The hauliers' lobby
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HIRE or reward hauliers in Canada can join the Canadian Trucking Association — a sort of equivalent to Britain's Road Haulage Association; it advises carriers who encounter difficulties with federal government and speaks for the industry nationally.
The CTA estimates that the for-hire segment of the industry owns and operates 50,000 trucks, 40,000 tractors and 60,000 trailers, and that some 90,000 Canadians are directly employed. However, own-account operates a large percentage of freight moved; in Ontario approximately 40 per cent.
The CTA is a federation of regional trucking associations in Alberta, the Atlantic Provinces, Manitoba, Ontario, Saskatchewan, and Quebec, plus the British Columbia Motor Transport Assocation.
In recent years, says the CTA, it has been instrumental in causing the removal of sales tax on large trucks and has helped to bring the extension of the seven per cent investment tax credit affecting various categories of vehicles.
"Our three-year struggle to block the implementation of the US 121 Brake Standard in Canada saved the industry about $500 per axle on new equipment for a standard that was subsequently discarded in the US as being ineffective," it says.
"For most of the past decade, and through four government inquiries, CTA has fought to re tain reasonable hours of work for extra-provincial employees at a time when Labour Canada was insistent upon making the eight-hour day and 40-hour week mandatory."
Possibly the most significant issue facing the trucking industry in the next few years will be that of deregulation. Major reviews of federal policies towards transportation regulation are already underway by the CTA. "The possibility of an energy shortage and a federal allocation or rationing programme is also of vital concern for the future as will be the shortage of skilled labour," it says.