TRGO Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORT AND GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS

LE COMITÉ PERMANENT DES TRANSPORTS ET DES OPÉRATIONS GOUVERNEMENTALES

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Tuesday, June 5, 2001

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[English]

The Chair (Mr. Ovid Jackson (Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, Lib.)): We need three members of Parliament for witnesses and I think I see three.

The order of the day is Bill S-3, which is the amendment to the Motor Vehicle Transport Act of 1987.

We have two witnesses, so welcome, gentlemen. I don't know who is going to be the lead speaker here.

Mr. Phil Benson (Director, Research Legislative Affairs, Building Construction Trades Department of the AFL-CIO): My name is Phil Benson and I'm with building trades. President Bouvier couldn't be here today. He asked me to come and sit in on the hearing. With me is Brother André Papineau, president of Local 91 in Ottawa. He'll be reading the presentation from Teamsters Canada, and after we'll be free to answer any questions you may have.

Mr. André Papineau (President, Local 91, Teamsters Canada): Good morning.

Teamsters Canada is a national labour organization representing more than 100,000 workers in the trucking, transportation, manufacturing, and tourism industries.

Bill C-3 sets up a framework to lead to the harmonization of regulation of the road transportation industry. The federal and provincial governments must agree on the regulations as required by our constitution. No matter how worthwhile some may argue the goal of harmonization is, it will be difficult to achieve.

The centrepiece of the legislation deals with certification and safety. It proposes a performance-based system. We are concerned about a system that grants certification first and then checks for safety only after problems have been uncovered.

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Departmental officials, speaking before the committee, stated that once the system is in place in Canada, the government would try to reach a reciprocity agreement with the United States. However, under NAFTA, such an agreement would most likely extend to Mexico and any future signatory nations. The United States will not allow Mexican trucks to travel throughout the United States because of gross safety violations. Just a few weeks ago a random safety check in Alberta produced a 37% failure rate.

Teamsters Canada does not have confidence that all participants in the road transportation industry will comply with a loose regulatory framework. Safety should be ensured by strong regulation and not left to faith and hope.

[Translation]

It has also been said that the provincial governments and the industry have been consulted and they are in agreement with Bill S-3. Teamsters Canada does not believe that all provinces are in agreement with the bill. Teamsters and trucking are synonymous in the public's mind. We are the backbone of the road transportation industry, and we were not consulted on this bill.

The bill will allow regulations to be passed that impact various issues of concern to the industry and the public, like hours of service. There is a proposal to change hours of service, which would permit transportation workers to be behind the wheel 14 hours a day, seven days a week. This proposal, if enacted, would not be in the best interests of the public. It would put transportation workers in sweat shops on wheels, and destroy their family life.

The government claims it is committed to a children's agenda, and Teamsters Canada believes that this commitment should not end at the doors of transportation equipment. Transportation workers deserve to spend time with their family as all workers do. They deserve to benefit from rigorously enforced and fair standards.

Again, it has been claimed that the provincial governments and industry have been consulted and they are in agreement with proposals like hours of service. Again, Teamsters Canada does not believe that all provinces are in agreement with the proposal. Teamsters Canada was not consulted on hours of service.

[English]

It is Teamsters Canada's understanding that Bill S-3 is a priority for the government. Without consensus of the provinces and without full consultation with the industry, we do not understand or agree with the urgency. We request the government delay proceedings with the bill until the fall session of Parliament.

Our concern is that Bill S-3 would permit a proposal like hours of service to be presented without all of the industry and public being consulted. It is important that enacted policy is sound policy, and without full and proper consultation, flawed proposals will be entertained.

Teamsters Canada's position is that any regulatory changes such as hours of service must face the scrutiny of full public hearings, giving all Canadians and groups the opportunity to be heard.

Mr. Phil Benson: Thank you.

With that we'll be willing to answer any questions we're able to.

The Chair: Thank you very much. That has kept you within the five-minute boundary.

We'll go to Mr. Fitzpatrick for ten minutes.

Mr. Brian Fitzpatrick (Prince Albert, Canadian Alliance): I'm wondering if either of you gentlemen would have any of the statistical information about how trucking stacks up in terms of safety with other modes of transportation, in particular the transportation that takes place on our highway system.

Mr. Phil Benson: This time I'll pass this on to President Bouvier, and we'll respond to you with whatever we can dig up from there.

Mr. Brian Fitzpatrick: I take it, however, that in advocating changes to the hours of service or the number of hours that people should be driving you do have some statistical information to support your position.

Mr. André Papineau: There is information available. Unfortunately, I don't have it here with me. Studies have been made regarding the hours of service and the hours of driving. Our belief certainly is that going from 13 to 14 hours of driving time is a major safety issue.

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Mr. Brian Fitzpatrick: We're in North America, and I guess you always have to look at what's happening in the U.S. It's a reality because our businesses have to compete with U.S. businesses. What is the requirement in the U.S.? Do you know if there is one?

Mr. André Papineau: I believe that presently the U.S. regulation is 10 hours of driving, versus 13 in Canada.

Mr. Brian Fitzpatrick: So if that's who we have to compete with, why couldn't we at least adopt their requirement?

Mr. Phil Benson: I think that's an excellent point. In fact, in the United States they were looking at increasing the hours of service, and it was dropped.

Mr. André Papineau: We're moving away from that to expand ours.

Mr. Brian Fitzpatrick: Another matter you gentlemen raised was something about waiting for things to happen before we start enforcing things, and so on. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me, in the province I come from, if you want to go into the trucking business, it's not just a slam dunk to get a licence plate put on your vehicle and go into business. There are highway traffic boards, and so on, that check these vehicles to see whether they're ready for the road or not.

To get behind the wheel and drive one of these vehicles on our highways is not a slam dunk either. Provincial governments have programs to train people how to operate these vehicles. Then there are fairly substantial tests people have to go through before they can get operators' licences to get on the road and run these vehicles.

Given those kinds of thoughts, what else are you suggesting we need to have in place?

Mr. André Papineau: Unfortunately, that's not the system in all provinces. I know in Ontario you can take a one-tonne pickup truck with a fifth-wheel horse trailer, if you want, and pass your AZ licence, which is for tractor-trailers. Then you can take the key of the truck and go down the highway with a tractor-trailer. There are no more requirements than that.

If the employer wants to put you behind the wheel, or if you want to purchase your own truck, that's all you have to do.

Mr. Brian Fitzpatrick: It's my understanding that the provinces have basically agreed that they will adhere to the National Safety Code. Would the National Safety Code not require some minimal sorts of things, in terms of training and certification of drivers, and so on?

Mr. Phil Benson: Often the regulatory scheme and the reality of the industry can somewhat differ. I think that's what Mr. Papineau is saying. What can look good on paper may, in practical application, be a lot different from what you see.

Part of the concern of Teamsters Canada, in coming here today, is the lack of consultation going through the entire process. Consultation occurs before the horse bolts from the barn. We have better legislation, better laws, and more sound policies. Often, the real practical application of how it actually works is something that an organization like Teamsters Canada brings to the table. Up to this point, they haven't been at the table.

Are you from Alberta, sir? I'm not sure.

Mr. Brian Fitzpatrick: No, I'm from Saskatchewan.

Mr. Phil Benson: I'm not sure of the Alberta situation, but as the Teamsters Canada brief suggests, just a few weeks ago there was a random check. That's a province I would imagine adheres to the current standards, yet they found a 37% failure rate.

Again, the regulatory requirements and how they actually work in the industry can be quite divergent.

Mr. Brian Fitzpatrick: The thing I like about the fact that random audits are taking place is that information is out there and it leads to some standardization and benchmarking. If I go around shooting 95 in golf, I don't really compete against anybody else—and I think that's a high score. I'm kind of living up in the clouds.

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I think having that information out there is a good thing. It tells provinces they have to do some work to get up to standards.

Provincial governments that neglect that kind of data and don't do something to pull up their socks, so to speak, are going to be much criticized, in the event of an accident or something along that line. So in a way, that is good stuff.

I like to see data and information, because it's hard to make a sound decision in a vacuum and get improvements. I don't see that being bad in itself. It's a starting point for improving things.

Mr. André Papineau: I guess if we had been part of the consultation in all this, all that information would have been tabled.

Mr. Brian Fitzpatrick: Three years from now, if we found out that Alberta had a 38% failure rate, I'd get quite upset about it. But if I saw, in three years, that they were down to 14%, I would be pleased, because that would show improvement.

Mr. Phil Benson: Our concern would be, to what standards? If the standards are harmonized at the very low level, for example, of 14 hours of service versus 10 in the States, then it would become easier and easier to meet those standards, and the data you collect would show everything was fine.

It's prescriptive. It depends upon which standards you're basing them on. At this particular moment, Teamsters Canada has not had an opportunity to really address those issues.

Mr. Brian Fitzpatrick: Would the audit that was performed in Alberta have been based on the National Safety Code? What standard would have been used to do that audit?

Mr. Phil Benson: The information I had was it was simply a random check. They went out on the highway, pulled trucks over, and checked them.

Mr. Brian Fitzpatrick: Right. But what kinds of standards did they use to evaluate those trucks? Was it American standards or the National Safety Code?

Mr. André Papineau: I'm pretty sure it was the National Safety Code, because they have done those random tests in different provinces.

Being the president of a local in eastern Ontario and involved in this from day to day...it's frightening when you hear major carriers teaching their drivers that they can properly do a circle check of a tractor-trailer unit in six minutes. It's scary, because to do a proper circle check requires a minimum of 15 to 20 minutes, and easily 30 minutes.

Mr. Brian Fitzpatrick: Does that vary from province to province?

Mr. André Papineau: There are no tight regulations. There are items to be verified, but how you do it, how fast you do it, and how seriously you do it, there's no....

Mr. Brian Fitzpatrick: That's a bone of contention I would have, not only if I were a worker, but if I owned a company that was doing business across the country. To me, it seems inefficient and wasteful to have to train your drivers and operators that in this province this is the standard, and in another province it's another standard, and so on across the country. I don't even think it's good for safety.

If we want safety, let's have one standard that everybody adheres to and is well-trained on. If you have to try to train your staff for nine different systems, not to speak of all the extra costs of the professional people you need to train people, the legal people, and all of that sort of stuff.... That involves a lot of wasted economic resources that could be better used to make your trucking firm more competitive.

Mr. André Papineau: Correct.

The Chair: Brian, that's your last question. We'll move on.

Mr. Phil Benson: That's if the standards are sound standards to start with. If the standards are sub-standard, then we can all be very cautious driving down the highway.

Mr. Brian Fitzpatrick: I think standards are always subject to being improved. One thing about this life that is permanent is change itself. There's no standard that can't be improved upon, so you have to start somewhere.

Mr. Phil Benson: I would agree. But with public standards and public safety, we would hope that the standards set err to the cautious side and not always to the pure economic side. We understand the economic concerns, but with that rig going down the highway and the potential consequences, if we're going to err, let's err for safety.

Mr. Brian Fitzpatrick: Yes. I'm not arguing with that point.

Mr. Phil Benson: Thank you.

The Chair: Mr. St. Denis for ten minutes.

Mr. Brent St. Denis (Algoma—Manitoulin, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, gentlemen, for being here today to help us with this bill.

I want to refer first, Mr. Papineau, to a reference in your presentation to the hours of service. I'd like first to clear the record as to the fact that this bill does not directly relate to hours of service, and should all the stakeholder governments and players agree to an hours of service change, whatever that might be, that can happen with or without this bill; it could go with the old legislation or the new. So this does not in any way create any new problems, if you want to characterize it that way, or new opportunities, for that matter.

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I would also add that this committee has been asked by the Minister of Transport, David Collenette, to look at the issue of hours of service, quite separately from this bill, and the committee has undertaken to do that. I believe the clerk has written to a number of stakeholders, I hope even you, to ask for papers over the summer on that. I would encourage you to submit something. I just don't want to leave the impression that this bill in any way would impair your ability to participate in the hours of service question.

Also, Mr. Papineau, on the second page of your presentation, in the second paragraph, you referred to a loose regulatory framework. I'll read the whole sentence:

Teamsters Canada does not have confidence that all participants in the road-transportation industry will comply with a loose regulatory framework. Safety should be ensured by strong regulation and not left to faith and hope.

We certainly agree that safety is the first priority of any transport legislation, but I wonder if you could explain a little bit more what you mean by a loose regulatory framework.

Mr. Phil Benson: Following up on the member who asked the first question of us, it's not standards and a piece of paper that necessarily reflect the reality of an industry. The concern, I think, from the presentations, both on this bill and on the hours of service issue and other issues, is when we get to the point where proposals are put forward affecting very important public safety and other issues, without all the stakeholders being involved. There are other unions besides Teamsters who are involved in transportation and, I understand, also were not involved in it.

It raises questions about what kinds of standards we're going to have. We say loose regulatory framework. On paper it can look as tough as nails, but in practical terms it isn't. Drivers today—and I think Mr. Papineau could refer to this—are told to carry two log books. They push the envelope on 13 hours. There's another safety issue in six-minute checks of rigs. So we have a framework in place that looks pretty solid, but really you can drive a Mack truck through it in some cases. Trucks can break down for lots of reasons, but when you have a high incidence of failure on a random spot check—and every time this is done, the same kinds of numbers come back—I'd refer to that as a loose regulatory framework. In other words, the standards may look very firm on paper, but in practical application they allow huge flexibility, allow people to push the envelope, and they do. So in a sense, we have a loose regulatory framework.

Mr. Brent St. Denis: Mr. Chair, with your permission, I'll share my time with my colleague Mr. Tirabassi, in the interest of everybody having a chance to participate.

The Chair: All right. We have six minutes, so I'll go to Larry and then back to Tony.

Mr. Larry Bagnell (Yukon, Lib.): On the hours of service, you said truckers should be with their children—understanding it's not in this bill. Just because there's a law that you can't jump off a building or cross a street in traffic, do things that are unsafe in society, it doesn't mean the individual trucker shouldn't have the judgment, if he thinks something is not safe, not to do it, if he's tired, to get off the road. There's nothing in the bill or any regulation that says someone has to work 14 hours a day. Industries that are self-regulating also tend to keep government off their back. So if the teamsters don't want to work 14 hours a day, they don't have to. There's nothing here that forces people to do those things.

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Mr. André Papineau: Let's deal with reality. Employers often, if they're allowed to drive 13 hours, will make their drivers drive 13. If now this is changed so that the driver can physically drive 14, he will drive 14. They need to get the product from point A to point B. When we talk about loose regulation, it's how it's applied and how it's enforced. If somebody is driving 14 hours a day and only has 36 hours off at the end of the week, and does a six-minute circle check, to me it puts safety at risk. It puts everybody on the road at risk.

I travel on average 1,000 kilometres a week with my own vehicle in my job, a lot of it on the 401. Coming back from Belleville last Monday night, I followed a tractor-trailer heading to Montreal and I tried to keep up with him at 140 kilometres an hour. If this guy had been behind the wheel for 14 hours and took six minutes to do his circle check, that's scary.

But they've got no choice. I've got a guy in my office who started to work for me as a representative yesterday. He was driving for a small company. They were told to carry two log books, and if they did not, it was, get out, there are ten other people in line for your job. People have to feed their families, and it's scary that this kind of stuff happens in this day and age on our highways. It's happening every day. This practice of increasing hours and reducing the time off is frightening.

I'm a Teamsters Canada representative on the Canadian Trucking Human Resources Council. In talking to the industry, and even the employers we represent, I find everybody's screaming that they can't find good, qualified truck drivers. There are some out there, but they want to spend some time with their families. They don't want to put in the 60, 70, 80 hours some of us put in in a week. They value their families and their children, and they want to be home. So if you're going to give him the keys on Sunday night and he comes back on Saturday, he doesn't want the job. It's not that we don't have good drivers; it's that we don't have good conditions.

Mr. Larry Bagnell: I appreciate your concern with safety. You just said it's hard to get drivers, so it should be easy for you to have 13 hours in your contracts or not have them drive. But I don't want to push that point.

I'll pass on to my colleague, but if the parliamentary secretary gets a chance in his next intervention, he could comment on your point about consultation, because I think there has been a lot of consultation on this bill.

The Chair: Three minutes, Tony.

Mr. Tony Tirabassi (Niagara Centre, Lib.): First, I'd like to thank Mr. Papineau and Mr. Benson. In my former life, both as a municipal councillor and as somebody who was involved in movement of perishable commodities, long haulers and short haulers, in 23 years I certainly have some background in dealing with the trucking industry—and even as somebody who's just concerned about what's going on around me...so as to ask a lot of questions.

Throughout your report it seems to state that the consultative process wasn't enough. I would ask for some clarification. Indeed, there must have been some consultation. Could somebody clarify what meetings were held with who? I don't mean only as the government went about trying to receive input on Bill S-3, but I'm going to ask you gentlemen what consultative process you went through with your grassroots drivers. These are people I've worked with—I'm not a driver—and talked to for the past many years. I will admit, you try not to use your own personal experiences to show that's the case right across the board in general terms, but what I've heard is out of sync with what I'm hearing here from you gentlemen today. So I seek some clarification.

Mr. André Papineau: I know it personally. I've talked to a lot of my drivers at membership meetings or at meetings with certain transport companies. I have tabled this project with the 14 hours and all that. I can tell you that the members I represent are totally opposed to it because they are on the road 13 hours a day now. They don't want to be on the road 14 hours. They're tired at the end of the week. It's like taking your car and going to Toronto, back and forth, three times. See how you feel once you get out of your vehicle. And for these guys it's not a vehicle, it's a 55-foot trailer.

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So it's not easy. You have to be concerned about your equipment because you are ultimately responsible. You are being pushed. You have to have on-time delivery. You have everybody yelling and screaming at you to find out where you are. When you get to your destination, everybody is upset with you because you're late, and they ask where have you been and all this. It's a pressure cooker in that truck. Everything put together, they can't take it. The people I've talked to are totally opposed to it.

Mr. Phil Benson: Can I respond to that quickly?

The Chair: Very quickly.

Mr. Phil Benson: To answer your question, President Bouvier speaks for Teamsters Canada, and in terms of any assumption or assertion that he would not know what his members want, for any consultation he has with his members, I would think that President Bouvier when he speaks for Teamsters Canada speaks for his members.

On the second issue of consultation, I had a brief comment with the clerk, and at least on this bill there was no consultation with Teamsters, none whatsoever.

Also, on the hours of service issue, that comes from the administrators, which Teamsters Canada is not a part of. There were no consultations on it. Part of the concern is that when you're dealing with road transportation, both trucking, busing, and other forms of transportation that Teamsters Canada participates in as a stakeholder, it's hard to go back to try to improve it, make it better, and show the glaring deficiencies after, as I said, the horse bolts the barn. Consultation occurs at the drafting stage, at the thought stage, at the presentation stage. It doesn't occur, in my viewpoint, and I think from Teamsters Canada's viewpoint, after the event.

I think perhaps from now into the future, Teamsters Canada would really appreciate, as you were saying, being consulted and being part of that process.

The Chair: I'll move to Mr. Laframboise of the Bloc Québécois.

[Translation]

Mr. Mario Laframboise (Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First of all, I'd like to thank the witnesses. I'm glad I'm not alone in thinking that this bill should be put on the back burner and reintroduced at a later date. The provinces, including Quebec, have not yet agreed to either the tabling or passage of Bill S-3.

Over the past few meetings, I've tried to make my colleagues understand that transportation safety is a provincial responsibility. The provinces provide and oversee transportation services on an ongoing basis.

One major problem was identified by all industry representatives, including the Canadian Industrial Transportation League, the Canadian Bus Association and the Canadian Trucking Association, which together represent over 80 per cent of the industry. All have called for improved legislation and enhanced safety. Clause 3.(1)(a) of Bill S-3 reads as follows:

(a) the regulatory regime for those undertakings is focused on safety performance assessments based on the National Safety Code...

Everyone agrees on standard #14. The problem is harmonization, primarily because of costs. Why do certain provinces and territories fail on this score? Because bringing about harmonization, establishing a national safety code and subsequently, ensuring control and follow-up procedures requires a significant outlay of funds.

I was disappointed in that industry representatives, who are often employers, did not dare ask the federal government for money, even though the latter is imposing this safety standard on the industry. Again, the government will not have to pay a penny of the costs. Who will be paying? From listening to employers, if I were a provincial representative, I would simply increase fees. I would increase licensing fees to cover the costs, even though everyone knows that the federal government, like the provinces, collects enough money from gas, excise taxes, GST and PST to cover the entire cost of implementing this system. No one has mentioned costs, which means that if the industry were forced to bear the full costs, so too would your workers. When prices increases, so too do the number of hours of service. That's why I stated from the very beginning that it would be a good idea to include a provision respecting hours of service in the bill.

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I can't understand discussing safety and using this bill to... My colleagues in the federal government, who profess to be staunch defenders of safety, are advocating a national system. At the same time, however, no provision is made for hours of service, the primary complaint of workers who keep the road transportation industry humming. Without the industry workers, your bosses wouldn't make any money and shipments of goods would come to a standstill.

The federal government prefers to discuss hours of work separately and to introduce legislation providing for a national safety regime. However, if the provinces lack the funds to implement this regime, all we'll be left with is a nice piece of legislation. Federal funding is needed to make this proposal work. Let's take the time to make it work. In my opinion, our consultations should also focus on hours of service so that this issue is included in the bill to everyone's satisfaction.

Obviously, I'm pleased to see that I'm not the only on who thinks the bill should be withheld. We should give ourselves more time. The fact is that in order for this bill to become a reality, the government needs the consensus of the provinces and territories because they will be enforcing the provisions. Similarly, it needs to have the industry and the workers on side as well. If in fact you haven't been consulted, then in my view, this is indeed a gross oversight. It's surely not the first one, but merely another in a long list of oversights.

I come back to what I said initially, Mr. Chairman. I can't understand why Transport Canada officials have recommended the adoption of the bill at this time when they themselves have admitted that there was still work to do with the territories and provinces and neglected to tell us that they had yet to complete their consultations with industry. I find that astonishing.

That's all I wanted to say. Perhaps you would care to say something further.

Mr. André Papineau: I have a comment to make about security.

Whenever problems arise, employers, regardless of who they are, cut back on training and safety. Cuts of these nature are generally quicker and bigger.

Personally, when it comes to the people whom I represent, I have been stressing training and driver education since 1994.Our facility is equipped with an air brakes system for driver training purposes. It is very difficult to get employers to send truck drivers for training because of the costs. Training is the first area targeted.

We are more successful when it comes to dealing with unionized employers. Otherwise, if employees want training, their employers tell them to go somewhere else to get that training.

Mr. Mario Laframboise: If companies were required to contribute directly toward the implementation of this national regime, imagine how much trouble you would have convincing employers slapped with a surcharge.

I support your position and I hope that my colleagues will understand a little better now that safety is not just words on a piece of paper calling for a national standard when there isn't even anyone to ensure compliance with this standard across the country. If the federal government's objective is to bring in a monitoring system, then it should state its position clearly. This would likely relieve the provinces, and companies, of certain responsibilities, but I don't believe that's what the government had in mind. It wanted to force the territories into implementing the standard. However, once again, they lack the funds and that's why harmonization will be a problem, as the industry has stated. There is insufficient funding to guarantee...

As for what Quebec wants, when harmonization is ultimately achieved, all companies across Canada should, from a competition standpoint, be on an equal footing. Firms in one province or territory should not be subject to stricter requirements or have more responsibilities such that they are less competitive than companies in other provinces.

Therefore, if the government introduces this national safety regime, it needs to allocate the necessary sums of money to allow provinces to introduce and ensure compliance with the standard. At the same time, upcoming discussions should include the topic of hours of service. Ultimately, if the industry is forced to pay more, the pressure in terms of hours of work will fall squarely on the shoulders of your workers. If this issue isn't resolved and costs escalate, in addition to cutting back on employee training, companies will force their employers to work longer hours to cover added costs.

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[English]

Mr. Phil Benson: On the issue you raised on urgency, normally bills would go from the House of Commons to the Senate, and the Senate would have a sober second thought. In this case, of course, it's coming from the Senate to the House, with two days of public hearings and, hopefully, a priority bill passed in the next week.

What kind of a sober second thought is actually going to occur on the bill? If it's passed in the next week, if they're talking about leaving this week sometime, it's not going to be much of a sober second thought.

As to the issue of setting standards, if the committee waited, or the government waited, until they see how the negotiations will occur and what kinds of standards there are, they may want to revisit this bill, before it's passed or amended on the floor of the House of Commons, to strengthen it. Who knows? At this particular point, we don't know.

The Chair: Okay. Thank you.

We're about out of time.

Brian, you have one last question, the last word.

Mr. Brian Fitzpatrick: There has been anecdotal evidence, or comments, and a suggestion that unionized trucking operations are safer inherently than non-unionized. I want to see stats on that stuff. It's not something I'm just going to buy into.

Mr. Phil Benson: If you took it that way, I would say it was not the intention. The issue is an industry issue. It's not a union versus non-union issue. Hours of service or any regulation is a non-union issue. It's an industry issue. If there are violations in safety, they occur across the board.

Mr. Brian Fitzpatrick: There are other countries in the world with trucking industries. There are different standards, and so on. It seems to me safety is something we can measure and do a good comparison on.

If our team batting average is around .200 and other countries are batting .320, we should pick up our socks and find out what we're doing in the area of safety to reach a higher standard.

There is the comment on having a shortage of drivers, or another example of having to use two log books. If you don't want to do it, you're out the door. There are ten more drivers waiting. They're inconsistent statements, as far as I'm concerned. If you have a shortage, you have a shortage. If you have a shortage, you can't be doing such things.

I caution both of you, gentlemen. If you want to try to get me onside, use some good independent data and statistics to support the positions, rather than picking out isolated cases.

Mr. Phil Benson: When Teamsters Canada appear before the committee with their submission on hours of service, I fully expect any desire you have for information will be fully met.

Mr. Brian Fitzpatrick: Thank you.

Mr. André Papineau: To clarify, there is a shortage of drivers. There is a shortage of good drivers. There are drivers out there, but we see employers interview 50 people to hire one. There are lots of AZ drivers. Are they qualified?

Mr. Brian Fitzpatrick: I would make one last comment. I have anecdotal experience as a driver too. I come from Saskatchewan, out in the country. I drive a lot on the highways. In my own personal experience, I'd much rather be dealing with the average trucker on the highway than a lot of the other people I encounter.

By and large, you mentioned a person driving at a speed of 140 on a highway. We can always pick out the bad apple. I find truck drivers across the country to be very polite, very professional drivers. I'm more concerned with my own type of drivers, the personal motor vehicle drivers.

Mr. Phil Benson: Mr. St. Denis is correct. This bill deals with more of a framework. As such, we dealt with the hours of service.

The issue of Teamsters Canada is more an example of things that can fall out from the bill. As I said earlier, I'm quite certain when they come before you on the hours of service, any expectation you have on information will be met.

The Chair: Thank you very much, gentlemen. We appreciate your input.

Mr. Phil Benson: I want to say thank you very much to the committee for allowing us to appear. We wish you well.

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We will put in a final plug. We do hope the committee will take its time to really consider the bill and perhaps delay it through the fall.

Thank you very much. We do appreciate it.

Mr. André Papineau: Thank you on behalf of Brother Bouvier. Thank you very much.

The Chair: I'd like to proceed now with the clause-by-clause on Bill S-3.

I'd like to invite the Transport people to come up in case of questions. Please, take your places.

Are there any amendments?

Mr. Brent St. Denis: I have a point of order.

The Chair: Yes, Mr. St. Denis.

Mr. Brent St. Denis: I said last week there would be some government amendments. I want to inform the committee, on reflection and considering some of the testimony from witnesses, there are no government amendments. This is to clarify and reverse what I said last week. We are asking that the bill proceed as it stands.

The Chair: Okay. We'll proceed with the bill.

(Clauses 1 to 13 inclusive agreed to on division)

The Chair: Shall the title carry?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

Some hon. members: On division.

The Chair: Shall the bill carry?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

Some hon. members: On division.

The Chair: Shall I write the report the bill without amendment to the House?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

Some hon. members: On division.

The Chair: It appears we have enough time to work on the report of the research people with regard to earlier data.

Does anyone have any input or amendments?

Mr. Brian Fitzpatrick: I didn't bring a copy.

The Chair: I guess it should be in camera. I'll suspend for five minutes while we go in camera.