Declaration of Emergency committee  Correct.

Declaration of Emergency committee  Correct.

Declaration of Emergency committee  Correct.

Declaration of Emergency committee  Correct.

Declaration of Emergency committee  Correct.

Declaration of Emergency committee  We do.

Declaration of Emergency committee  Correct.

Declaration of Emergency committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and committee members. CTA is an alliance of seven provincial trucking associations in Canada. Its board is made up of trucking executives from over 70 carriers ranging from small to very large companies. Regarding CTA's position on protest, well before and throughout the events of 2022, CTA made its position on protests targeting public road infrastructure known.

Transport committee  Very similar to some of the questions around the technology and driver-assist or driverless vehicles, it's the same thing with electric vehicles. The number one cost next to labour is fuel. If our members could move to electric vehicles, they would. The reality is that the technology is not there for our long-haul economy, nor is it there for the standards in the weights and volumes that are moved in these vehicles.

Transport committee  From our perspective, if you're looking for something the federal government could do to assist the drivers, it would be insisting on having more rest areas along federal infrastructure. This is especially for the ELD regulation. That means no more paper logbooks. We're going to move to electronic logbooks.

Transport committee  Those mandates were bilateral. They were introduced by both Canada and the United States. They had the impact of reducing by approximately 10%—some areas of the country were higher, but on average it was about 10%—the driving force in the U.S.-Canada market. That's not insignificant.

Transport committee  I'm sorry, was that question directed to the CTA?

Transport committee  The biggest trend without question—you've heard it from the Teamsters and the CTA—is the unlevel playing field created by not enforcing Driver Inc. You can introduce all the labour laws you want to improve the sector, but if 20% to 30% of the sector is saying, “I'm not following anything you currently have on the books” and you're doing nothing about it, then what does it matter if you add new laws?

Transport committee  I'll just answer that in short, Mr. Rogers. I don't think we have to be worried about creating too many truck drivers. Our economy needs them. I don't think we have to worry about that technology you're talking about that's mentioned in The Globe and Mail taking over our industry any time soon, as I answered previously.

Transport committee  In my opening remarks, I mentioned that about two-thirds of Canada-U.S. trade is being moved by truck. Virtually everything in the room you're sitting in was on a truck at least once, and probably multiple times. Most of those trucks are 53-foot trailers of various configurations or designs.