Category Archives: Whatnot

It Has To Stop; People are Dying.

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Yes, this clip is on the Book of Faces; it is in French but here is the gist of it, in English and BRAVO TO THE BLOC QUÉBECOIS FOR THEIR COURAGE AND INTEGRITY, FIGHTING THIS HUGE PROBLEM.

On The Road Québec
52m
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📍List of 10 demands from the Bloc Québécois and the trucking industry:
▪️1. That the Minister of Transport open a formal investigation into the exploitation of drivers in the trucking sector in Canada, pursuant to section 3.1 of the Motor Vehicle Transport Act;
▪️2. Eliminate the right for temporary immigrants to work as incorporated drivers in this sector, limiting them to employee status only, and launch an awareness campaign on workers’ rights;
▪️3. Implement an automatic joint audit by Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) and the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) of trucking companies without employees or trucks, within 18 months of their creation. The |
Offending companies will be reported to the relevant provincial authorities (Revenu Québec, SAAQ, road inspectors, Transport Québec);
▪️4. Hold contractors responsible for unpaid taxes and social security contributions by carriers;
▪️5. Establish a shared database of violations, safety ratings, and unpaid fines in the trucking sector, accessible to road inspectors and law enforcement;
▪️6. Create a national registry of current insurance policies, accessible to road inspectors, police officers, and tow truck operators;
▪️7. Establish a public registry of offending companies in the trucking sector:
🔺Make companies without employees and those with a history of wrongdoing ineligible for government contracts and contracts with public enterprises (Canada Post, Defense, etc.);
🔺Remove the safety fitness certificate from offending companies that abuse drivers;
🔺Remove the right of offending companies to bring in temporary foreign workers (TFWs).
▪️8. Create an employer certification program to qualify for the use of TFWs in the trucking sector;
▪️9. Amend the Commercial Vehicle Drivers Hours of Service Regulations to authorize roadside inspectors to decommission a vehicle when the driver’s license presented does not match the electronic logging device (ELD);
▪️10. Make the issuance of a T4A slip mandatory for companies without employees operating in the trucking sector.

None of the demands are beyond the realm of reality and to be quite honest, should have been implemented after Moron-Mulroney deregulated the industry. You want to pinpoint when the industry started down the porcelain bowl? It was then and only became progressively worse.

This isn’t about racism although a lot of people have hung their hat on that particular hook. It is the easiest for them, poor things.

The problem starts with the government, moves to the transport companies and the taking advantage of immigrants with no real understanding of the job, the regulations or the professionalism that is required to pilot a tractor trailer. It is a PROFESSION, simply because the skills are not handed out by a university, does not negate the fact that this is not only a profession but one that requires a high degree of skill, more than a high school level on the concept of general physics, meteorological understanding, patience, endurance and coordination. The list goes on. These are not uneducated men and women. Without these people, you wouldn’t eat, have clothes, shelter, medication or shelter. EVERYTHING you use, on a daily basis was delivered by a tractor trailer.

But now? Fly-By-Night companies are taking advantage of immigrants and refugees, looking for gainful employment. They are lied to, underpaid and exploited. Not just the Fly-By-Nights; major trucking companies are guilty as well.

Here is a personal anecdote, one of far too many; a driver for a company with whom I was employed, handed is license over to a relative, someone with absolutely no qualifications and allowed him to drive a vehicle, weighing approximately 50 000 lbs on a public, well travelled highway. He was caught, he was fired but this guy is by, no stretch, of the imagination, an anomaly. The personal anecdotes of unqualified and crooked goings-on, of my own, could fill a book. I am not alone. Thousands of us have our own tales. Imagine if each transport employee had, oh…say 2 stories of dangerous behaviours by unqualified, unprofessional drivers. You should be afraid. You should be angry that the various governments – all have filthy hands, have done nothing.

Professional, true professional drivers are hard to find. The industry is being drained of drivers with experience, they are leaving, in droves and are not being replaced by fully trained replacements. Positions are gap-filled by untrained workers, underpaid and told to ignore or find ways around regulations; hours of service, how to by-pass weight stations manned by the various Department of Transport officers.

Your lives are at stake; it isn’t us vs them. It isn’t an “immigrant” problem; it is an INDUSTRY EXPLOITATION OF DRIVERS problem and must be stopped before more children and families are wiped out, due to untrained drivers.