Evidence of meeting #13 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was witnesses.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Iqwinder Gaheer Liberal Mississauga—Malton, ON
Are there any other recommendations that you have as a solution to the tax issue that's involved, potentially?
Chartered Professional Accountant, Tax Specialist , As an Individual
I don't have any recommendations. I am happy with the tax system that we have in place. It's very robust. There are lots of mechanisms for HST, corporate tax, payroll and dividends that I deal with every day with the Canada Revenue Agency and the auditors. It's very robust and detailed.
Liberal
Iqwinder Gaheer Liberal Mississauga—Malton, ON
Thank you.
Mr. Sahney, my questions are for you. Thank you so much for coming to committee to testify. I was really hoping that an actual driver would come and testify as well.
You talked about fatigue being an issue. Your other point was about long drives, potentially not having areas to park, take a break, use the bathroom or to get some coffee or food, and how that's causing disruptions as well. That resonates. I hear that all of the time. There is a limit, though, in terms of how much a driver can drive, that's set by legislation. Are companies violating that?
Former Owner-Operator and Driver, As an Individual
In Canada, the drivers can drive for 13 hours, and in the U.S. it's 11 hours, when we're talking about a particular day. However, that's not the only thing. According to me, the main concern.... Let's say there are accidents. First of all, we should check why those accidents happened. Were they actually killing or cheating the logbooks? We don't know. Nobody talks about that kind of stuff. Maybe it was a Monday and the guy had a hangover or something, he was not in good standing to drive a semi-truck, and nobody talked about that thing.
Liberal
Iqwinder Gaheer Liberal Mississauga—Malton, ON
When you're talking about the logbooks, are those maintained by drivers themselves?
Former Owner-Operator and Driver, As an Individual
That's correct. They are maintained by the drivers themselves.
Liberal
Iqwinder Gaheer Liberal Mississauga—Malton, ON
Why would a driver have an incentive to cheat the logbook? Is it to get more hours or pay?
Former Owner-Operator and Driver, As an Individual
That's correct. It's to get more hours because they are paid by the hour. Most of them are paid by mile too, so it's hard to cheat when they go by miles. However, by the hour, let's say you're working 12 or 13 hours, you can stretch that by two more extra hours off on duty, which you can do on the log. It is legit, but nobody is focused on those things.
Liberal
Iqwinder Gaheer Liberal Mississauga—Malton, ON
One, would carriers know this is happening? Two, do carriers push this to happen so they can make more profit?
Former Owner-Operator and Driver, As an Individual
I don't think so, because a carrier would push somebody for safety. The drivers are driving semis, which cost them $250,000. In the case of an accident, I think their premiums are going to be pretty high. I don't think they would actually be the main cause of pushing the driver. I think it's the greed of the driver, if he's doing that.
Liberal
Iqwinder Gaheer Liberal Mississauga—Malton, ON
I want to highlight one more issue. It's not really a question, but it's regarding your testimony about when someone is an employee, potentially, during the phase they are trying to get PR, and then they eventually want freedom so they switch over to incorporation.
Liberal
Iqwinder Gaheer Liberal Mississauga—Malton, ON
Unfortunately, I've heard of cases—not a big sample size, thankfully—where drivers are being abused. They're not being paid their sick days. They're not being paid workers' disability and all of the different benefits that come with being an employee because, unfortunately, these particular bad actors, these carriers, know that this person's trying to get PR. They're trying to get permanent residency, so they can't cause too much of a commotion.
Former Owner-Operator and Driver, As an Individual
I think the legislatures should actually look into it. Most of the drivers are abused because they're getting permanent residency. Most of the people with temporary work permits are over here to get their residency one day, and they planned their vision towards that through the medium of a class 1 driver or AZ licence.
We have some programs in our legislature. Let's say, in the Atlantic program, if you work under a specific company for one year or something, they have the provincial jurisdiction so that they can provide you with a provincial permanent residency. That's actually a part of PR.
Liberal
Iqwinder Gaheer Liberal Mississauga—Malton, ON
Again, I don't know how widespread this is. It's just something that I do see.
Thank you, Chair.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Schiefke
Thank you very much, Mr. Gaheer.
Mr. Barsalou‑Duval, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.
Bloc
Xavier Barsalou-Duval Bloc Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
If I understand correctly, for this study, the meeting today is the last one where the committee will be hearing witnesses, since we have invited three ministers and there are two meetings left.
I would therefore like to propose a motion, which I will read to you, to extend this study. I believe it deserves two or three additional meetings, or even more. However, I will start by proposing to add one meeting, because I think it is essential that we hear at least the victims who have experienced tragedies recently.
The motion is as follows:
That the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure, and Communities add one meeting as part of the study of the changing landscape of truck drivers in Canada, so that the first hour is devoted to hearing testimony from victims of “Driver Inc.” and the second hour to hearing from representatives of Justice for Truck Drivers, the Caledon Community Road Safety Advocacy Group (CCRSA), and The Joy Smith Foundation.
These three groups are fighting for drivers' rights, but also for victims' rights.
I remain open to any proposal to amend. If there are members who want to add more meetings, I will be glad to support their amendment.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Schiefke
Thank you, Mr. Barsalou‑Duval.
We will take a break for the motion to be circulated in both official languages.
I'm going to suspend, colleagues, for a couple of minutes, to make sure that all members have the wording in both official languages.
In the meantime, we only have 12 minutes left of witness testimony. I'm looking around the room here. Is it okay if I ask the witnesses to leave, because this may take a bit of time? It's out respect for their time.
Bloc
Xavier Barsalou-Duval Bloc Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC
I am not opposed to letting the witnesses leave. However, if we adopt the motion right away, we would have time left to ask the witnesses questions.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Schiefke
Just to circulate the motion and talk about it, it may take 15 minutes.
Witnesses, what's happening now is that we have a member who's put forward a motion to extend the study. We're going to now look into that motion, and discuss and debate that motion. We want to respect your time, so I want to thank you for your testimony today. We wish you safe travels home.
You can log off, Mr. Webb, online, and for the witnesses who are joining us in person, you are free to leave. We thank you once again.
The meeting is suspended to the call of the chair.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Schiefke
I call this meeting back to order.
I will turn the floor over to Mr. Kelloway, followed by Mr. Albas.
Mr. Kelloway.... No, it's Mr. Lauzon.
Liberal
Stéphane Lauzon Liberal Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We agree to my colleague's motion, but the term “Driver Inc.” would have to be replaced by “heavy trucks”. I discussed this with my colleague and he seemed to agree.
We are fine with the rest.
Conservative
Dan Albas Conservative Okanagan Lake West—South Kelowna, BC
In the spirit of changes and amendments, I would like to propose an amendment, and hopefully the good member will consider this to be a friendly amendment.
I'm going to use the original text, and then I'll specify what I'm going to change. We are sending this language to the clerk so that he can follow along and send it to other members. Where it says, “That the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities add”—and this is the change—“two meetings”. Then going back to the rest, it says, “as part of the study of the changing landscape for truck drivers in Canada”, add “comprised of". The whole next paragraph is the same, but then, after the “Joy Smith Foundation”, we will add, “one meeting, of no less than two hours, wherein representatives from 6S Trinity Transport, J + R Hall Trucking, Dan Express”—no relation to me—“Carmen Transportation, Ludwig Transport Limited and L'Association des Professionnels du Dépannage du Québec be invited to testify.”
I can say it again, but we are sending the text so that all committee members can take a look at it.
Mr. Chair, if I can, I will use the moment right now to say that I think it is really important that we have the Association des Professionnels du Dépannage du Québec, in addition to all of these other ones, just based on the testimony we heard today that there is $3 million in outstanding fees that are owed to these tow companies. I'd like to hear what they have to say.