Transport committee  I'm not sure we're willing to assume, but I suspect that's what's going to happen. We had no choice with the current security training as required by C-TPAT. The industry had to absorb it. Our industry has had to absorb every cost associated with cross-border transportation as a

Transport committee  We would say the same thing. The administrative nightmares associated with cross-checking this guy's security clearance with what's in that truck to make sure he's in compliance with the law.... It would be unnecessarily complicated on the side of the road.

Transport committee  In the current training requirements in the dangerous goods regulations, what the carriers are required to ensure is that their employees have knowledge. That's as far as it goes. They lay down some fundamental principles. We believe these should be done the same way.

Transport committee  I would endorse that. However, I would say that the number of road accidents involving dangerous goods that resulted in injury to truck drivers as a direct result of the dangerous goods, as opposed to the vehicle accident itself, is very, very small. It's very, very small, and th

Transport committee  I'll try to answer that. This gives me an opportunity to explain something. This is a popular misconception about the transportation industry. Many of the independent contractors are independent in that sense, but they're contracted to trucking companies. That's how it works. S

Transport committee  He could be, but it's unlikely, if only because of the insurance requirements. That's how that normally operates. But the bigger companies all haul dangerous goods. They can't avoid it, because many of the things we use in society are classified as dangerous goods.

Transport committee  I can't really answer your question, either, from an enforcement perspective. In general terms, I suspect there is more on-road enforcement in the U.S. Is it more effective? I can't answer that question. All I know is what my members might say to me, which is that they're going

Transport committee  I agree with that.

Transport committee  We have two issues here, of course. One is the act, which, as it sits, will have no impact. That impact would be with the accompanying regulations. As with all of transportation, the devil is in the detail. If you've seen the dangerous goods regulations, the act is 25 pages and

Transport committee  We are only deemed to be the importer in one very special situation: on shipments coming from offshore that are being transported through Canada into the U.S. We have additional responsibilities because none of the people engaged in that movement reside in Canada. There's a man i

Transport committee  You will probably be surprised by my answer, because the enforcement of the dangerous goods regulations is a federal and now provincial matter. Fundamentally, the transportation of goods on the highway is a provincial enforcement; it is not a federal enforcement. The federal gove

Transport committee  I have one comment to make to you. For the very first time in the history of the Ontario Trucking Association, we have a lady chairman. On our experience in dealing with the U.S. government, it is a very difficult and awkward process to get them to agree on reciprocity--just as

Transport committee  That's a difficult question for me to answer. It was based on my experiences trying to comply with the contents of the security plan you are required to have in place in order to qualify for the C-TPAT program. It just wasn't clear. We could have made it clearer, but that would h

Transport committee  That is not an issue for us.

Transport committee  Can I add something? We would support that particular position. However, it's outside of this committee's and our purview, in the sense that we need to obtain the agreement of the American government to accept that. So in the meantime, we can't put up barriers to trade. We must