Truck Training Schools Association of Ontario
CANADIAN INDUSTRIAL TRANSPORTATION LEAGUE
TRUCK TRAINING SCHOOLS ASSOCIATION OF ONTARIO
COM-CAR OWNER OPERATORS' ASSOCIATION
CONTENTS
Monday 16 June 1997
Comprehensive Road Safety Act, 1997, Bill 138, Mr Palladini / Loi de 1997 sur un ensemble complet de mesures visant la sécurité routière, projet de loi 138, M. Palladini
Mr David Lowry
Mr Dale Holman
Canadian Industrial Transportation League
Ms Lisa MacGillivray
Mr Don Hughes
Truck Training Schools Association of Ontario
Mr Kim Richardson
Mr Wayne Campbell
Com-Car Owner Operators' Association
Mr Arthur Joosse
Mr Gerry Dorsay
Ontario Trucking Association
Mr David Bradley
Ontario Safety League
Mr Bert Killian
STANDING COMMITTEE ON SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
Chair / Présidente: Ms Annamarie Castrilli (Downsview L)
Vice-Chair / Vice-Président: Mr Dwight Duncan (Windsor-Walkerville L)
Mrs Marion Boyd (London Centre / -Centre ND)
Mr Jack Carroll (Chatham-Kent PC)
Ms Annamarie Castrilli (Downsview L)
Mr Dwight Duncan (Windsor-Walkerville L)
Mr Tim Hudak (Niagara South / -Sud PC)
Mr Frank Klees (York-Mackenzie PC)
Mr Gary L. Leadston (Kitchener-Wilmot PC)
Mrs Lyn McLeod (Fort William L)
Mrs Julia Munro (Durham-York PC)
Mr Dan Newman (Scarborough Centre PC)
Mr John L. Parker (York East / -Est PC)
Mr Richard Patten (Ottawa Centre / -Centre L)
Mr Bruce Smith (Middlesex PC)
Mr Bud Wildman (Algoma ND)
Substitutions present /Membres remplaçants présents:
Mr Gilles Bisson (Cochrane South / -Sud ND)
Mr John Hastings (Etobicoke-Rexdale PC)
Mrs Helen Johns (Huron PC)
Mrs Margaret Marland (Mississauga South / -Sud PC)
Clerk / Greffière: Ms Tonia Grannum
Staff / Personnel: Mr Jerry Richmond, research officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1533 in room 151.
COMPREHENSIVE ROAD SAFETY ACT, 1997 / LOI DE 1997 SUR UN ENSEMBLE COMPLET DE MESURES VISANT LA SÉCURITÉ ROUTIÈRE
Consideration of Bill 138, An Act to promote road safety by increasing periods of suspension for Criminal Code convictions, impounding vehicles of suspended drivers, requiring treatment for impaired drivers, raising fines for driving while suspended, impounding critically defective commercial vehicles, creating an absolute liability offence for wheel separations, raising fines for passing stopped school buses, streamlining accident reporting requirements and amending other road safety programs / Projet de loi 138, Loi visant à favoriser la sécurité routière en augmentant les périodes de suspension pour les déclarations de culpabilité découlant du Code criminel, en mettant en fourrière les véhicules de conducteurs faisant l'objet d'une suspension, en exigeant le traitement des conducteurs en état d'ébriété, en augmentant les amendes pour conduite pendant que son permis est suspendu, en mettant en fourrière les véhicules utilitaires comportant des défauts critiques, en créant une infraction entraînant la responsabilité absolue en cas de détachement des roues, en augmentant les amendes pour dépassement d'un autobus scolaire arrêté, en simplifiant les exigences relatives à la déclaration des accidents et en modifiant d'autres programmes de sécurité routière.
The Chair (Ms Annamarie Castrilli): Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our standing committee on social development. This is the first time that we consider Bill 138.
Just a couple of housekeeping items before we start. You will notice on your desk that you have a memorandum from the Ministry of Transportation enclosing some information with regard to licence reinstatement for persons convicted of drinking and driving a third time and draft criteria for commercial vehicle impoundment.
I wish to report that your subcommittee met last week and we have the following report, which I will read into the record.
"Your subcommittee met on Tuesday, June 9, 1997, and recommends the following with respect to Bill 138, the Comprehensive Road Safety Act, 1997.
"(1) That the minister and ministry staff be invited to appear before the committee for 30 minutes on Tuesday, June 17, 1997. Of that 30 minutes, 15 minutes would be set aside for the minister's presentation followed by a seven-and-a-half-minute response/question period by each of the two opposition parties.
"(2) That all witnesses be allotted 20-minute presentation slots.
"(3) That public hearings would be held in Toronto on Monday, June 16, Tuesday, June 17 and Tuesday, June 23, 1997.
"(4) That clause-by-clause would commence on Tuesday, June 24, 1997, and that all amendments are to be filed with the clerk of the committee by 1 pm on Tuesday, June 24, 1997.
"(5) That the caucuses would submit to the clerk of the committee a list of witnesses to be scheduled by 12 pm on Tuesday, June 10, 1997. Witnesses will be scheduled by the clerk of the committee in rounds from the lists provided by the caucuses.
"(6) That the committee inform the public of the hearings via the Ontario parliamentary channel.
"(7) That the Chair, in consultation with the subcommittee, shall make all additional decisions necessary with respect to public hearings.
"(8) That the researcher will provide background information and/or a summary of recommendations."
Are there any comments or questions?
All those in favour? Opposed? Thank you very much. The report is adopted.
DAVID LOWRY
The Chair: I wish to move expeditiously to our first presenter, David Lowry. Welcome. We are very happy to have you here with us on this first day of hearings. As you've heard me read into the record, you have 20 minutes for your presentation. If there is any time remaining at the end of your presentation, we will ask you some questions. Please proceed.
Mr David Lowry: I don't represent anybody. I work for the TD Bank, pulling file BAs and commercial paper. The reason I'm here: because during the megacity opposition delays in February I kept hearing the Conservative MPPs say the delay was holding up important pieces of legislation and the prime example was the highway safety bill, and if the delay would cease, Queen's Park could pass such legislation and improve the lives of Ontarians.
The editors of the four main newspapers of Toronto -- Globe, Star, Sun, Financial Post -- agreed with this viewpoint and it was terribly difficult to find somebody who did not agree with the Conservative MPPs. I agreed with the Conservative MPPs. After a week or so I started to watch the newspapers to see when this important bill was going to be passed. After several weeks of reading articles in the newspaper of an occasional wheel coming off a truck, there were safety blitzes with no difference in results, even though the safety bill was ready for second reading.
Beginning in late April and still no bill, I took it upon myself to start phoning the transportation minister to find out what was going on because this was such an important bill, it was told to me, and I believed him. I kept hearing the excuses come out.
The first one I heard was the police did not like it, so I phoned the police division. I found out they have a special division which watches our highways and their main complaint was their lack of authority: having pulled over the truckers, all they can really do is give them a ticket and let them go on. They said this new bill would give the police the ability to take the truck off the road until the problems were fixed, so they were in favour of the bill.
Next I heard the trucking association was against it and then I was watching Global TV, Focus Ontario, and the president of the truckers association -- I forget what it's called, but he said they were in favour of the bill. Then I thought, "I just read the day before you're against it." So then I had to call the trucking association. They wanted the bill passed because they said there were too many bad apples coming out and ruining their reputation, so they were for the bill.
Next I heard that the Liberals and NDP were against the bill and were to stall it. I phoned their caucuses. Each of them said they would fast-track it. I really didn't understand what that meant. They said fast-tracking it would just do it in one day or within a week. Each time the government would tell me something the person was always telling me something opposite. I didn't know which to believe.
Next I heard the bill was ready to be passed but they had to have more serious sections added to it and a new Bill 138, but I kept wondering why was it so important during the megacity delays, but now had to have sections added to it. I just didn't understand that, because if it was before doing megacity the bill would have been passed, theoretically.
The new legislation involved drunk driving and passing safety buses, and who's against drunk driving? Everybody wants drunk drivers off the road. The next I heard about was the transportation of children. I called Laidlaw and their bus drivers always take their licence numbers down. I was told that when I got my licence 20 years ago. They've been doing it for years and their problem was they couldn't convict anybody, so they were in favour of the bill.
In the recent Road Safety '97, a massive check of trucks on roads, the bad trucks did not go down, or the percentage went down marginally, so automatically that kind of proves that the bill was useful and should be passed.
Finally, on a personal note, my father worked on heavy equipment for the military. He drove plows clearing the runways and refilled airplanes. For 35 years he never had an accident and after he retired I heard he would never allow anybody with an unsafe vehicle to be used or that driver was severely lectured to. My father was brought up on a farm and he was six feet eight, twice the size I am, so you really didn't want to do too much against him.
In all my phoning, I find the very people who are objecting to the bill are the government. They come out in the newspapers and say, "This is important, this is important, this is important," but then two or three weeks later you hear, "Oh, it can be delayed until February." Delay, delay, delay. Now they're talking about delaying to the fall, and then in the Toronto Star it said something about December. As an Ontarian I just don't understand, and that's why I'm here. Everybody tells me that bill is good. I've never read the bill. That helps.
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The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Lowry. There's approximately four and a half minutes per caucus. We'll begin with the government side.
Mrs Margaret Marland (Mississauga South): I think your frustration, Mr Lowry, is understandable because sometimes when you're on the outside trying to understand what's going on on the inside in the process of government it is very difficult at best sometimes.
Mr Lowry: No, it's not difficult. It was common sense, they said. If it makes sense for Ontario, pass it. We'll do better. Everybody tells me this is common sense. Everybody tells me this best for Ontario. I don't understand why the holdup. That's my own problem. If I believed in Mike Harris, I'd have to believe this bill is good.
Mrs Marland: I can assure you that we do want to get it passed as quickly as possible --
Mr Lowry: But why did he say earlier that he was going to delay it until fall? He said in the paper one time, before I really got into this, that this bill was going to be delayed until the fall. Then I started doing all this phoning and that really confused me.
Mrs Marland: One thing I would like to say to you is that a major portion of this bill deals with drunk driving and the components of this bill that address drunk driving were in a private member's bill of mine that was tabled in the fall of 1994. I'm now looking at three years since my private member's bill was tabled and my private member's bill has gone through two governments so I'm thrilled that finally we have the contents of my private member's bill in a government bill, and I understand why it has taken so long.
In the first place with the Bob Rae government, the House adjourned in December and wasn't recalled and --
Mr Lowry: Excuses, excuses.
Mrs Marland: -- so it died on the order paper. There's always a process, as frustrating as it sometimes is, that delays the implementation of something that is very good. I agree with you that this is very good, and we do want to get it passed.
Mr Lowry: But the point is, I never cared anything about this road safety bill. I have never read it. All of a sudden during megacity they told me it was important. All of sudden it was important. "It is important. It's good for Ontario." I'm an Ontarian. I want something good for me. That's all I care about. To blame it on the opposition -- I'm getting a little tired of all this stuff. Blame it on the opposition. If it's good, pass it. That's common sense. That's what you told me.
Mrs Marland: And that's what's going to happen.
Mr Lowry: That's what I believed.
Mrs Marland: The process of legislation is that there is always the implementation, no matter what the legislation is. The process of passing this -- this will be passed before the House rises in another week and a half -- that follows is the writing of the regulations that implement the bill. In order that nothing can be challenged in court and tie up the implementation of the direction of the bill, it has to be done perfectly and very carefully. That's why the process takes as long as it does.
Mr Lowry: But why did you tell me in February, if this megacity was not going on, bills like this could be passed? If it takes all this long, why did you tell me in February? For a person who doesn't care about our safety in the first place, all of a sudden you told me this was important to me. You told me: "Hey I want this passed. If we didn't have this delay -- filibuster delay -- this would be passed." That was it.
The Chair: Mr Leadston, did you want to ask a question, just very briefly?
Mr Gary L. Leadston (Kitchener-Wilmot): I wonder if we could provide Mr Lowry with some more data about the bill so that he --
Mr Lowry: It doesn't matter to me. I don't care. All I heard was that it was a good bill. People tell me it's a good bill. All these organizations tell me it's a good bill. I believe them. I don't care about all this stuff.
Mr Leadston: I was just trying to assist you in having some more of the information about the bill.
The Chair: Mr Lowry can have as much information as he wishes. The official opposition.
Mr Dwight Duncan (Windsor-Walkerville): I can't add much. We were puzzled similarly by the delay. This is a government that has passed for instance Bill 7, which was 700 pages, and without any hearings did it in two weeks. Now they're stuck with a whole bunch of problems related to regulatory changes that need to be made. This a government that did Bill 26, again with very limited public hearings, very limited time for opposition to speak.
On January 9 the minister said: "If safety is not your business, you will be out of business. We are committed. I'm telling you I'm going to get the job done. In the next 90 days a few changes are going to happen." The minister introduced his bill on February 27. Even if you want to blame the opposition filibuster, the filibuster didn't start until three weeks later.
Mr Lowry: I'm not blaming anybody.
Mr Duncan: I know. I'm addressing this to the government.
Mr Lowry: I'm just saying I believed it was a good bill.
Mr Duncan: Bill 125 was a good bill. We're glad it has been incorporated into this bill. We're glad that Mrs Marland's private member's bill has been incorporated. We have some changes to propose in both the truck safety and the bus safety legislation. We'll be bringing those amendments forward and we hope the government will respond to them. I think it also needs to be said that the government is incorporating Pat Hoy's private member's bill on school bus safety, but we have to deal with the issue of the nature of the liability in that bill and we will be bringing those amendments forward.
We were as puzzled as you were, because we asked the questions in the House. There were almost two weeks between the time the bill was introduced and the time the filibuster happened, so even if the government says that, they've been able to deal with much more substantial legislation in just as short a period of time. We kept asking, we sent letters and then all of a sudden in the Toronto Sun and in the Toronto media the Premier was being quoted as saying that Bill 125 was too draconian. That's when we started to sense something.
Then we introduced our own private member's bill which incorporated not only Bill 125 but --
Mr Lowry: Why can't you just get together and pass the bill? It's as simple as that.
Mr Duncan: -- a number of the amendments, and we had an opposition day. At that time the government finally moved and we're glad they have. We'd like to get on with these hearings as quickly as possible as well.
Mr Lowry: All I want to know is, if it's good for Ontario --
The Chair: Thank you. For the third party, Mr Bisson.
Mr Gilles Bisson (Cochrane South): First of all I want to thank you for coming to present. I think the point you are trying to make through all this discussion is that somehow we've got to get this Legislature to work for the people of Ontario rather than just the politicians.
Mr Lowry: It is. Everybody says it's good.
Mr Bisson: That's right.
Mr Lowry: That's why I don't understand why it has been delayed.
Mr Bisson: It's a very good point, and I think one of the things we need to do, all of us on all sides of the House, is to try to find a way to get this Legislature to work not just for cabinet, because in the end they're the people with the power who decide when things go through the Legislature, but to work for people like you. I'd like to thank you for having come to present to this committee and make this contribution.
The Chair: Mr Lowry, thank you very much for coming here today, for being our very first speaker and for sharing your concerns with us.
Mr Lowry: You are welcome.
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DALE HOLMAN
The Chair: I call on Dale Holman. Welcome to our committee.
Mr Dale Holman: My involvement in the trucking industry began as a child with a father who drove a truck for a living. While we have been witness to countless changes over the years, what with today's available technology, rules and regulations that have changed, supposedly better training for everyone involved with the trucking industry and the experience we have harvested over the years to show us our errors, we still have concerns that I used to overhear my father and his friends talk about 35 years ago, and they are the exact same concerns that I talk about with my friends today. So in 35 years, with everything we have done, we haven't really gone anyplace yet.
Without a doubt some changes have been made that have become very beneficial to this industry. Some of them are IFTA for fuel taxes and things like that. We have a lot of new programs coming on line as well as some excellent ideas to make trucking safer. We are trying to make it more attractive to newcomers to enter into our industry and we want to become more cost-effective than ever so we can deal with change and things like that. We certainly have that need.
The first change I would like to address is the Target '97 paper. While everyone is looking at the wording and trying to imagine the effects these changes are going to bring about, I think we have to look between the lines here to see that there's a real message that's happened here.
For all my experiences in the industry, I have never seen anybody really work together. I used to see two people sit down at a table and do nothing but argue. We took a whole group of people from the industry and we put them all together in one committee to produce one paper, and they did it. They didn't squabble and argue or anything. They produced a paper that is probably a first of its kind in North America where we had everybody actually sit down and work together and produce something we can use. The task force created a paper, The Target '97 Issue, and it has to be passed without any delay at all.
However, Target '97 has left off a few areas that someone who's been in the industry can surely see without needing glasses. We have fines that are taking money out of the industry -- the increase in fines. They haven't really served to change anything yet that I can see. The industry is cash-starved. For myself, being an owner-operator, and a lot of people like myself, a tax goes on tires or something like that and the cost of the tires goes up by $40. The driver has to wait another couple of weeks to buy his tires because unfortunately his family and food on the table and a house for them to live in come first.
If fines are increased the way it looks like they're going to go, if we could have those fines earmarked to increase enforcement out on the roads and used to better train enforcement personnel, put back into better training of drivers and creating some sort of a format -- a lot of drivers I talk to out on the road, owner-operators and company drivers, are concerned that there are all these rules and regulations. Unfortunately, they affect them and they're the only ones who don't seem to be able to get their hands on the materials. It's actually kind of scary. You create a set of rules for the players and the players are the only ones who don't know what the rules are.
I travel between Toronto and Toledo, Ohio, on a nightly basis. I pass every night six scales in Ontario and two scales in the state of Michigan. The average for the state of Michigan, their scales are open about 80% of the time. Between January 1 and the end of April, the Ontario scales were open to the point that I had to enter them four times in four months. We don't really need them on the side of the road. All we need is just to put a car out there and every once in a while pull a truck over.
The scales are state of the art when you compare them to what some of the other jurisdictions in North America have. The only problem is, they're always locked up. Drivers are always accused of going around the scales. We never have to because they're never open. In fact, we always go in because it's a place we can park and sleep without --
Mr Bisson: It's the safest place on the highway.
Mr Holman: Sometimes it's the only place.
Mr Bisson: It's the only place you can't fine them too.
Mr Holman: Yes, and the only thing is, they don't have washrooms.
This is an area of great concern. We have the facilities in place. Maybe we can take some of this money -- and the increased fines, if the fines are going to be increased and levied as such -- and put inspectors in to open our scales up. Maybe we can't open them up for 24 hours a day, seven days a week, but we can certainly improve on maybe four times in four months.
The traffic on Highway 401 is very heavy at night and I hear that the scales are open every day. I've never seen it, but we basically have a ribbon of trucks up and down the road every night and that's when the enforcement needs to be out there, and everybody is at home.
Another problem I have is with inspectors. I bought a new truck a couple of years back. I know several of the inspectors. I stopped at the scale at Milton. I had my truck checked for length and I got kind of an outline of what I can do and what I can't do. I stopped at the scale at Putnam, down by London, and I was told there that the configuration of my truck has to be such, and unfortunately it didn't match inspector number one's view. I was red-lighted when I got to the scale in Windsor, which I was quite surprised to find open, and I got called in and dragged over the coals because I had configured my truck to inspector number two's configuration and inspector number three found that I was illegal in my setup.
After he was preparing to write me a ticket, I brought out the other two pieces of paper and informed him that three officers, all within a matter of hours, inspected the exact same truck, the same trailers, the same tractor, driven by the same driver, and I got three different pieces of paper saying three different things.
How can a driver know what he is supposed to do when the inspectors don't know how to read the words on the page? I informed the inspector at Windsor what I had been told. I had a copy of the length laws for the 25-metre rules in the truck. I brought a copy of it in and I read him the paragraph subject to my vehicle. I actually proved all three wrong because, as long as my trailers were under a certain length overall and my tractor didn't exceed 25 metres hooked to the trailers, there were no rules. He finally conceded on that point, along with his boss who happened to be there at the time. Enforcement is not uniform. What I see drivers getting stopped and ticketed for at one scale is not a problem at the next scale, but they'll nail you for something else.
I recently was made aware of a situation where drivers at one scale in western Ontario were getting written up for not having an extra jug of windshield washer fluid in their truck. I thought that we were really, truly after improving road safety, not seeing how we can lay petty charges. I have never, ever heard that we had to carry an extra jug of windshield washer in a truck.
The drivers and the companies -- based on these types of things, we're basically out there for harassment. We look after our trucks. I take great pride in my own equipment. Yet if I go in and see an inspector and it's somebody I don't know or can't outsurmise them on the rules and regulations, I'm going to get a ticket for something. They're going to keep looking until they find something wrong. It's almost to the point that they use US enforcement: If they can't find anything wrong, they break a light and make something wrong and then they write you a ticket for it.
Drivers out there, and this is a great concern -- I speak for a lot of them -- have a view that the government is simply out for the dollar and not for the enforcement. They view fines as a cost of business, like a toll. No matter what I do, I might as well save my money and get ready to pay the fine because I know I'm going to get that anyhow if I get stopped whether or not I have something wrong. I deal with a lot of inspectors, sometimes on a day-to-day basis, and most of them are very good people, but they're like drivers. If they don't have all the research at their fingertips, they run into problems.
Driver licensing practices: I took my driver's test years ago. One of the things I find deeply disturbing with the driver's test, and I've spent over three million kilometres in my career driving up and down a highway, is that it included driving around the block in an industrial area with no traffic. There's something wrong with this picture. This is something that really, deeply has to be addressed. I see drivers who have been driving for two or three years and they can't come on and off a highway without having problems. They go off a ramp too quickly; they don't accelerate properly; they cut people off when they come on to the highway. There are problems and lot of them are because they are self-taught. There are a lot of good schools teaching the guys the proper way and they give them a lot of on-highway time. My hat goes off to those schools.
We have a situation with regulations. I was offered a copy of the Highway Traffic Act about two years ago, and they said, "If you can understand that, we will give you a job you cannot turn down." Unfortunately, I'm still chasing that job. I study the book every night and I still haven't begun to understand even the first part of it.
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There is a strong need to define each role. A driver, mechanic and owner must each know what is expected of them. Drivers have to make sure a vehicle conforms to standards. I haven't been able to talk to any one person who can definitely outline those standards for me. As a mechanic, I know mechanics who are dealing with trucks. I had a bad experience a few years ago where I had one put new kingpins in the front end for me, only to find out when I got the job back -- a couple of days later the vehicle was involved in an accident and inspection showed that they had failed to reset the front brakes. I was charged with allowing the operation of an unsafe vehicle three days after it came out of the shop. I was found guilty of that because the judge who heard the case, as soon as we talked about a front-brake limiting valve on the truck, she didn't understand it and I was guilty. Maybe we need to take some of the justices in the province and set up an education process for them as well.
Driver pre-trips: Target '97 addresses this in a small manner. Driver pre-trips have to be defined. A driver must look at lights, he must look at his brakes, he must look at his low-air warning. He has to have a list of things he checks, not "the vehicle must conform to standards," because the standards change every day. A truck that was built a few years ago may not have something that conforms to standards today so therefore, no matter what the driver does and no matter what condition the vehicle is in, he's driving a truck that's unsafe.
Drivers: I share the profession with them up and down the road and I see them all the time. They pull out into the third lane to drive 120, 130 kilometres an hour. Unfortunately, they think they're still in their car. Is there no way we can deal with the driver aspect as well as much of the outline of the CVOR, where driver demerit points based on their actions in a commercial vehicle could see them lose their class licence and go back to a G licence, which would certainly smarten them up? One of the concerns of a lot of drivers when they came out with the demerit point system was, "Gee, I get nailed for overweight and I end up losing my licence even to drive a car." If we could do something there, that would be great as well.
I spend a lot time looking at brakes of trucks. I do brake testing around the province. I find that a lot of mechanics who are dealing with brake systems are licensed to work on a vehicle and they don't know what they're doing. They put the wrong valves on. They mismatch components. What it boils down to is that they haven't had the training to stay current with the technology. They're out there manually adjusting automatic slack adjusters, things like that. It's just a danger.
As I said, Target '97 is a great accomplishment and it must be passed, but without due consideration of other points it cannot have the impact that must be realized. I applaud the efforts by all the people involved and hope that the time and work invested are allowed to pay off. I would not want to look back 35 years from now and find that, after a long, exhaustive journey, we have failed to travel anywhere. Thank you for your time.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Holman. We have about two minutes per caucus, beginning with the official opposition.
Mr Duncan: I have just a couple of brief comments. You raise some very significant points. First, on the question of enforcement, not only is there concern about different inspection stations and different inspectors but there's also concern -- we've raised this in the House and we will again be questioning the minister -- about the issue of the nature of the role the OPP plays versus the MTO inspectors.
You also referred to Target '97. Probably one of the only areas where we're a little disappointed in this bill is that it really addresses only one new recommendation out of Target '97 and there is a whole range of others. The government will probably correctly suggest that the balance of those issues can be addressed in regulation. We don't oppose that, save and except that we will present an amendment asking the government to provide for a committee similar to Target '97 to oversee the implementation so that there is a public process beyond that which is normally defined in the regulatory process and an opportunity for public input.
You had indicated that 80% of the time, truck inspection stations are open in the state of Michigan. Is that your own observation or have you found that number out from the department of transportation in the state of Michigan?
Mr Holman: The way I find it out is from talking to other drivers, seeing it myself, my own observations. We travel Interstate 75 every night and there are two scales, one southbound and one northbound. About one night of the week each scale will be closed, and that doesn't necessarily mean Monday night or a Friday night, each one; they rotate.
Mr Duncan: It's your experience, then, that in other jurisdictions inspection stations are open more, and you're referencing Michigan specifically?
Mr Holman: Yes. In a lot of areas in the US they're open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Mr Duncan: Do they pull all trucks over at those times?
Mr Holman: Yes. At the port of entry they do.
Mr Bisson: Thank you very much for your presentation. You covered a lot of ground and I have a couple of questions. The first is on the Target '97 recommendations. As you know, an industry-government committee put that together. There wasn't public representation on there to the degree there needed to be.
The question I have for you is that the government is supposedly going to be moving forward on the bulk of the recommendations of Target '97 through regulation. Are you comfortable allowing the cabinet that amount of power without any public accountability?
Mr Holman: I think what needs to happen first of all is to take the people -- and they've already put some of them at the table for Target '97. They have to include that. They have to get the people who are involved in the industry. They have to take some public insight into it as well.
Mr Bisson: The process at this point, unfortunately, is that the committee is out of it. It's in the hands of cabinet to decide what, if anything, under Target '97 will go forward. Should that rest in the hands of cabinet or should there be some sort of public and industry involvement? That's what I'm asking.
Mr Holman: Anybody I've talked to from the public, and I spend a lot of time doing it as a member of the OTA Road Knights team, has a very tunnel vision approach to road safety. Their only answer is that yes, it must go through. Anything is a point in the right direction. My big fear is that we're going to spend a lot of time doing it, as I mentioned, and will find out a few years down the road that we really didn't change anything because we didn't give everybody the tools.
Mr Bisson: Is this comprehensive truck safety legislation?
Mr Holman: Target '97?
Mr Bisson: No, the bill. Is the bill, in your view, comprehensive truck safety legislation?
Mr Holman: It is in the points it addresses, but it needs to go further.
Mr Frank Klees (York-Mackenzie): Thank you for your comments -- quite an indictment of inspectors. I would think that regardless of what we do legislatively, regardless of what standards we put in place, if we don't have effective inspection, it doesn't do us much good, does it?
Mr Holman: No, and that's exactly what we're afraid of out on the road, that they're given more tools to do the same thing with them.
Mr Klees: Has this problem with inspection been prevalent for some time? You've been on the road for a number of years. Is this something recent?
Mr Holman: No, it's been going on for a long time, all of my recognition of the trucking industry since I was a child anyhow.
Mr Klees: Is it worse in some parts of the province than in others?
Mr Holman: Yes, definitely.
Mr Klees: So it's an identifiable problem. If we were to get some input from people in your industry, we could probably narrow down where the problems really are.
Mr Holman: You may have one problem in the Toronto region that you don't have in the western Ontario region, but you may have a different one there. Like I said, they're writing people up for not having an extra jug of windshield washer fluid.
Mr Klees: Let me ask you this: What, in your opinion, is an effective way of getting a handle on this?
Mr Holman: One book, in black and white. It's one rule page and everybody has to deal off the same page and everybody has access to that rule book -- drivers, mechanics, fleet owners, manufacturers of the equipment, the enforcement people, the OPP, the government. It's got to be one piece of paper, and it's got to be plain and simple and in English so everybody can understand it. Failing that, it's not going to work.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Holman. We appreciate that you came before us and shared your very personal experiences with us today.
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CANADIAN INDUSTRIAL TRANSPORTATION LEAGUE
The Chair: I call upon the Canadian Industrial Transportation League, Lisa MacGillivray and Don Hughes. Good afternoon. I remind you that you have 20 minutes to make your presentation. At the conclusion of your presentation, if there is any time, the committee would ask you some questions
Ms Lisa MacGillivray: We'll certainly endeavour to stay within our time limit.
Good afternoon, committee members. My name is Lisa MacGillivray, and I'm the manager of policy and government affairs for the Canadian Industrial Transportation League. The gentleman with me is Mr Don Hughes; he's the director of distribution for Growmark, an agricultural and agriproduct concern here in Ontario. Mr Hughes is the chairman of the CITL Ontario region's highway transportation committee.
The CITL is a national organization representing the transportation interests of some 300 corporate members across Canada. A substantial percentage of these members operate or reside here in Ontario. Collectively, our member companies generate more than $120 billion in trade and purchase more than $6 billion in freight services annually. I'd like to point out that this is all modes, not just truck.
We are grateful for this opportunity to make a submission to the standing committee on the issue of truck safety. The CITL is in favour of legislation that provides a means to make our highways safer. We will be focusing our remarks on the commercial vehicle clauses of Bill 138.
We are generally supportive of the government's strong stance to remove commercial vehicles with critical defects. We are thus far satisfied, in our discussions with Ministry of Transportation officials, that vehicles will only be impounded for truly critical defects. However, subsection 82.1(15) requires the operator, after an impound order, to remove the load at the inspection site. While this seems an easy enough request, it can be fraught with potential hazard.
There are some commodities that may be dangerous, unwise and injurious to health and/or the environment, or impossible to move unless proper facilities are available. Even non-hazardous goods which are palletized will require the use of a forklift. Issues surrounding livestock, dangerous goods, bulk products and perishable products, to name a few, are examples where it would be detrimental to handle the product at an unsuitable location. In fact, it may not be possible to transship certain products without specialized equipment and trained personnel.
Further, subsections (17) and (18) provide for the officer to cause the load to be removed, stored or otherwise disposed of at the cost and risk of the operator. We have raised our concerns about certain commodities that are hazardous to move and store without proper facilities and training. We are profoundly disturbed by the possibility of disposal.
The CITL understands from its conversations with MTO officials that the intent of granting the authority to dispose of goods is in the event that the carrier abandons goods with no or little value. However, this proposed legislation does not make this clear. Read literally, it appears that the state and its designates are granted the authority to appropriate and dispose of goods that are lawfully the property of another. Whether the goods are worthless or not, they belong to someone else, and that someone is generally not the carrier. The owners ought to be notified and instructions duly given before action is taken. We respectfully request that the legislation be amended to consider this and remove the possibility that government officials may appropriate and dispose of that which does not belong to them.
The CITL does not profess to be a technical expert in the area of wheel separation, but we feel duty-bound to point out that section 84.1, relating to liability of the carrier in the event that a wheel separates, does not provide for the carrier to be relieved from liability if the cause is a manufacturer's defect. It is possible that the wheel separation could occur due to inherent component failure caused by factors completely outside the carrier's control. In our opinion, in the case of component failure due to inherent defect, the manufacturer of that component should also be responsible for the consequences.
One of the recommendations of the Worona inquiry was the implementation of a certified wheel maintenance and installer program. We have professional designated wheel installers. Why are they immune from liability?
We are surprised that the definition of a wheel does not include a tire and that it is acceptable for tires or pieces of tires to come off with no penalties. Tire failure is often preceded by visible signs of separation, which are far easier to detect during a circle check than is potential wheel failure.
We wish to reiterate that the CITL is supportive of the government's initiatives on truck safety. The CITL is a member of the Target '97 project and we endorse the concept that these recommendations should be received as a package. The 79 recommendations contained therein represent interrelated tools that can achieve the result that the government, the Ontario public and the transportation industry are looking for.
We note that the current changes proposed make no reference to a carrier safety rating system, but we assume that this program is under development and enabling legislation and/or regulation is imminent. We have stated and will continue to state that shippers must have immediate and easy access to carrier records and safety potential in order for the shipper to make an informed judgement as to the carrier's safety record and suitability. We anticipate a revised and revamped commercial vehicle operator's record will fulfil these needs. A safety rating system based on these MTO-maintained records will give Ontario shippers the tools to make the right choices.
We look forward to the implementation of this program and trust that there will be as cooperative an effort to initiate a safety ratings program in the near future as there is to penalize unsafe drivers and vehicles today.
Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for the time you've allowed the CITL to bring forth its views. Both Mr Hughes and I welcome any questions you might have.
The Chair: Thank you. We have just under five minutes per caucus. In the absence of Mr Bisson -- it's the NDP rotation -- we'll go to the government.
Mrs Marland: Ms MacGillivray and Mr Hughes, were you here for all of Mr Holman's presentation, the previous presenter? I was very interested in a point he made and I wanted to ask you based on your experience. His concern is about the fact that there is such a variance in enforcement of standards and actually enforcement of the Highway Traffic Act in some aspects to the trucking industry and the frequency of the operation of the scales. I wonder if you had any comment to make on that aspect from the CITL's perspective.
Ms MacGillivray: I think for a long time there have been the tools available to make these changes. For whatever reason, priorities lay elsewhere and the Highway Traffic Act, or the spirit of that act, probably was not enforced as well as it could have been.
As far as enforcement and audits are concerned, there is a fair amount of training that needs to be done among the inspectors, and a concerted effort should probably be part of this program. This is what we mean when we say it's a package deal. We don't believe that you can just bring in one or two measures and expect that to do the job; you have to approach it from all angles. It's a many-pronged type of solution that we're looking at here.
Mrs Marland: Do you think it's possible for us to go forward with this legislation and at least try to address one area while we take ongoing advice from the industry in terms of what else would be feasible to introduce and implement?
Ms MacGillivray: I think that is the most practical way to approach it. As I said, it's a huge project. The revisions and the work that is currently being done on the CVOR program is not something you'll be able to do in one month. We're hoping to have something by the end of the year, and that's a good hope, but we might be talking about rewriting that entire system, which one can't do overnight. But I think implementation as things are ready is probably a good thing, as long as the whole goal of the entire recommendation package is not forgotten.
Mrs Julia Munro (Durham-York): Thank you very much for being here today. You mentioned something that I think we'd all like to know a little bit more about and that is the issue you raised about carrier safety rating. I just wonder if you could explain for us how the establishment of such a public rating system would improve truck safety across the province.
Ms MacGillivray: It would be --
Interruption.
Interjection: She didn't like that question.
Ms MacGillivray: I didn't think the presentation was that bad either.
Mrs Marland: It's so hard to hear in this room right now.
Ms MacGillivray: The safety carrier rating program is important from the shipper's point of view because the thing that we more or less envision is a situation where a carrier would be audited. His safety record would be easily accessible and available to the shipper so that when they're buying transportation services they'll know who is a satisfactory carrier and they'll be able to make the right choices. Shippers don't want to hire unsafe carriers, but the way it is right now it's very hard to tell who's safe and who's unsafe, once you define what safe and unsafe are.
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Mrs Lyn McLeod (Fort William): As you know, all of us have expressed our concern to see truck safety legislation not only brought in but passed fairly quickly because of the most obvious concern with the flying truck tires. I would hope that even with the commitment we all have to see this pass quickly, the government is going to be amenable to some amendments where there are some things that can be fixed in this legislation.
I'd like to ask you to expand a little bit on the concerns that you indicated at the beginning. If I understood it correctly, you were concerned about whether the act really deals adequately with the removal of property, of goods from a truck which might be impounded. As I read the act, it's to be done in accordance with the dangerous goods provisions and there's also to be notification of the owner of the property as well as of those who were to receive the goods. Are you concerned that it's just not adequate as it's spelled out in the act?
Ms MacGillivray: I guess we're concerned that the proper facilities will be available. There are some hazardous materials, chemicals, for which you must be in a specialized facility with very specialized, trained staff to do that. We are concerned about liability of this exposure to the environment. We want to make sure that any regulations that come out of this cover these concerns and make sure you're not going to do more damage to the environment as a whole by getting an unsafe carrier off the road in a way that's just not viable.
Mrs McLeod: Because any removal of goods is to be done in accordance with the Dangerous Goods Transportation Act, that act would not provide the protection you think is needed?
Mr Don Hughes: I think the concern is the transfer and how the transfer would be made and if there are proper facilities for effecting that transfer. If it is an impounded vehicle and there are commodities on that vehicle that must be removed, we have no problem with having them removed as long as there is the proper facility for removing them; that is, the proper equipment and things like this for removing them, and assuming that the consignee and/or the shipper have been duly notified and given the opportunity to remove them.
The Chair: For the third party, Mr Bisson.
Mr Bisson: I apologize for having missed your presentation. I was out watching what was going on in the other committee room with WCB. I came back and read what you had, but there's a comment that you made that I guess perplexed me to a certain extent. You said that basically shippers are not interested in shipping with unsafe carriers. There are some unsafe shippers. There are carriers out there using unsafe trucks. They're being caught on the highways on a fairly regular basis. Who are they, if they're not shippers?
Ms MacGillivray: I'm sorry?
Mr Bisson: You made the comment, you said that shippers do not want to ship with unsafe trucks. Yet every day there are trucks being pulled over on our highways when we have blitzes and as a regular occurrence we have unsafe trucks. They're carrying goods around for somebody.
Ms MacGillivray: Our point is that the shipping community does not have easy access to any kind of fora that would give us that information. How are we to know that we're hiring an unsafe carrier unless we're told? We can't be riding around with the OPP every day to find out who they're pulling over. Generally, the shipper never hears about it. A carrier isn't going to walk in and say, "Hello, I got pulled over today."
Mr Bisson: What you're calling for is some sort of a rating system where, if I'm the shipper, I know who I'm dealing with. If that means an increase in costs for the shipper -- because one of the things that's driving unsafe trucks is lower prices. People are undercutting some of the more reputable trucking companies. If it means higher prices for shipping, are you prepared to pay?
Mr Hughes: As a shipper, I would be prepared to pay for that type of information if it was available.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Hughes and Ms MacGillivray, for being here today and bringing the concerns of your industry to us.
TRUCK TRAINING SCHOOLS ASSOCIATION OF ONTARIO
The Chair: The Truck Training Schools Association of Ontario, Mr Kim Richardson and Wayne Campbell. Welcome. Thank you very much for being here this afternoon and taking the time to be with us, which you may use as you wish. If there's any time remaining, we'll ask you some questions.
Mr Kim Richardson: Thank you to the standing committee for an opportunity to comment. My name is Kim Richardson. I'm the president of the Truck Training Schools Association of Ontario.
The Truck Training Schools Association of Ontario represents a number of registered private vocational schools that conduct professional driver training for tractor-trailer operators in Ontario. Our membership currently represents approximately 75% of all new entry-level operators being tested by the Ministry of Transportation. Our association has specifications, terms and conditions that must be followed, as well as an auditing process that will be launched by the fall of 1997.
Since 1992, our association has become to the industry the choice for a commonsense approach to training ventures. Industry has turned to our group for input, advice and guidance to lending support for improvement to the trucking industry. I now encourage this committee and government to listen to some changes that must be made to the truck training business if you want the carnage on the highways to stop.
Ten to 15 minutes is not a sufficient amount of time to address all of these issues, but hopefully I can scratch the surface and gain some interest in the necessary changes.
I would like to go on record as saying that the TTSAO executive and membership are willing to meet with any committee or any group that has a genuine interest in road safety and professional training.
Regarding Bill 138, Comprehensive Road Safety Act; on Target '97 blueprint, class AZ driver's licence test and class AZ driver training, necessary changes:
(1) Non-registered training facilities must be forced to register with private vocational schools. Licensing mills are all across the province and individuals who participate in these programs are not receiving adequate training. Quite simply, the Private Vocational Schools Act must have some more teeth so this governing body can do its job.
We corresponded with the Honourable Mr Snobelen and I've given you a copy of the letter dated October 10, 1995. If you look down in the appendix to point 1, "Changes to the Private Vocational Schools Act," it says: "Amend the act to include regulations which would deter unqualified truck training schools from offering inferior programs and eliminate unaccredited schools. The objective of these new regulations would be to establish clear criteria for operating a registered truck training school in the province of Ontario."
I might also add that under item 2 we talked about monitoring: "The private vocational schools sector of the Ministry of Education and Training and the Truck Training Schools Association of Ontario could develop a partnership agreement to assist in the monitoring and discipline of the membership training schools."
I might also add at this time that we corresponded with Mr Palladini's office and he corresponded back, saying that it wasn't his job to look after this section, so we were to contact the Honourable Mr Snobelen, so that's what we did.
(2) The Ministry of Transportation centres in our province cannot continue to allow some of the current testing practices. Currently, pickup trucks and horse trailers are being used for commercial road tests. This must stop. Automatic transmissions are being used with 20-foot trailers. These individuals are going out the next day and have an opportunity to operate vehicles that are far more comprehensive, endangering the general public. Too much time is being wasted in the in-yard testing processes at the Ministry of Transportation. Let's find out if these individuals can drive and operate a truck; let's not find out about them walking around doing a thumb test on some tires.
The MOT practical and theoretical tests must become more meaningful and, for the record, privatization of road tests will lead to worse testing standards and practices.
(3) Signing authority programs offered at community colleges must be dissolved in the true interest of road safety in our province. The signing authority program was not designed for community colleges; it was designed for carriers and the trucking industry who employ commercial operators.
The Ministry of Education and Training and the Ministry of Transportation need to decide who is responsible for training and testing. Numerous correspondence has been sent to the Honourable Mr Palladini and the Honourable Mr Snobelen by our association, only to be paid lip-service in return.
In closing, I applaud the initiative taken by David Bradley and their team at the Ontario Trucking Association. Target '97 is a terrific blueprint for the future, and it is now time to implement it into the future.
Transportation critic Dwight Duncan openly wondered out loud recently, as are many of the taxpayers of Ontario, "When will we see some action?" Honourable Mr Palladini was also quoted as saying, "We need stronger legislation." Stronger legislation needs to start at the foundation of the trucking industry with entry-level professional drivers. The printing press for licensing mills in our province needs to be stopped. Thank you for your time.
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The Chair: Thank you very much for your comments. Each caucus has five minutes for questions, beginning with the government.
Mr Klees: Thank you for your presentation. I'm interested in your comment that it's probably more important for a truck driver to be able to drive than to do a thumb test. I don't disagree with that. From some of the things I've experienced on the road, I'd like to do a thumb test on the forehead of a couple of drivers. That's a big problem we have on the highways today.
However, I would also think that as a driver I would be equally interested in the safety of the rig I'm driving. Surely you would agree that there needs to be a high level of competence on the part of the individual getting behind the wheel to determine whether that truck is safe enough to drive. I'm wondering whether you feel that in your training program enough emphasis is being placed on the mechanical safety aspects of the trucks and whether you would be prepared to incorporate some of that and enhance the technical aspects of the training in those regulations you're calling for to be incorporated into the training program.
Mr Richardson: Under the specifications, terms and conditions outlined for a full member of the Truck Training School Association of Ontario, they must follow the curriculum developed by Career Publishing. It's very stringent and it does include many of those mechanisms you're talking about.
For clarification regarding the testing, I agree wholeheartedly that we need these individuals to know the complexities of their particular unit as well, but I think it can be done in another fashion. What I mean by that is that a major part of the road test at the Ministry of Transportation is spent on the circle check, upwards of 40 minutes in some cases across the province. We've heard talk about parity from some of our other speakers. There is no parity at the testing centres either.
A high portion of that could probably be conducted in the theoretical part of the test, in the written test, so that there isn't as much time being wasted in the in-yard portion of the Ministry of Transportation road test. These individuals are not getting a competent test. This is coming from the group who's training the people who are testing. You might think that we would be sitting back and saying: "It's an easy test. We should be satisfied with that." We're not. We see the results day in and day out on the highways.
Mr Klees: This gets right back to the ministry having the appropriate standards and ensuring that they're applied consistently across the board, beginning from the certification of the driver himself.
Mr Richardson: If you look at it in comparison to the bar exam, it doesn't matter where you learn and where you gain your experience in becoming a lawyer; everyone has to pass the bar exam. If we could do the same thing for the trucking industry and make the test meaningful, it's going to bring the level of the training up automatically, and, I might add, realistic training. We're seeing training being offered out there that is less than acceptable by our industry from an overkill standpoint. There has to be a happy medium.
We have that blueprint in the specifications, terms and conditions in that outline. All we need is an opportunity for the Ministry of Education and Training and the Ministry of Transportation to sit down and adopt these specs.
Mrs Marland: You're representing how many schools?
Mr Richardson: Our association represents 75% of the individuals being tested. There are currently 45 truck training centres registered under the Private Vocational Schools Act. There are probably another 40 not registered, those licensing mills we're talking about.
Mrs Marland: I want to go a little further about the walk-around check prior to them driving off with their loaded vehicle. I'm making a comparison as someone who has a pilot's licence and knows that the walk-around is very critical to the safe operation of an aircraft. If you're driving whatever tonnage it is at 120 kilometres, I would say it's a fair comparison especially in terms of risk to other people around you, perhaps even more so than flying.
Are you saying that you can train them but in the actual evaluation by the Ministry of Transportation examiners there isn't uniformity in that evaluation? Second, as one of the previous presenters this afternoon said, is it true that they don't go out in heavy traffic to drive those vehicles for their tests?
Mr Richardson: That would be very correct. In some centres in Ontario you have ministry exams being conducted with one set of stoplights, no multilane traffic.
In reference to the point you made about the circle check, the industry standard, the unwritten policy, for a circle check is 15 to 20 minutes. When we go to the Ministry of Transportation, these individuals are taking somewhere between 35 and 45 minutes. If an individual competently passes the road test and goes to a job interview, the first time he takes 45 minutes to do a pre-trip inspection, I'm sorry, but for-profit trucking is sending this guy or lady down the road.
Mr Duncan: Have you had a response from Mr Snobelen to your letter dated October 10, 1995?
Mr Richardson: Yes, we did.
Mr Duncan: What was his response?
Mr Richardson: They banged it back to Mr Palladini and his people. We then corresponded with the Ministry of Transportation in respect to that correspondence, and we were blessed with the opportunity to have a meeting with some of the people at the Ministry of Transportation. When they corresponded back in regard to the letter, they talked about something totally different from what we talked about at the meeting. We were there to discuss training standards and testing standards and they wrote us back saying they would not be able to honour our request to test people. That's not what we were there for.
Mr Duncan: Are the three recommendations you have outlined for us -- I apologize; I don't have my Target '97 -- all addressed separately in Target '97?
Mr Richardson: The class A driver's testing and the class A licensing are addressed in Target '97. I think we have to applaud those efforts. Let's not put them on the shelf to collect dust.
Mr Bisson: I go back to the beginning of your presentation where you talked about the importance of making sure that drivers are properly trained, and I couldn't agree with you more. That's one part of the problem; I don't think it's the entire problem in the trucking industry.
Do you have any studies or stats or anything in your possession that points to the rough percentage of accidents that could be prevented if we were properly training our drivers in Ontario?
Mr Richardson: Target '97 asked the same question, and the committee I sat on was told there would be some statistics made available to the future committees.
Mr Bisson: That's why I asked, because I have yet to see that particular document. So you don't have anything?
Mr Richardson: I have not received anything.
Mr Bisson: Before getting off that, in going around talking to truck operators in different parts of the province as a critic for the NDP, a number of them, especially the more senior ones, point to this as being one of the big problems. Quite bluntly, you've got people being put behind the steering wheel of a truck a lot more quickly and very unprepared, which is causing a lot of problems.
Let me get to Target '97. As other people here have said, quite a bit of work was done by industry and the ministry around Target '97. At this point, that initiative, which contains part of what you're talking about here, is left in the hands of cabinet to be implemented by regulation. Do you have confidence that the cabinet of Ontario will do that by regulation, understanding that regulation means no public input, no public process? Are you comfortable with that or would you rather have some sort of public process in there?
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Mr Richardson: I firmly believe there was public interest at that table. I know there was public invitation at that table. When I say that, it's similar to the stakeholders we have on our committee. You have to involve all players at the table. The Canadian Automobile Association is on our list of stakeholders and never attended the meeting. I think they represent the general public.
Mr Bisson: I guess there are two parts to the question. First, you're comfortable that there was enough public representation on the Target '97 task force. That's what you're saying.
Mr Richardson: I think all were represented, yes.
Mr Bisson: I'm not as convinced, but I accept that. At this point what we have before us is supposedly comprehensive truck safety legislation. Do you think it's such? Do you think this is comprehensive truck safety legislation we have before us? If we were to pass this bill, would this satisfy what needs to be done?
Mr Richardson: I think it has been mentioned before that if the bill is passed there are always ways to get things done once it is passed -- some amendments to be made and so on. The big thing we want to support is the fact that players are at the table and we work in a harmonization effort to make those things take place.
Mr Bisson: Where we're at now is that the government has introduced this bill that contains two parts that deal with truck safety. The flying truck wheels issue, Bill 125, is brought back, as well as the whole issue of being able to give roadside suspensions. There is much more to making our highways safer in the trucking industry than just that. The Target '97 report talks about all kinds of things that need to be done, responsibility by all the players in the trucking industry: shippers, mechanics and others.
Where we're at now is that the government is saying the recommendations of Target '97 will only be implemented by way of regulation, which means there is no public process, it's not legislation and it's up to the cabinet and the Ministry of Transportation to do it when they please. Are you comfortable with that or do you think there needs to be some public and industry involvement about how we go forward with the implementations of the recommendations of Target '97?
Mr Richardson: It's a start, and I'll say that again. We have to implement and we have to get things going. From an association standpoint, we're disappointed with the efforts of the government with Target '97. There was a tremendous amount of legwork and hard work put in by industry -- and I stand to be corrected -- to have the possibility of one or two of these things coming to be realized.
Mr Wayne Campbell: From our point, we're truck training schools. We've worked very hard to promote safety over the years in working with the OTA etc, but a lot of work has to be done on the basic testing. If we're going to clean up the carnage on the road, or start to clean it up, we also have to work at the entry-level driver. It's great to target the person who's been out there 15 to 20 years, but when I see -- and this only happened last week. A person from the Ministry of Transportation called and informed me that I can drive into the ministry with my little Neon car and a boat trailer, with no yellow safety sticker, and perform a class A road test. That is pretty pathetic.
Until those loopholes in the system are closed -- the honourable member over here mentioned the pilot's licence. I've had a pilot's licence since 1969. Would anybody in this room feel confident going to the airport for your holidays knowing I'm flying your 747 or 737 and I'm only licensed to fly a fixed-wing? Something's wrong with the system. I've said you can go in with a pickup trailer and a horse trailer. I find I don't even have to use that; I can use a car with a boat trailer, a tri-axle boat trailer that's licensed for 13,000 pounds, and perform a class A test and walk away with a class A tractor-trailer licence in this province. The loopholes have got to be closed.
We should bring in something similar to what the pilots have had for years: an endorsement rating. If I do a test on a single-axle tractor and trailer -- let's go back to the horse trailer scenario. This is not in any way, shape or form meant to put the farmer etc who needs that licence out of business, no. Let's classify or code the licence. We have computers that can do this now. If a person goes in and does a test, for example, on a single-axle tractor and a single-axle trailer, let's code them. Go by weight, if we have to do it that way. If a person also goes in with an automatic tractor, code the licence. If we go in with a tandem axle, which is, for anybody who doesn't know, a double-axle tractor at the back and a double-axle trailer, perhaps that should be the entry level and then we start a graduated process from there up. We go in and we have to hold our licence for so many months, whatever is decided, before we can start driving multi-unit vehicles.
But until we plug the loophole, I can go in to the Ministry of Transportation -- and I just found this out last week -- with my little Neon car pulling a boat trailer that's capable of 13,000 pounds, and I do not need a commercial yellow sticker, and do a class A licence. I think there's something really wrong with our system.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Richardson and Mr Campbell, for being with us. On behalf of the committee, I thank you for your time.
Mr Duncan: I'd like to place a question to the Ministry of Transportation and the Ministry of Education with our researcher. Could we please be provided with correspondence between Mr Palladini and Mr Snobelen with regard to the Private Vocational Schools Act and the responses from the two ministries to that correspondence?
The Chair: Researcher, do you have that?
Mr Jerry Richmond: Madam Chairman, I made note of that. However, I would suggest I may well chat with the parliamentary assistant because the ministries would have access to those materials.
The Chair: We have a request to the researcher. The parliamentary assistant may wish to respond as well later on.
Mr Klees: I wonder if we could have a clarification from the parliamentary assistant, and this is pursuant to Mr Bisson's line of questioning which is intended to leave the impression that the legislation before us is comprehensive. I think it's important for the public to understand clearly that regulations that will be an adjunct to this legislation will contain many of the safety regulation issues and that the legislation, in addition to the regulation, will in fact be the comprehensive package. I am concerned that we're leaving the impression --
The Chair: What clarification do you need, Mr Klees?
Mr Klees: I think the parliamentary assistant should reaffirm for the record that it is the government's intention that many of the concerns that are being addressed by Mr Bisson would be incorporated in the regulations.
The Chair: I am not entirely sure that's a clarification, but if Mr Hastings wants to add something very quickly, he may.
Mr John Hastings (Etobicoke-Rexdale): The bill simply deals with the three essential elements of school bus driving, the comprehensive material related to safety in the trucking industry and the drunk driving provisions. As Minister Palladini has pointed out, we will be proceeding as quickly as we can, when we get the other stuff off the legislative agenda, with the items that have not been cited in Bill 138 regarding Target '97 recommendations.
I think the member is partially right to say that we haven't included everything in here, because we're not prepared yet. All the material has not been prepared in terms of how we will follow, either by legislation or by regulation, so I think that isn't a good impression and needs to be corrected. It's comprehensive in so far as it contains those three elements that have been cited in this bill.
The Chair: For the information of everyone here, the minister will be with us tomorrow and members of the committee can certainly put that question to him.
Mr Klees: If I might just follow that up --
The Chair: I don't want to engage in debate, Mr Klees.
Mr Klees: No, not debate. I just said "clarification" because the parliamentary assistant said that I was partially right. I think I was absolutely right.
Mr Hastings: However you view it.
Mrs Marland: My question is also to the researcher for information that I believe we need. I think the last points made by the co-presenter, Mr Campbell, I think we need to know what is available in terms the differences between the A licence and the other licences. When we're getting into the different truck categories, before we get into clause-by-clause we should know what the existing rules are today and I would appreciate that information from our researcher.
Mr Campbell: I just have one comment to make to Mrs Marland on what she said. Target '97 is fine; it looks at the class A program. But it doesn't go, to the best of my knowledge that I have seen, to the class D program. We're talking cement trucks, dump trucks etc. What is being done about these trucks? Right now, the way the Ministry of Transportation testing is, I can go into the Ministry of Transportation with a school bus and perform a class D test on an automatic vehicle, having no standard experience at all. Anybody who has been in this business -- I've been in it 20-some-odd years -- knows that driving a school bus is an awful lot different from driving, say, a 13-speed, tri-axle dump hauling X number of pounds. Again, this is not a debate, I realize that, but I think the ministry has to look at this class also. Let's not stop at the class A; let's do it right the first time around.
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Mrs Marland: I've always felt the same about standards.
Mr Bisson: I have two question I'd like the parliamentary assistant to report back to us on, because I don't think you'd be able to give us the details now. The first one: What is the standard when it comes to getting a class A licence? We hear from the deputants here that you can pull in there with a small car and a boat trailer or a horse trailer and get yourself tested on a class A licence. That's pretty distressing.
The Chair: That's a question Mrs Marland posed as well.
Mr Bisson: There are two parts, Chair. The first part is that I want that information from the parliamentary assistant. That's where I'd like to get it from, because they are the licensing agent.
The second issue I want to raise is when it comes to the class D that you just raised, with regard to people actually being tested on heavy trucks. You're supposed to be able to drive a standard heavy truck, a 120,000-pound rig, and are being tested on automatic transmissions. I'd like to get a report on that as well. Are there standards, and what are they?
The Chair: Mr Hastings, will you undertake to report to us?
Mr Hastings: We will undertake to get you that information.
Mrs McLeod: I won't take time to reiterate, because my questions were along the same lines as Mrs Marland's. But sometimes we may not get the information we need because we're not sure of how to put the question. I just want to be sure that what the researcher is seeking from the Ministry of Transportation is some clarification around each of the licensing issues that have been raised by the presenters so that we can really find out where the gaps are in terms of updating administration of licensing.
The Chair: Thank you very much, gentlemen, for being with us this afternoon.
COM-CAR OWNER OPERATORS' ASSOCIATION
The Chair: If I could call upon Com-Car, Arthur Joosse and Gerry Dorsay. Thank you very much for being with us this afternoon. You have 20 minutes for your presentation. You may use it as you wish and we will ask you questions if there is any time remaining.
Mr Arthur Joosse: Thank you, Madam Chairperson. With respect to the recommendations of Target '97, Com-Car has been an active participant in the process and is totally in agreement with the recommendations. There are certain areas, however, which may not have been addressed with respect to owner-operators' concerns, and my association is one that represents well over 2,700 owner-operators in Ontario. I feel that some of these concerns may be of value to the committee.
Com-Car Owner Operators' Association has been in existence since 1972. We represent actual owner-operators of trucks. As such, these owner-operators may work for either a common carrier, a private carrier or for themselves. It's always been our intention, especially with our board of directors, to try to get the viewpoint of the actual person driving the truck. Com-Car's mandate has been both an educative and a lobbying concern within the trucking industry, based on representing its members.
I am president of Com-Car. Mr Gerry Dorsay, who is sitting beside me, is one of our directors. We have a board of 36 directors. I have had an active role on the Canadian Trucking Human Resources Council, as well as being represented on the Ontario Trucking Association and the Canadian Trucking Association. I must say that I know the OTA is going to make a presentation after myself and I feel that a lot of the things that I might have to say will more than likely be covered by them. However, to that end, Com-Car would like to make the following additional representations with respect to the items listed below.
The first one is wheel detachments. At a recent meeting of Com-Car's board of directors, great concern was expressed with the fact that the manufacturers of both trucks and trailers may not be liable for a wheel separation. Com-Car in fact has given the current Minister of Transportation a copy of a warning presented by a major US trailer manufacturer which warns against the possibility of a wheel separation simply because of defective welds on the axle housing of its trailers. The remedy to my mind was so farfetched it was laughable. The manufacturer suggested that there not be a recall but a warning to the owner that the welds must be frequently inspected for cracks. Current legislation, as I see it proposed, does not allow for manufacturer neglect.
Further to the above, Com-Car's board has also taken strong objection to the fact that manufacturers or maintenance facilities may be using substandard fasteners and parts which will not withstand the rigours the part or fastener may be designed for. The case in point is one in which an owner-operator noticed a wheel stud going missing in a Budd wheel simply because the shoulder of the stud had collapsed under continuous tightening of the assembly. We're always telling these drivers or owner-operators, "You've got to make sure that these fasteners are well-fastened." But if it's a substandard fastener, then what are you going to do?
That is why absolute liability for a wheel separation may not be the answer. Owner-operators are small businessmen and as such they may not have either the resources or legal representation to mitigate for themselves. Owner-operators pride themselves in showing due diligence in doing proper pre-inspections, and if there happens to be a wheel detachment, it is felt that there may be some need to have shared responsibility for same.
The most important question asked at my board of directors' meeting was: "What happens when there is a wheel separation on MTO vehicles or OPP trucks, as has been the case within the last two months? Who ultimately pays the fine, the taxpayer?"
Driver training: Currently a new driver can be graduated through a driver training school within as little as three days of training. Proper and enhanced class A driver training can only be an enhancement to truck safety in Ontario. Com-Car expresses regret that more emphasis is not placed on proper training standards, and suggests that legislation be in place which would allow for the regulation of truck training within the province. The airline industry, through deregulation, still has very high standards with respect to training, whether this be pilot training or maintenance training. Why is it that the insurance industry insists on at least three years of experience for the driver to qualify for the best insurance rates? The more legitimate question is, why does Target '97 address non-compliance with safety standards by carriers as tantamount to removal of operating rights within Ontario, yet we will not legislate proper training and experience for entry-level drivers?
Statistics indicate that entry-level drivers are more prone to initial accidents than experienced drivers. Why wouldn't Ontario be more than eager to ensure that maximum training be achieved by training deliverers in order to ensure better safety in the trucking industry? The standards have been developed. There has to be some regulatory mechanism in place to ensure their implementation.
Hours of service: Com-Car totally endorses the Target '97 recommendations. There is one issue that may not be addressed that is crucial to an understanding of some factors which may still contribute to a driver not being able to ensure proper rest, and that is a lack of rest areas within the province. The Highway 401 corridor has rest areas attached to the service centres, but these areas have been curtailed and diminished to the point that the facilities for proper truck rest areas are grossly inadequate.
Furthermore, the Trans-Canada corridor in northern Ontario has no rest areas at all. Where is the truck driver supposed to rest when he hauls from Winnipeg to Toronto? There is absolutely no capacity for trucks to stop and park along Ontario's northern highways. Surely we cannot park alongside the road.
Driver fatigue is an issue which has had a lot of attention both by Canada and the US. There are no easy answers, but there has to be an answer for a driver who does become fatigued so that he or she can pull over safely and have that necessary rest.
Truck maintenance and inspection standards: Even though there is every reason to require owner-operators to maintain and inspect their equipment, there is an equal responsibility for government to maintain the roads this equipment uses. Poorly maintained roads contribute to quicker and accelerated deterioration of equipment. Perhaps every provincial MPP should take a truck ride from Thunder Bay, Ontario, to Winnipeg, Manitoba, to appreciate the fact that northern Ontario has the poorest quality highways in Ontario, any other North American jurisdiction. Ladies and gentlemen, that problem has to be addressed.
I want to thank you, Madam Chairperson, for your very kind attention.
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The Chair: Thank you very much. We have a little over three minutes per caucus.
Mr Duncan: I'd like to come back to the question that you are now the second delegation to raise, and that's around the education or training for a class A driver's licence. We've now had two delegations express very serious issues around that. What are Ontario's training and education standards like relative to other comparable jurisdictions, let's say the state of Michigan or the state of New York or the province of Manitoba?
Mr Joosse: When I look at the provincial legislation, I know that Newfoundland is legislating training standards in respect to their Department of Education. I know of no other jurisdiction that's doing any legislation at this point in time. With respect to the United States, there's not much being done in terms of providing standards or even maintaining standards in regard to training.
Mr Duncan: Would it be fair to say -- I take it from the last answer it may not be fair to say -- that it would be easier to get a class A licence in Ontario than in one of those other jurisdictions?
Mr Joosse: I don't know whether or not it's really easier, but I can say this: I've got a couple of my members who come to me from the United States and it took no time at all for them to get a class A licence right here in Ontario. I don't think that's right.
Mr Bisson: I couldn't agree with you more on the driver training issue. I think it's something that needs to be moved on. I think that's recognized by industry and drivers alike.
I can't help as a northerner just touching on this one point. One of the reasons, quite frankly, why highways are in bad shape in northern Ontario is a lack of money. That's been a problem for all governments, not only this government but governments before it, because you've got long stretches of geography to span with highways, over 1,000 miles in some cases, and it's pretty expensive to keep up. The other thing is that there's a lot of truck traffic, which adds to the wear and tear on those highways. I couldn't let that go by, because having driven Highway 11 almost every week for a number of years, that's part of our problem.
I have to ask you the question on the Target '97 stuff. There's been a lot of work done, a lot of which is good work that I would like to see this government move forward. We're hearing the parliamentary assistant say some of it is by way of regulation; now some of it will be by way of legislation. Which do you prefer? Would you rather a public, accountable process so that when we move forward on Target '97 the stakeholders in industry and in the public are involved, or leave it in the hands of cabinet?
Mr Joosse: I think that in terms of the Target '97 recommendations, the stakeholders were consulted. I feel very happy with the input we've been able to have in terms of stakeholders. I don't really understand the provincial process, but I've been very happy with the amount of work we've been able to do anyway within Target '97.
Mr Klees: I think what you're telling Mr Bisson is, let's get on with it and get implementation on the road rather than continuing to debate this issue. We can go round and round.
Mr Joosse: If I could just comment on that, when Target '97 was formed, I sat on the policy committee; I chaired one of the committees, and I'd note that I sat on all the others. We were under a lot of pressure in order to get Target '97 recommendations before the minister, and I really think it's very important for us to continue whatever Target '97 initiated.
Mr Klees: Good. Thank you. I appreciate that affirmation of the need to get on with implementation.
There is some discussion about the fact that a competitive environment is perhaps contributing to the unsafe conditions in that there's some pressing need for safety to be compromised on the part of carriers to get the job, that they can't afford, if you will, to spend the money to get the rigs up to safety standards. Is that the case? I'd be interested in your comment on that.
Mr Joosse: I think Mr Dorsay could answer that because he owns a few trucks and he obviously knows what the costs are.
Mr Gerry Dorsay: You don't need to take the work on if you're going to compromise or hurt somebody out in the public. You just don't need to. Leave the work there. Let somebody else do it. Safety has got to be the priority, nothing else.
Mr Klees: Certainly we agree with you. However, the reality is that it appears that something is motivating the unsafe trucks to get out on the road. Is it the fact that they're competing for business? If that's the case, how do we deal with it?
Mr Dorsay: Competition is high for the freight. The shippers have to realize and be brought into the picture to show them that what we're asking for is what we need. They think they can get everything done for nothing. It's a shipper's paradise out there. You do it for a dollar; he'll do it for 99 cents. You want the work, do it for 99 cents. Nobody's making any money. It's just a fight for the freight and winner take all. When you're doing it and you're not making money, something has to give, and unfortunately it's safety. The tires are going to go longer. Oil changes are going to go longer. That's just the fact of it all.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Joosse and Mr Dorsay, for being with us today and telling us of the view of your industry.
Mr Bisson: I'd request the following information from the parliamentary assistant. Could you provide us with any kind of documentation on how we compare as Ontario jurisdictions when it comes to hours of work for drivers against Michigan and other jurisdictions?
The Chair: Thank you.
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ONTARIO TRUCKING ASSOCIATION
The Chair: I call upon the Ontario Trucking Association, David Bradley. Welcome to the committee.
Mr David Bradley: Thank you and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I am delighted to be here. Those of you who know me know I usually like to speak from the cuff. I'm very passionate about these issues. I apologize in advance if I seem a trifle impatient with the progress on some of these issues, but to make sure that my comments are clearly understood today, I'm going to read from a prepared text.
The face of the trucking industry that has been painted by some over the past couple of years is not the face that I see every day. This is not an industry dominated by rogues and uncaring automatons. The trucking industry is a people industry, a community, and it is also part of your community.
The faces I see are like those who are joining me here today, and there are also a number people seated behind me, people like the members of the OTA Road Knights team of professional truck drivers, men and women who, despite having only a precious few hours at home each week, make over 300 public appearances a year speaking to safety organizations, service clubs, young drivers, church groups and others about the importance of safety and how all drivers can safely share the roads.
It's the faces of the owners of trucking companies who are also here today, people like Paul Hammond, president of Muskoka Transport in Bracebridge and OTA chairman; George Ledson of Georbon Transportation in Bolton; Fred Leslie of Canada Cartage in Etobicoke; and Scott Smith of J.D. Smith and Sons of Downsview, all of whom are here today. These are family businesses of multi-generations, the backbone of Ontario entrepreneurship, with deep roots in their communities.
I see the industry in the faces of countless others who cannot be here today, people who live in your communities, people like truck driver Robbie Laframboise of Canada Cartage in Etobicoke, who rescued Tanya Aubert of Bolton on April 1 of this year when he protected her car with his rig on Highway 401 after the hood of her vehicle suddenly flipped up, blinding her to traffic -- Aubert was eight months pregnant at the time; or driver Brad Edwards of Harmac Transportation of Concord, who received the OPP commissioner's citation for lifesaving after saving the lives of victims involved in a fiery crash on January 23 of this year on Highway 11 near Noble; or Scott Ferguson, who drives for Mackie Moving Systems of Oshawa, who pulled an unconscious driver from a car just before it blew up on March 18 of this year; or Stewart Cameron of Meyers Transport in Peterborough, who saved a fellow trucker from a burning wreck in the early hours of October 29, 1996, on the 401 near Cobourg.
All these drivers risked their lives to save the lives of accident victims at roadside and were honoured for their heroic actions with the Award of Valour earlier this month during National Transportation Week.
It's people like Jim Taylor, the OTA member who developed a bumper sticker campaign which said, "My Canada Includes Quebec."
Every day, more trucking companies and their employees than I am able to begin to relate are involved in acts of goodwill and charity. At the risk of excluding many worthy of recognition, I point to just a few.
Over the past 13 years, TNT Canada of Mississauga and its employees have raised over $700,000 for the Sudden Infant Death Syndrome Foundation. Canpar of Mississauga has raised almost $150,000 for the Children's Wish Foundation in recent years. Challenger Motor Freight of Cambridge holds an annual industry-wide event to raise money for Big Sisters. Al's Cartage of Kitchener, Erb Transport of New Hamburg and countless others transport thousands of pounds of food at no cost for Ontario food banks.
It's the 17 Ontario trucking companies and their drivers who transported a teddy bear from one end of Canada to the other to help raise awareness of the Sunshine Foundation, a charity that makes dreams come true for disabled and terminally ill children.
It's the countless industry volunteers who organize the annual Truckfest in Cambridge, which attracts about 20,000 people a year and raises much-needed funds for Child Find Ontario and other charities.
It is also an industry of common, everyday acts of courtesy and kindness, the people that Ontarians tell us every day in our office they want to be the first people on a scene when their car breaks down at roadside.
It is all of the people who 24 hours a day are providing the lifeblood of the Ontario economy by hauling over 75% of all consumer products and foodstuffs and over 80% of Ontario's trade with the United States, which just happens to represent about 37% of our GDP.
In terms of safety, truck drivers and trucks are, as a group, the safest drivers and vehicles on our highways. You don't have to take my word for that. Simply look at the Ontario Road Safety Annual Report, a report produced by the Ministry of Transportation which year after year shows that tractor-trailers are involved in less than 3% of all the accidents on Ontario's highways and that truck drivers are not at fault in the vast majority of those. And this is interesting: Vehicle defects continue to show up as a minor contributing factor to the most serious accidents. This seems to be in direct conflict with the highly publicized results of various road blitzes. Were as many of the vehicles truly unsafe, as supposedly reflected by the out-of-service results of some of these inspections, I believe most reasonable people would anticipate a much higher accident rate than that which exists.
But we should be the best. We are professionals, after all, and we have the added responsibility of sharing our workplace with the public.
Are we satisfied? No. We know there are problems within our industry. We've never tried to hide it; we've never tried to be defensive about it. There are some bad companies. There is bad equipment on the highways. Some are trucking companies; many are not. About half the trucks on the road are not operated by companies whose principal business is trucking. We want the unsafe companies off the highways as much as anyone. It is not only a moral issue for our members but a bottom-line issue as well.
Those who are making the appropriate investment in safety and maintenance continue to see business lost to and prices cut by those who are cutting corners on safety and maintenance. Shippers have had the best of all worlds: rock-bottom freight rates and no accountability or liability in terms of whether the carrier they have selected to move their goods performs safely. Provincial and municipal governments have not been immune from this practice.
Wheels should not be coming off trucks, no doubt about it. Our hearts go out to those Ontario families who have lost loved ones for no good reason. I have met with all of them on several occasions. I believe that OTA has and continues to demonstrate its commitment to solving the wheel separation problem. For example, in the past several months we developed, in partnership with the government, the training and certification program for wheel installers, the single most important recommendation of the Worona-Tyrrell inquest.
Since the fall, about 10,000 people have been trained to OTA's standard and it has not cost the taxpayer one penny. We have also been involved in or embarked upon several other safety initiatives, such as drug and alcohol testing for drivers, with 400 companies and 16,000 drivers presently enrolled in this program; an air brake adjustment training program; a driver fatigue awareness program; and other initiatives too many to mention. You have information in your packages with respect to all of these.
The current Ontario government, like other governments before, has also introduced a number of helpful laws and programs. But what we have been lacking and what OTA has been calling for for over a decade is a comprehensive, integrated and effective truck safety regulatory system. We are still not there, but at least we now have a blueprint, or a roadmap, if you will, for reform. I'll speak to that momentarily.
The public and the industry have been let down by a flawed, antiquated, arbitrary and often ineffective set of rules and standards governing truck safety. The current rules, while well intentioned, have failed to define what is meant by "unsafe." They have failed to clearly and scientifically identify who is "safe" and who is "unsafe." We throw those terms around like they mean nothing. This prevents government from more efficiently allocating its enforcement resources towards the unsafe operators and providing real market incentives to those who are doing the job on safety.
The current system has failed in putting the unsafe operators out of business. In fact, we have two extremes. The worst offenders continue to operate, often with relative impunity, snubbing their noses at the public, while those who are doing things right and working hard at it every day have been subjected to a maze of confusing and ineffective regulation and at times harassment. The atmosphere at some of the recent truck inspection blitzes has become almost carnival-like, with everyone jumping to get their face in front of the TV cameras. Before too long, and I say this in all seriousness, I would not be surprised to see someone selling hot dogs and doughnuts at these blitzes.
We can, as we have done in the past, continue to respond to this tragedy, or another, by introducing partial or at times politically motivated measures to address truck safety. All governments have been guilty at one time or another of failing to match their rhetorical concern over truck safety with the legislative time, resources or thought needed to introduce meaningful, long-term remedies. Sometimes government has been abetted by industry in this regard, and I don't deny that. We can and should choose another path, however, and now is the time: one that deals in a comprehensive, integrated and consistent way -- though safety will always be an evolutionary process and we should recognize that -- with all the essential issues and create the regulatory system that will lead us into the next century.
It was my pleasure and honour to serve as co-chairman, along with the Ministry of Transportation's assistant deputy minister of safety and regulation, of the Target '97 task force on truck safety that was introduced last fall by Minister Al Palladini. I took that role very seriously. I said at the time that I didn't care if I was ever selected to be a co-chairman of anything again, we were going to get the job done this time.
The task force assembled the most impressive group of stakeholders ever: MTO, OTA, for-hire and private trucking companies, the OPP, insurance companies, representatives of drivers, and transportation service organizations. The members of the task force set very tight time frames for its work. This was not to be another task force that spends years studying something to death and then lets the report collect dust. Our work plan was ambitious.
We reviewed and made recommendations for change on all the key safety issues: revamping the CVOR system; creating an effective safety ratings model; consolidating and enhancing vehicle inspection and maintenance regulations; amending the hours-of-service rules so that they better reflect fatigue management principles and industry operating realities -- you know, the current rules were developed in the 1930s; improving the class A driver's licence test, which you've heard about already this afternoon and which is an embarrassment; and setting in motion changes to upgrade the training of class A drivers.
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The task force made 79 recommendations in all, dealing in detail with each of the aforementioned issues. I believe that some of the industry's harshest critics were taken somewhat off guard by the comprehensiveness of the recommendations and by their toughness. However, it must be understood that from OTA's perspective, Target '97 is a package deal. It cannot be cherry-picked. To do so would sacrifice the balance that has been struck in the recommendations and undermine their effectiveness.
Target '97 was not an exclusionary process, as some have suggested. Target '97 was from the outset a government-industry task force -- nothing more, nothing less. From OTA's perspective we wanted to get the issue of truck safety out of the public relations arena and into a forum where we could accomplish real change. I do not agree that the public was excluded. There are some of us in today's society who still believe that the government is the people.
But more substantively and to the point, I certainly recognized that whatever legislation or regulatory measures would arise out of Target '97 would be subject to the same parliamentary procedures, including the avenues of public input, as any other policy or piece of legislation. These hearings I must say are a testament to that. To suggest that Target '97 was a backroom deal cooked up by big business tycoons and political mandarins smacks of sour grapes and is, quite frankly, an insult to all of those who made Target '97 work.
With respect to Bill 138, OTA wholeheartedly supports the legislative proposals for drinking and driving, which is and remains the major killer on our highways. Obviously, we also favour the measures to improve school bus safety.
However, from a trucking point of view, Bill 138 is but a step on the way to dealing with the trucking issue in a comprehensive fashion. It contains but one of the 79 Target '97 recommendations, that being the impounding of unsafe trucks.
OTA has always supported getting unsafe equipment off our highways and therefore supports, as we did during Target '97, this proposal. However, this measure will only work if it is supported by a definition of what is meant by "unsafe" or at least clearly lays out the criteria for when a vehicle is so defective that it should be impounded. Simply taking a vehicle out of service does not mean unsafe. The Target '97 task force developed a government-industry consensus on what the criteria should be, and I am hopeful that the government will follow it.
The only other truck safety measure included in Bill 138 was the controversial proposal to introduce automatic fines for wheel separations from $2,000 to $50,000. OTA has no objection to the introduction of heavy fines to be paid by a company that does not properly maintain or inspect its vehicles. But what we do object to and what we feel will ultimately be deemed unconstitutional is the government's insistence that the wheel separation fines be made a matter of absolute liability. In other words, in the event of a wheel off, the trucking company is held responsible and is guilty as charged whether or not the company was actually at fault.
It is easy to dismiss our concerns in this regard. After all, people's lives have been lost, as I said earlier, for no good reason. Families have been deeply and profoundly shattered. But that is precisely why this proposal must be legal and why it must clearly lay responsibility at the feet of those who are truly at fault. While in many of the wheel separation incidents we have seen so far, despite the fact that the information we have to make these judgements is deplorable, in many cases the apparent cause points in the direction of improper maintenance and inspection, we also know from the 1995 coroner's inquest that improper installation, often by an independent third party at roadside or in a shop, often in the middle of the night, often way up north or somewhere else in the middle of nowhere, can be the cause.
Wheels come off for many reasons, some technological, some a reflection of the human factor. Absolute liability is supposed to be reserved for minor infractions and minor penalties. These are not minor infractions, nor are the penalties minor. Our justice system is founded on the basic premise that someone is innocent until proven guilty. By deleting the absolute liability clause, leaving open the door for an innocent motor carrier to launch a due diligence defence, Bill 138 would give up none of its effectiveness.
There are some recent examples where a wheel-off incident has occurred, or could have occurred, where the trucking company was clearly not at fault. Take the case of Lloyd Hutton Transport, a livestock hauler from Paisley, Ontario. On January 10 of this year, the wire services, radio stations and everything else were abuzz following yet another wheel separation incident on Highway 400 north of Barrie. Radio stations in Hutton's own area, particularly in Owen Sound, shouted the company's name over their regular newscasts. It was once again trial by the media. However, a day or so later the OPP explained what had really happened.
The situation began at a customer site when the Hutton driver noticed during unloading that his trailer had two flat tires. He immediately called a tire service company to come and replace them. Once this work was complete, the driver commenced his trip. No more than 45 minutes later, the reinstalled wheels flew off the trailer, striking a van. Rather than pointing the finger of blame at Lloyd Hutton Transport or its driver, the OPP was properly investigating the tire service company. Clearly, it would not be fair to convict and fine the trucking company in this case. The owner and the long-time driver were deeply shaken by the incident.
Take also the case of MacKinnon Transport in Guelph, Ontario. In 1991, the company purchased nine four-axle trailers from the same manufacturer, from the same distributor. In 1994 one of the axles failed, causing the wheel assembly to become separated. Luckily, nobody was hurt. The axle was returned to the manufacturer, a US manufacturer, for inspection and it was eventually replaced under warranty.
MacKinnon Transport experienced no further problems until this year, when another axle failed on a different trailer, again causing a wheel separation. Upon further investigation, the axle supplier has informed MacKinnon Transport that a selected group of axles purchased by the trailer manufacturer could be of insufficient hardness at the bearing seat area. In other words, there was a manufacturing defect. All of MacKinnon's axles are now being identified and subjected to additional testing and inspection. Is it fair that the trucking company be held responsible under absolute liability in this case?
I have with me samples of some other problems that were given to me just this week. I'd ask one of my people to stand up and show them to you and then to pass them around.
The first thing he's going to hold up are two fasteners, typical of those installed on what are called hub-piloted wheels. Looking at them, it is hard to tell the difference. I can't, and I challenge you to. However, one of them was manufactured offshore and is of the kind that was installed on a number of new trailers manufactured by a reputable US trailer manufacturer and purchased late last year by Pronorth Transportation in North Bay. The problem was that the fasteners would not hold their torque, causing the wheels to come loose. Pronorth was lucky to discover the problem before a wheel-off occurred and required the manufacturer to replace all the fasteners. The new fasteners, manufactured in the USA -- and one of them is in front of you -- are now installed on all the wheels. The cost to the carrier is virtually negligible. No carrier in their right mind would scrimp on this kind of thing, but the downside obviously could have been enormous.
I also have with me to show you two brand-new wedges of the kind you will typically find in a spoke-wheel system. These were provided to me this week by Keatly Cartage of Arnprior, Ontario. These wedges were manufactured in the USA by a major, worldwide component manufacturer, one that's involved in the space program and other high-tech industries. However, as you will see, one is cracked; the other is broken completely. These wedges were properly installed using a torque wrench set at the manufacturer's recommended torque. Again, Keatly Cartage was lucky that the wedges cracked during installation. But what if they hadn't? Would it be fair to hold the company absolutely liable if a wheel had come off? We think not.
Bill 138 should be amended to restore a trucking company's right to mount a due diligence defence. We ask the committee to do the right thing, not the politically motivated thing, during clause-by-clause. Should you not, we have every reason to believe the law will be struck down by the courts.
In closing, Target '97 is the blueprint for reform. Only by implementing its recommendations will Ontarians have comfort and confidence in knowing that their province has the most comprehensive and effective truck regulatory system perhaps on the planet.
We owe that to the victims of the recent tragedies involving trucks, but we also owe it to the 200,000 honest, hardworking men and women of the Ontario trucking industry, who provide this province with an essential service and do it efficiently and safely, day in and day out. These Ontarians are feeling diminished, they're feeling hurt by the negative attention their industry has received because of the actions of a few, and by the failure of a regulatory system to which they are subjected to rid the industry of the bad apples and provide real competitive advantages and a return on their investment in safety.
Thank you very much. I'm sorry for having gone over my time, but as I said at the outset we are extremely passionate about this topic.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Bradley. As you've indicated, you have exceeded your time. I regret we won't have time for questions but we thank you for your presentation, and everyone who has come with you today.
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ONTARIO SAFETY LEAGUE
The Chair: Could I call on the Ontario Safety League, Bert Killian. We're delighted to have you with us this evening.
Mr Bert Killian: The Ontario Safety League has been involved in driver education since 1913. I've been involved for over 30 years in safety. It's the first time, in Target '97, that I saw so many groups getting together and coming together to deal with safety. I think it was a tremendous achievement of both the co-chairs, how they brought that together, because safety is everybody's business and the trucking industry is quite aware of that.
To achieve the high level of road safety in Ontario, all stakeholders in transportation must work in conjunction as responsible partners to develop and implement strategies for regulatory compliance.
This must begin by focussing on the issue of responsibility: being aware of what to do, being compelled to do the right thing and being accountable for one's actions. To this end, a comprehensive and progressive system of education would provide all members of the transportation industry and its clients with the information required to operate in a safe, legal and profitable manner.
The system must be comprehensive in both who and what it deals with, and progressive in how it functions. "Who" is the shippers, the CEOs of the companies, the trainers and the drivers; "what" is that with the regulations at all levels they must know what to do; the shipper's liability, which was discussed; operator's liability, which was discussed, and responsibilities; vehicle maintenance and driver training, all of which you heard about.
We believe the first stage of all this has got to be education; that's awareness of what to do. All of the companies, all of the shippers -- there's a lack of information as to what is required. We're not talking about the good operators. We're talking about those individuals who are getting in trouble. I've spent several years interviewing these people and what their problems are. They don't understand what the responsibilities are, what is required.
Education: to ensure this. Monitoring: to ensure compliance with what they're doing. Assist to rectify the deficiencies is when remediation comes in and something has to be done about it. Then, if that does not happen, sanctions against, and enforcement.
If you look at the statistics regarding the trucking industry, there are 70,000 to 80,000 CVOR holders out there today and only 6,000 of those get warning letters. Of that, 1,200 get to interview level, and of that, only 200 get to sanctions. So with an education process, there is a possibility -- it's the same as the demerit point system. Once people get a warning letter that they've reached six points, they smarten up their driving. They don't get to the nine points, but at the nine-point level, if they do get there, at the interview level, there seems to be an increase in that. Again, it's the same in the trucking industry.
A responsible partnership for the transportation industry can only function through broad cooperation at all levels and from all sectors, from the shipper to the operator to the trainer and the driver; from the Ministry of Transportation and other ministries and governments that deal with transportation, education and commerce; and from all road users and industry partners.
Mr Bisson: I couldn't agree with you more. Basically, in a nutshell, what you're saying is what a lot of us who are interested in this issue are saying, which is if you're going to come at the issue of truck safety, you can't come at it from just the one point or another, either just fines or just focusing on drivers or just focusing on shippers. You really need to come at this from a comprehensive point of view. That means shippers, carriers, drivers, manufacturers, regulators, the whole kit and caboodle have to come into it.
I come back to the question, and for whatever reason I seem to be raising the ire of Mr Klees on the other side when I ask this question, but I think it's a question that needs to be asked and I'm not doing it in a combative way. The government undertook with the trucking industry and others a very comprehensive process, which I think was a good one, called Target '97. In Target '97 the committee took a look at a whole bunch of issues, and a whole bunch of the things you talked about were part of it. I thought that was a step in the right direction. I applauded the minister for the introduction of that initiative, Target '97. I met with a number of people in industry who were involved and I thought it was a very good process.
Here we are at the end of Target '97. The report has come in and we have a minister who says, "I will introduce comprehensive truck safety legislation come this spring." Is this legislation comprehensive truck safety legislation? Does it contain the stuff of Target '97?
Mr Killian: It's a beginning, and you have to start someplace. Within the organization you have to do something to begin. It's too comprehensive to bring it all in together. So this is a beginning.
Mr Bisson: So you favour chopping it up in different pieces?
Mr Killian: I believe this is a beginning in Target '97's momentum, because it's a tremendous getting together of industry and government. It should not lose the momentum.
Mr Bisson: You would rather see an approach where we deal with pieces of Target '97 rather than a whole package.
Mr Killian: I would prefer all of Target '97 but it's not practical.
Mr Bisson: No, I understand, but I'm talking about the process. Part of the problem that industry and others have is that they don't understand the legislative process. That's not their fault. It's just the way of the system. In reality there are only so many legislative days a Legislature has and members have to pass bills.
The reality is that if we pass Bill 138 -- which I think is a step in the right direction; I haven't heard anybody on any side of the House say Bill 138 is a bad bill; in fact there's some really good stuff in here -- it's probably going to mean there'll be that much less pressure on the government to deal with all the other recommendations in Target '97. I, for one, support what's in Target '97, a good part of it, and I want to see the ministry and the government come forward in dealing with all the issues such as driver fatigue and carrier responsibility, dealing with some of the issues you raised here.
The problem, and somebody said it earlier, is that a lot of this is politically motivated. How governments react to an issue is by the ire of the public. At this point people might think everything is fine in the trucking industry after this bill is passed. I worry about doing this in a haphazard way. I would have much rather seen comprehensive truck safety legislation, and I don't believe this is.
Mr Hastings: I'd like to ask you a question regarding the specifics of how you see the implementation of the responsible partnership you have alluded to and referenced in your presentation. How do you see that being implemented, in terms of an administrative partnership, administrative agreement, some kind of a codification of responsibilities for each of the players within that partnership?
Mr Killian: There are several ways you can do it, but I believe there are enough safety organizations and associations. There's the private motor carriers, the OTA, all of those, and then there are safety groups like ourselves who will work with those people in the truck-training areas. So there are several ways a lot of this thing can be brought together. I think there's enough initiative that started in Target '97 that can be built on. Any way of pulling it together with the incentive of government to do that rather than government doing it I think is very important.
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Mrs Helen Johns (Huron): I just wondered if you would comment on something that was said. It seems they view things in very black and white terms. It's either a mechanical failure or it's a driver failure, and quite frankly the people of Ontario I've talked to along the line are sick of everybody passing the buck from one place to the other place, and they just want us as a government to deal with it. So we get caught in kind of a dichotomy here where the public are saying: "Deal with this issue. Make it strong."
I don't see how we can meet the objectives of the people who are asking us to deal with it efficiently, effectively, quickly, and try and take into effect whether it was a mechanical failure or a failure from a driver's point of view. Is there a clear way that I just can't see as a normal taxpayer driving my little car to work every day?
Mr Killian: It's very comprehensive. I spent over 28 years dealing with this on the highways within the Ministry of Transportation. It's a difficult situation to try and get everybody involved. The good operators Mr Bradley talked about won't get into this problem, and if they do, they have reasonable areas to deal with, as he outlined. It's the irresponsible operators out there who are the real problem. The problem is we're dealing with everybody, we're lumping everybody in.
If we can get a profitable and fair operation for the good carriers so they have incentives to move ahead, obviously with the Avion system where they can bypass the truck inspection stations, where they get a good safety rating and get shipper preference, those are the areas you've got to concentrate on, rewarding the good carriers. That will take a lot of the pressure off everybody. It'll take the pressure off the good carriers, it'll put pressure on the bad carriers and it'll take pressure off the government in general. That is my opinion.
Mr Klees: This hasn't come up before, or maybe it has. The question I have for you is to what degree you feel safety would be enhanced if on our highways, trucks would be restricted from using the passing lanes.
Mr Killian: I'm not too sure --
Mr Klees: Unless passing.
Mr Killian: Yes, unless passing. Height sometimes restricts that anyway with the bridges. I'm not too sure that out in that lane or restricted to one lane is going to do anything different because they're going to get impatient in that lane as well. That was okay 10 years ago, but the trucks we're driving now can operate as fast as the vehicle traffic.
Mr Klees: A lot of them go a lot faster than my vehicle.
Mr Killian: Sure, yes. I'm not too sure that would contribute a lot to that, and that's just a personal opinion.
Mr Duncan: Target '97, comprehensive overview with a whole range of recommendations, one being implemented in this bill, a couple of others have been implemented -- as somebody who's concerned about safety, would you support an amendment to this bill that would call upon the employment of a public monitoring body as we implement those changes to make sure they're fair and balanced and they're properly applied?
Mr Killian: You could. It's one way of doing it. There are several ways of doing it. I think the public will operate as the monitoring body for you. They are very aware of what's going on right now in the --
Mr Duncan: I might differ with you there, because as you know, some of the recommendations are absolutely fascinating to the trucking industry but kind of make other people's eyes glaze over. I think Mr Bradley made the point that a lot of this has become something of a media circus in a lot of ways. One of the concerns we have as the official opposition -- in fact, I drafted a bill that dealt with a number of Target '97 recommendations that aren't included in this bill -- is that we have a way of ensuring that the balance of those recommendations are implemented in a timely fashion.
I'm just looking for your ideas as to how we can ensure that. Maybe I should have had the opportunity to ask Mr Bradley this, but he made the point that over the years a number of governments have taken a run at this but nobody's done anything comprehensive. He's worried, I take it from his presentation, that the good work that was done on Target '97 could be lost if we just start cherry-picking certain recommendations.
Mr Killian: There's always that danger, and as I indicated at the beginning, in the 30 years I was around I've never seen such a comprehensive group of people getting together with a lot of personal agendas and coming together around the table with those recommendations. I don't think that group, as a group of Target '97, will allow that to happen anyway. That's my opinion.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Killian. I appreciate that you stayed till the end to appear before us. We really do appreciate your testimony before the committee.
Mr Killian: If anybody needs translation services, I'll give it after.
The Chair: Mrs Marland, I believe you have a question.
Mrs Marland: Yes. I had a very important supplementary question to Mr Klees's question, but I will redirect it to our researcher. That was following on the question about whether trucks should use the passing lanes. I would like to know if I'm still correct that trucks may not drive or even pass in the median lane on the 400 series highways. I understand that is the law and I would like to know whether it can be confirmed because I think we all see violations of that.
The Chair: Very well. The question is noted and the researcher will endeavour to respond to it.
Mr Klees: Before we break I wonder if we could get clarification. We may at this table have a very serious conflict of interest related to a previous presentation. It has to do with the presentation made by the Ontario Trucking Association. If you have your copy of the presentation itself, there's a picture on the front of the presentation. I wonder if we could have Mr Bisson confirm whether that is in fact him standing in the picture, because if it is, I'm not sure of the objectivity of his questions.
Mr Bisson: Just to clarify, do you have a problem with the OTA presentation or the picture?
Mr Klees: It was the picture I was concerned about.
Mrs Marland: It's a wonderful picture, Gilles.
The Chair: Thank you very much for bringing it to our attention. I think no comment is required at this stage.
We are adjourned until tomorrow afternoon. I remind you that we meet here at 3:30 pm.
The committee adjourned at 1747.