Transport Committee on Oct. 19th, 2022

[John Corey]

I think it was shown during the pandemic that in very short order the Canadian border can be crossed by either side in an emergency. That was done specifically with the flooding and the break of the supply chain in British Columbia last year. It can be done quickly if they want to do it quickly.

I think that's an important thing, that we should have a better coordination between the two countries for any cross-border activity. That will increase the efficiency and take the stress off the driver shortage initially.

To your point, I think that having some kind of common market, where labour can be easily transferred from one jurisdiction to another, would be a very good idea, especially since we have other countries like Mexico and the United States that seem to have a lot more people who would be able to come and help Canadians with their labour shortage.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

That's great. I think of trucking in Windsor here. I don't really care whether it's a Canadian or an American delivering it. If we're all integrated, it could be a Mexican delivering it. We want the jobs here, but if we're short, then we have to keep the plants running.

I'll go over to the Chamber of Marine Commerce.

[Maguessa Morel-Laforce]

I would say that the Americans are investing heavily in their port infrastructure and in their training as well. I know there are ships that are run by cadets in the United States. Of course, the scale is different, but still, they're not shy about investing in their future workforce by spending on it so that they can have a future and they can have seafarers who man their ships. Similarly to the Canadian model, it's American seafarers who man American ships, so they invest in their training. The results are there. They're manned by American seafarers.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Okay. I will follow up quickly before I go to Mr. Corey. I have the HMCS Hunter in my riding. It's a naval operation where we have cadets and so forth. Do you actually recruit or...? I've never seen that going on in our community. We're a port city. I'm wondering whether there are attempts to recruit out of our military operations as well. Some of the positions are part-time, too. They're reservists. I'm wondering if you could access that. Should we think about that as well?

[Maguessa Morel-Laforce]

I would start by saying that the information on the industry is scarce. The NOCs haven't been updated in ages, the national classification system for occupation. It's very hard for me to tell you, for example, how many engineers there are, and all the positions. Since they haven't been updated, it's very hard to track the labour pool right now. It's even harder to track that labour pool based on where they were before.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Okay, that's interesting to follow.

Quickly, I'll go over to Mr. Corey.

You mentioned a really good point with regard to conditions of work. There was a great rail report that came out that talked about the culture of intimidation and fear from CN and CP upon workers when they moved to the safety management system.

What can we do for our trucking, especially for independent truckers? I have a lot in my community. Some of them don't have benefits. They don't have a number of different supports that way. They're also being leveraged to fund their own thing. Are there things that we can do, as more of a co-operative or some type of other system, to help link them somehow to offset some of their costs? Some of the financing is unbelievable. Then, they don't get the benefits, as an independent person.

[John Corey]

Right. The trucking industry is extremely fragmented. There are many owner-operators, and there are big companies, too. The industry, as I mentioned, has about 70% turnover. We have one member whose turnover is 0.77%. We asked them what they are doing. They pay hourly wages so there's no pressure on having to deliver “or else”. They have benefits. They have new trucks; they turn over their trucks every three years so they're using good equipment. They are moving towards technology with the data log. They are providing a good workplace for their employees, and people stay. They also have a mentoring program.

These are the kinds of things that we have to make available to people who want to get into an industry or a career. It costs money. You need to have programs where people can do it. Making a quick buck is great for today, but it's not going to help us going forward. I think there needs to be...and there is. On the provincial level, there are training programs for truckers, but obviously we need more.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, is that all my time?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

You have 20 seconds left, and I'll be glad to take it back.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

I'll cede that to Mr. Lewis.

I thank the committee for your indulgence and wish you all the best. Thank you to the witnesses.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you, Mr. Masse, for joining us today.

Next we have Mr. Lewis.

You have five minutes and 20 seconds. The floor is yours.

[Chris Lewis, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and of course thank you to my colleague. I'll use up all 20 seconds and say thank you to Mr. Masse.

This is a really good study. Am I ever happy to be on this committee now.

I have just a few initial thoughts.

In my riding of Essex, I'm surrounded by Lake St. Clair, the Detroit River and Lake Erie. We have ports. We have ferries. We have the HMCS Hunter, as Mr. Masse mentioned. We have barges. We have the Coast Guard sitting in our own backyard. We have police boats.

The first thing I would say is.... I already brought this up to St. Clair College. I floated this about two months ago and they're very much on board. I think it would be a great idea to start a training centre in the area. It's centralized to Canada. We can put people on the ferries. We can put them on the freighters. We have ADM, which ships grain across to the United States. They can learn to navigate. We have the military.

That's just a point of interest. I've already opened up those talks.

I guess my question would be for Mr. Morel-Laforce. Where are those two training centres, specifically?

[Maguessa Morel-Laforce]

The one that submitted an application to ESDC—and they're waiting—is the Institut maritime du Québec in Rimouski, along the St. Lawrence. You have Georgian College as well, in Ontario. These are the two main ones in the east, I would say.

[Chris Lewis, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Thank you very much, sir.

I'm fortunate enough to have a family cottage on Manitoulin Island. The Chi-Cheemaun ferry takes our family over there every year. Sometimes twice a year, if you're not in politics, I suppose.

I went over there right after the House rose. The cooks and the deckhands were all speaking English, but they sounded a lot like they were from Newfoundland, so I got inquisitive. I started asking questions and came to find out that nearly 75% of the folks on the Chi-Cheemaun actually came in from Newfoundland.

Of course, I went to Minister O'Regan and asked him if he realized I was stealing his people. He said he didn't know what I meant. His office apparently overlooks the port in St. John's. To make a long story short, my point is that we're stealing from Peter to pay Paul. If we're taking them from Newfoundland, that's fantastic. Folks love them to death, but that's not getting the job done.

I guess I'll take it one step further. Last week I was in Taiwan and got a chance to visit the Taipei port. This port is so incredibly digitalized. At the end of the day, it goes like this: You get a ship of 24,000 sea containers being off-loaded, one every 30 minutes, which is remarkable in and of itself. In speaking to the CEOs of the port, I know they took their labour force from somewhere around 41 people per shift down to 18. Wow. However, they also said that they hired more people because they're so modernized at their ports that they had to hire way more truck drivers. I'm going to suggest it's probably easier to get truck drivers than it is for folks to use booms and all those types of things.

Just with regard to the ports—and I'm saying this because of the labour side of things—do you have any idea with regard to our ports on the east coast or the west coast if that's something we're actively going after? Is there something the government can do to help that out?

[Maguessa Morel-Laforce]

Do you mean in regard to investment for new technologies?

[Chris Lewis, Conservative, Essex, ON]

That's right.

[Maguessa Morel-Laforce]

I know for sure that the Port of Montreal is heavily investing in new technology. It's expanding its container terminal, for instance.

It's something that ports are aware of, but they do have limits in terms of their investment capacity. That's because of the act that governs their operation. It is due for review, and we're anxiously waiting for the government to table amendments to it. We're hopeful that it will allow ports to invest more in new technology so they can be like the Taipei port.

[Chris Lewis, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, how much time is left, sir?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

You have one minute.

[Chris Lewis, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Excellent, thank you.

I'll just finish it off with one question. I don't know whom I should address this to.

I know there was an issue between our western ports and our eastern ports with regard to our labour force. It's the number of hours worked compared to the hours they have off. I believe the western ports have more time off than the eastern ports, but it doesn't necessarily affect each one.

I'm wondering if it would be beneficial to all of our shipping industry, specifically to our labour folks, to have one standard for Canada.

[Maguessa Morel-Laforce]

To that I would say that we would need some intervention, to an extent, to provide for labour to continue in the event of disruptions. That's something that's happened in the past. It affects the reputation of a port. Once a port goes through several labour issues, it can affect its international reputation. Shippers will try to avoid it. They want to avoid disruption.

I'm not aware of the difference between west and east, but for sure some federal intervention, just to help mediate any problems on the labour side, would be gladly appreciated by members, yes.

[Chris Lewis, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Thank you, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Lewis.

Next we have Ms. Koutrakis.

Ms. Koutrakis, the floor is yours for five minutes.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First, colleagues, I'd like to welcome once again our new members on the transport committee. I know I can speak for all of us around the table and say that we very much look forward to working with you.

I also want to say thank you very much to our witnesses for appearing before us this afternoon.

I want to ask each one of you—briefly, if we can—what your thoughts are on the recently released report by the supply chain task force. More specifically, I'm looking for which recommendations you think are most important, which ones you think they got wrong, if any, and how we can do better.

[John Corey]

I can go first.

I don't think they got any of them wrong. I think there are a lot of good ideas in there. The question is, can they all be implemented? Probably not.

One that I personally like, although it doesn't have much to do with the labour issue, is strengthening the Canada Transportation Act to give it more power, potentially similar to powers that the STB has in the United States, where they can make quick decisions that are very timely and get things rolling.

I also like the extended interswitching, because I'm a rail nerd. I think that will afford shippers more options to move their goods. It will also move inland ports and staging grounds away from those interchanges, further out, but still allow them to be able to take advantage of interswitching rates.

I think the idea of having a supply chain czar, someone who can coordinate, is a very good idea. How that will actually be done is still a bit of a mystery, but I think it's a good idea and it may be worth pursuing.