaches for tourism, etc.—people put their seat belts on. Though I took part in those studies, my daughter was six and got on a bus, then got off the bus the first time, and said, “Daddy, I can't go on the bus. There's no seat belt.” I had to lie to her—I'm sorry, honey, if you're listening to this—but I said, “No, it's safe.” It was a short haul. “It should be okay.”
In the IBT experience in the States where seat belts are on, this was not an issue. As I said, when the study came in, part of the reason we weren't doing it was this whole harmonization issue. I totally agree with Mr. Switzer that we have lots of agreements on this in other regulatory bodies. Sometimes, we have to be courageous and move forward without the Americans. There are other times we do. With the fleets coming forward, and the structure they have, it makes it easier now to move forward than it was 10, 12 or 15 years ago.
At the end of the day, the driver can't be liable, but we have to look at the situation of monitors on school buses—people being responsible. There has to be something in law, provincially or federally, saying that if you don't wear a seat belt and something happens, then you're on your own.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Thank you all for being here.
Mr. Pelletier, your company has really deep experience with both New Flyer and MCI. I used to work for TransLink, the Metro Vancouver transportation authority—a very good customer of yours, in fact, on the New Flyer side.
I recall that there had been some crashes when BC Transit was operating the system. A standard block-stop bus was put out on the highway. There could have been people standing, etc., and there were fatalities as a result of the crash.
Would you recommend that there be a difference in design between a standard transit bus and a bus that's going to go at highway speeds—a different design, a different configuration and regulations to stipulate that a different bus has to be used?
12:20 p.m.
Vice-President, Engineering and Quality, Motor Coach Industries
My expertise lies on the motorcoach side, although we're part of New Flyer. I've worked on the coach side of the business for the majority of my career, so while I am somewhat familiar with transit buses. I'm much more familiar with motorcoaches. I would agree that there are different design requirements for a transit bus used for, say, seven to 11 stops per mile, at typically low speeds.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
I'm sorry, I'll need to move on if you don't really have that experience. I'll go to Mr. Switzer and ask him that question. Should we mandate different buses for higher-speed use?
12:20 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Ontario Motor Coach Association, Motor Coach Canada
To be honest, I'll take your advice. I don't have a good answer to that.
12:20 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Ontario Motor Coach Association, Motor Coach Canada
Again, it depends on whether it's being operated by a transit system, a coach or school bus company.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Yes. Okay.
What we heard is that for speeds above 50 kilometres an hour, a three-point hitch is definitely needed. If you're looking particularly at school bus operations, you would perhaps be looking at a requirement for different configurations.
Going back to you, Mr. Pelletier—looking at your motorcoach experience specifically—what kind of research and development is your company doing, with respect to improving compartmentalization? Here, I'm thinking of those wings that you can have on seatbacks to prevent side-to-side head movement in the event of a crash. Even something a little more.... My colleague, Mr. Badawey, mentioned this to me, so I'm going to steal his question—what about active restraints, such as those on carnival rides, where something comes down and fits you in? It doesn't matter what size you are: it works.
12:20 p.m.
Vice-President, Engineering and Quality, Motor Coach Industries
Well, at this point in time, we've focused on three-point restraints. That's what has been regulated in the U.S., and is coming in Canada. I can't say that we've taken a look at anything beyond that, in terms of an active restraint. We focused on the three-point restraints and seat belts, and we've tested them both to meet the static requirement. We have also done dynamic sled testing, to determine the behaviour of an occupant in a forward-type crash.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Would there be a possibility of integrated booster seats for younger passengers on a motorcoach? I used to have them in a Dodge Caravan I had years ago. Again, a safety belt on a small youngster is very dangerous.
12:20 p.m.
Vice-President, Engineering and Quality, Motor Coach Industries
Potentially, yes. At this point in time, we haven't had a requirement or a need to develop a specific seat for a toddler or infant. I think the challenge with that would be that you deal, as Mr. Switzer mentioned, with a wide range of occupants using the same vehicle. We haven't gone to having several dedicated seats for those types of positions or those people in the vehicle at this point in time.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
What I would suggest is you look at Chrysler's design because it was integrated. You could actually pull out a piece of the high back and it would become the booster seat.
Mr. Benson, what information, either official or anecdotal, are you picking up from your members with respect to crashes where ejection is an issue or entrapment is an issue? What can you tell us about that?
