Transport committee  I 100% agree. It's a massive issue. They prey on people who really don't have a lot of understanding about the tax implications that they're getting into, the fact that they don't have vacation time, and that if they get hurt, there's no unemployment insurance. Also, these comp

Transport committee  Yes, but there's one thing I want to clarify, though, just so we're aware. The ones on the Canadian side of the border are U.S. officers who come over here and do those interviews, so the issue really is the Canadian government and the U.S. government and trying to figure out som

Transport committee  Distracted driving is an issue in society. I think we're all aware of that. Distracted driving is also going to be an issue in the trucking industry. These are professional drivers. They are trained better and trained to understand the risks, but truck drivers are part of socie

Transport committee  Yes, thanks. I won't repeat that in the interest of— I'm getting a big echo here. Is everybody else getting that, or is it just me?

Transport committee  Yes, that's much better. That's perfect. I won't repeat what Angela said, in the interest of time. I agree with everything she said. There are a couple of things I believe we need government to do. For years there's been a big concern in this industry that there are not enough

Transport committee  Thank you for the question. What can be done for youth is to make sure they understand that there's a viable career path there and that they're actually going to be able to get a job when they get through. A lot of them right now, even if they know there's a path, don't go throu

Transport committee  Thank you for the question. I don't have the exact numbers in front of me on the U.S. shortage, but I believe the last numbers they put out indicated that their shortage was around 300,000 drivers. Now, keep in mind that we have 30,000 drivers and they have, I believe, a bit over

Transport committee  Yes, and if we're looking at the training end, there are two different routes to it. We have the mandatory entry-level training that all the provinces and territories have agreed on, which is a minimum of 103.5 hours. We don't have it in every jurisdiction in Canada yet, but it's

Transport committee  One thing that would help is to have the insurance, as Angela mentioned, as part of this committee. In a lot of cases, insurers will insure these younger drivers if they're with a company that has very well-laid-out policies and procedures in their post-licence training program.

Transport committee  Just to make sure I understood the question, you're asking about a tax credit simply for the older drivers to help retain them longer, instead of seeing them going into retirement. Is that what you're asking?

Transport committee  Any time you can give somebody a break, it may keep them around for a bit longer. I don't know if it would be a long-term solution to solve our shortage and I don't know how many it would keep around on a short-term basis, because I think once they hit that retirement age, they'r

Transport committee  I'll attempt to answer that, and then if I get something wrong, I'll let Angela Splinter from Trucking HR Canada jump in. This is one of their areas of main skill. I believe it's the provinces. When you have a NOC code put together, the feds can do it, but the provinces also hav

Transport committee  Well, yes, and they have been working on some solutions for it. Insurance is a private business in a lot of provinces. That's where it becomes a real issue. If we have government-funded insurance like you have in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and B.C., it's not quite as much of an issu

Transport committee  Thank you for the question. The one I touched on recently is that we need the funding dollars. We need them opened up. We need them dedicated. We need them there now. We need people to get in and access the trucking industry, and many of them can't afford to do it if we don't ha

Transport committee  I concur with Angela. It's going to take a number of solutions. One is not going to fix it. I believe the biggest thing we need to get going quickly is something we've been asking for for quite a while: We need a consistent stream of funding for people to have access to training.