TRGO Committee Meeting

37th PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION

Standing Committee on Transport and Government Operations

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Thursday, April 11, 2002

Á

1105

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Marcel Proulx (Hull--Aylmer, Lib.))

Mr. André Foucault (Secretary-Treasurer, Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada)

Á

1110

Mr. Blaine Stevens (Truck driver, Local 605 Saskatoon, Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada)

Á

1115

Mr. André Foucault

Mr. Darryl Hicks (Truck Driver, Local 605 Prince Albert, Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada)

Á

1120

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Marcel Proulx)

Mr. André Foucault

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Marcel Proulx)

Mrs. Brenda Hicks (Individual Presentation)

Á

1125

Mr. André Foucault

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Marcel Proulx)

Mr. Mario Laframboise (Argenteuil--Papineau--Mirabel, BQ)

Mr. André Foucault

Á

1130

Mr. Mario Laframboise

Mr. Blaine Stevens

Á

1135

Mr. Mario Laframboise

Mr. Darryl Hicks

Á

1140

Mr. Laframboise

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Marcel Proulx)

Mr. Harvey

Mr. André Foucault

Mr. André Harvey

Mr. André Foucault

Mr. André Harvey

Mr. André Foucault

Ms. Julie White (Researcher, Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada)

Á

1145

Mr. André Harvey

Mr. André Foucault

Mr. André Harvey

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Marcel Proulx)

Mr. André Foucault

Mr. Blaine Stevens

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Marcel Proulx)

Á

1150

Mrs. Desjarlais

Mr. Darryl Hicks

Á

1155

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais

Mr. Darryl Hicks

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais

Mr. Darryl Hicks

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais

Mr. Blaine Stevens

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais

Mr. Darryl Hicks

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais

Mr. Blaine Stevens

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais

Mr. André Foucault

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Marcel Proulx)

Mr. Alex Shepherd (Durham, Lib.)

Mr. Darryl Hicks

Mr. Alex Shepherd

Â

1200

Mr. André Foucault

Mr. Alex Shepherd

Ms. Julie White

Mr. Blaine Stevens

Mr. Alex Shepherd

Ms. Julie White

Â

1205

Mr. Alex Shepherd

Mr. André Foucault

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Marcel Proulx)

Mr. Szabo

Mr. Blaine Stevens

Mr. Paul Szabo

Ms. Julie White

Mr. Paul Szabo

Ms. Julie White

Mr. Paul Szabo

Mr. André Foucault

Mr. Paul Szabo

Mr. Blaine Stevens

Mr. Paul Szabo

Mr. André Foucault

Â

1210

Mr. Paul Szabo

Mr. André Foucault

Mr. Paul Szabo

Mr. André Foucault

Mr. Paul Szabo

Mr. André Foucault

Mr. Szabo

Mr. André Foucault

Mr. Paul Szabo

Mr. André Foucault

Mr. Paul Szabo

Mr. André Foucault

Mr. Paul Szabo

Ms. Julie White

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Marcel Proulx)

Mr. Paul Szabo

Mr. André Foucault

Â

1215

Mr. James Moore (Port Moody--Coquitlam--Port Coquitlam, Canadian Alliance)

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Marcel Proulx)

Mr. André Foucault

Mr. Keith Newman (Director of Research, Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada)

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Marcel Proulx)

Mr. André Harvey

Â

1220

Mr. Darryl Hicks

Mr. André Foucault

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Marcel Proulx)

Mr. Mario Laframboise

Â

1225

Mr. Blaine Stevens

Mr. Mario Laframboise

Mr. Darryl Hicks

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Marcel Proulx)

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais

Â

1230

Mr. Blaine Stevens

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais

Mr. Blaine Stevens

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais

Mr. André Foucault

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Marcel Proulx)

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais

Mr. André Foucault

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Marcel Proulx)

Mrs. Desjarlais

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Marcel Proulx)

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CANADA

Standing Committee on Transport and Government Operations

---

NUMBER 058

l

1st SESSION

l

37th PARLIAMENT

---

EVIDENCE

Thursday, April 11, 2002

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Á  (1105)  

[Translation]

    The Vice-Chair (Mr. Marcel Proulx (Hull--Aylmer, Lib.)): Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Standing Committee on Transport and Government Operations.

[English]

    Welcome. I think you've been made aware of the procedure as far as this meeting is concerned. You're going to have 10 minutes to make a presentation, and then we'll switch to questions from members of this committee.

    Mr. Foucault, you're probably the porte-parole. Would you like to introduce your colleagues and then go ahead with your presentation, sir?

    Mr. André Foucault (Secretary-Treasurer, Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada): Yes, I'd like to do that.

    Our thanks to the committee for this opportunity to appear before it and share our very deep concerns about the current debate, about how we should regulate driving and hours with respect to members of our union who work in this industry.

    We have with us today Blaine Stevens, from our local in Saskatchewan; and Darryl Hicks and Brenda Hicks. Darryl is also a driver, but his wife is here to talk about the implications of the occupation on family life. I also want to flag that Doreen Neufeld is here with us today, the spouse of Mr. Stevens, also taking a family interest in this whole issue. Today is, we think, ladies and gentlemen, sort of like the workers' day on this issue.

    I would also like to introduce colleagues of mine from our research department, Keith Newman and Julie White, who are here as well in support of our presentation.

    I recognize that time is short and we're dealing with a very important issue, and a very complicated one, as a matter of fact, but I understand you have put your minds to this already in some serious ways. We're not going to reinvent the wheel. You have our brief. But I would like to speak to certain important aspects of the challenge that we see lies before you as a committee, to try to bring a sense to this industry, which, in our view, is in disarray.

    It appears the interests of all have been considered in a large way: the suppliers, the purchasers, the trucking firms, the just-in-time delivery philosophy, the community, and even the economy. The only people who seem to have been, at times, left out of that equation is the people who actually do the work.

    We are concerned because employers are operating in a deregulated environment. What that does, even to employers who are striving to be as balanced as possible with respect to their obligations to their employees, is cause them, in order to be competitive, to be basically racing to the bottom. Since the only real variable in all this, given that the equipment is a constant, licensing fees are constant, and everything else, is the human resources costs, employee costs. So what we have here is a situation where oftentimes the employee is basically made to be the flexibility that makes the industry in a deregulated environment compete.

    We're being very careful here. We think deregulation has victimized the companies, as well as the employees who work for them. That's what we're dealing with in that context.

    As far as proposed changes are concerned, we do welcome some of the changes, that is to say, the very confusing maximums that used to exist--well, in fact, still do until they're changed, I suppose--to deal with the 60 hours in a seven-day period, the 70 hours in eight days, and 120 hours in 14 days. We find the prospect of eliminating this to be finally welcome, but as long as we're remunerating people on the basis of miles driven and maxing out their work time on hours, we will always have some difficulty here, because confusion will set in.

    You'll be hearing from people shortly here, and I don't want to take too much time, because I think it's good for the community to hear about individuals who have a story of their own to tell on this. For this debate to proceed, it is crucial to understand what it means to people in real terms. “Waiting time”, for example...somebody is going to define that for us today and what that means, and “loading time”. It's not all about driving, folks, yet the person in that cab has to be alert and has to be safe, for his sake, for the public's sake, for his employer's sake, and of course he has a family he has to live with--or she, because nowadays we're talking about fairly gender-neutral occupations.

    So those are the kinds of issues we want to bring to your attention. We have proposals in that regard, and we'd be glad to review them with you. They're contained in our brief. But I think at this time it would be appropriate for you to hear from my colleagues, who have come all the way from Saskatchewan to be with us today to share with you their concerns. They take this process very seriously, as I'm sure you do, and we welcome this great opportunity to speak to you about this.

    So, Blaine, would you like to proceed?

Á  (1110)  

    Mr. Blaine Stevens (Truck driver, Local 605 Saskatoon, Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada): Thank you.

    It is quite well known, I think, in the industry that people cheat on their log books by 30%. I don't think that's any secret even to you people on this panel. What that means, for instance, is if a driver pulls into a city and is there for 4 a.m. for a 5 a.m. delivery, and he's unloaded by 7 a.m. or whenever, he will log 15 minutes or half an hour to unload that load. He will then mark time off until he's slept out, which is usually around noon in most cases. Then sometimes he'll wait until 10 o'clock at night—which is also logged as time off—hanging around the terminal. He's awake, but he's not logging it. In essence, at 10 p.m. he'll be handed a load and told that he has a seven or eight o'clock appointment the next morning. Not only is this man angry, he's tired. So you have, in my mind, a potential bomb in your hands. You have an angry person, you have a tired person, and he has a destination he has to reach. I don't think it's safe.

    In my case, a bad back forced me off the road from lack of exercise and too much sitting. I was told I had to get something where I was more mobile; otherwise I would face life in a wheelchair. I was lucky enough to get a position driving in town. I am currently paid by the hour, so a lot of this does not affect me personally—just the people I work with.

    I have been divorced because of the hours of service in this industry. That was not just the trucking industry's fault, but by the time I did find work in town the damage had already been done. There was not much in common any more. I missed, of course, a large portion of my children growing up.

    A typical day for a highway driver now is not much different from when I was on the road, even before log books became an issue. The waiting time and all that is still not logged. You literally drive until you are exhausted and then go to bed—crash, in a lot of cases, with not enough energy to even take your clothes off. You just fall into bed.

    Deregulation has affected us. At the time deregulation came in we were being paid comparably to nurses. Now it's a joke. Getting qualified people into this industry is becoming next to impossible.

    Another of the beefs we have, especially on the prairies, is that in Saskatchewan and Alberta there are literally no regulations whatsoever. You can drive 13 hours with two hours off. These are provincially regulated companies we're talking about, not the feds. A lot of our company's dilemma is trying to compete with companies that do this. These people can go literally forever—for 15 hours each day forever—with no time off, to a maximum of 105 hours. Maybe deregulation has been a boon to some companies, but for drivers, I think it has been a curse.

    As André said, the cost of all the amenities such as equipment, fuel, and repairs is all the same in all the companies. The only difference is the person behind the wheel, and I think the drivers in this industry have paid the price.

    Thank you, sir.

Á  (1115)  

    Mr. André Foucault: Before I turn to Darryl Hicks and then after that to his wife, Brenda, I'd like to point out that in the process of preparing ourselves to meet you today, the issue of waiting time was discussed. It's estimated by us that as much as a third of the driver's working time is in fact waiting and loading time. You may not be aware that a driver is not paid for the waiting time, and often is not paid for the loading time either.

    We're not here to discuss collective bargaining matters--that's for another forum--but we should flag to you that the fact that those hours are not paid creates a conflict between a driver and his interest in accurately reporting his log time. If that driver is going to be waiting for eight hours and not getting paid, he's not interested in having that time factored into his overall time because that cuts into his ability to earn a living and impacts on his annual income. The industry, the employers, aren't either, because having bars put on the availability of their personnel to them is a factor of a negative nature.

    It appears that although we say we want to put some maximums, as inadequate as they are, in our view, in a sense it's more smoke and mirrors than reality. If everybody has a stake in not disclosing the truth, then the logging of it is basically a useless exercise.

    I want to point this out here. We're being very frank with you. You may not want to hear all this, but in our view this is very factual. We're going to have some controls to protect the interests of the drivers, the public, and the carriers, and those have to be real. People have to have an incentive and a vested interest in living to those rules. The way it stands right now, in our view, the incentives go the other way.

    I'd like at this time to invite Darryl Hicks to make his presentation.

    Mr. Darryl Hicks (Truck Driver, Local 605 Prince Albert, Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada): Thank you. Good morning.

    Driving time is a concern to us because of having fatigued drivers going down the road. What we're basically looking at here is the safety of the people on the highway, the people you represent, which is the reason we're here. We're trying to protect the public at large

    As a driver going down the road, I have an interest in supporting my family. I need to supply food, shelter, and clothing for them. I have an interest in keeping a job in order to do this. I picked trucking to do that. I'm being forced by the government and my company to be a liar and a cheat in order to supply food, shelter, and clothing for my family. That puts a strain on me. I don't like that.

    The health and welfare of myself and the public at large is endangered due to the fact that the current regulations are ineffectively enforced. I'm being pushed by my company and the other companies out there not to log time that I'm sitting around waiting. This makes me a tired man at the end of the day.

    When you say 15 hours, that's a long time, but when you factor into the equation the hours I don't show on a log book, it's more like an average of 18 hours. When you're working a 70-hour work week, which is currently available to us, in actuality it is about 90 hours. Most industries have a 40-hour work week. That's what we understand to be the average or the norm. The fact I'm working 90 hours plus, although not all the time, creates a hazard not only to myself but to my family and the public at large. It has a lot of effects on me and my family.

    Not getting paid for waiting time is a big thing. We don't log it. You can't. If I want to supply an income to my family, I can't log my waiting time.

    I've worked 13 years as a driver. I leave at the beginning of the week. I've driven all over Canada and the rest of North America. I work my way slowly toward my home. I leave on Monday and I'm home on Friday or Saturday. However, nothing is written in stone.

    The hours I spend on the road from Monday to Friday are the hours I give to the company. They're not my hours. When you look at a log book, you will see off-duty time, sleeper-berth time, driving time, and time spent on duty but not driving. If you were to look in most drivers' log books, you would see that at the end of the day the time spent on duty but not driving would equal less than an hour. That's crazy. You would see most of it logged in the off-duty or sleeper-berth time, whether or not they're actually there. That's the reality of it.

    How you would enforce that is a government issue. Whether you would put computers in trucks or re-enforce the fact that companies... It has to be the companies. I'm a worker. I take orders. I'm told this load has to go from A to B and it has to be there in a certain time.

    Most people think we're pretty flexible, that we basically have our own job out there and are unsupervised. That's a crock. They've put satellites in our trucks. They know exactly how many hours I've driven. They know where my truck is sitting. They have eyes high in the sky. They have eyes on me all the time as to where I am and what I'm doing. They know what's going on. They know that I sat all day in a place, be it Edmonton, Calgary, or wherever. They know I've sat there waiting all day.

    Then come 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock, midnight, they hand me an eight- or ten-hour shift and say, here you go, now drive, and I'm going out on the highway like that. That's a worry to me because I have to go through extraordinary means in order to be able to stay awake, be it coffee or riding with the window down in -40°C weather. Blaine's son-in-law raps his shin with a hammer to keep himself awake behind the wheel. Is that normal? Is that something we expect of workers out there on the highway, that they have to rap their shin with a hammer to keep themselves awake? This is ridiculous. This is not quality of life.

Á  (1120)  

    I work so I can support my family and make a living; I don't live to work. With 90 hours behind the wheel in a week, I don't have time to live. There's no time left for my family, for the community. It's detrimental to my health. It's detrimental to the health of society. I can't volunteer any of my services to the church, Boy Scouts Canada—I was a boy scout for eight years. I have volunteering in my blood, but I can't. I can't volunteer my time. What time do I have?

    When I come home I have family time, but I have to structure it. I don't have time for friends. I can't be on a ball team or play soccer or hockey. It's Canada and I can't play hockey. So this is very detrimental. Basically we're being handcuffed to a truck.

    The Vice-Chair (Mr. Marcel Proulx): We can take one more minute if you want for Mrs. Hicks.

    Mr. André Foucault: We appreciate your patience. These individuals have come a long way to speak to you and this is a new experience for them. We're trying to respect the discipline of this committee, but there's emotion in this that needs to be factored into our time.

    The Vice-Chair (Mr. Marcel Proulx): That's fine, sir. I understand that.

    Mrs. Hicks.

    Mrs. Brenda Hicks (Individual Presentation): Thank you.

    I have been married for 14 years. I have three children, ages 3, 8, and 11, and my husband has been a truck driver for 13 of those 14 years.

    Truck drivers have no quality of life due to the excessive and unreasonable time they are made to be on the road to perform their job. Truck drivers live to work; they don't work to live. And this has a huge impact on our family life. When he is on the road, I don't have the support of a spouse to raise our children, to take our kids to and from lessons. He cannot participate in birthdays or in any special occasions because we can't plan for him to be there; his work schedule is always changing.

    Our kids worry, as I do, about the long hours the drivers put in every day. We worry for their safety and for the safety of other people on the road with whom they may come into contact. We worry about whether or not they will come home.

    At the end of the week they come home very tired and yet you want to spend time with them. The kids have so much energy and they want their dad's energy, but they don't have it to give. And the kids don't understand this. They don't understand the time away from home. They don't understand when you say he's coming home next week, not tomorrow. Well, three-year-olds don't understand time and it's very difficult for them. They wonder if dad will ever come home.

    Not getting to see their kids is also very difficult for truck drivers. As wives, we get to see our kids every day, but they don't get to see them. They miss all their firsts. They don't see them growing up. They miss everything. And you can never replace this when it's taken away from you.

    It's a worry for us that they are made to work these excessive hours when they are so tired.

Á  (1125)  

    Mr. André Foucault: Thank you.

    On behalf of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada, we want to thank you for your time. We'd now be very pleased to answer any questions you have, gentlemen.

    The Vice-Chair (Mr. Marcel Proulx): Thank you. We appreciate your participation.

    We will now move on to questions.

    Monsieur Laframboise, on va commencer par vous. Vous avez 10 minutes.

[Translation]

    Mr. Mario Laframboise (Argenteuil--Papineau--Mirabel, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My first question is for Mr. Foucault.

    First of all, I want to thank you all for having travelled to meet with this committee. I would like you to know that we had requested permission to travel across Canada to meet with industry representatives, truckers and family representatives, and that our request was denied. The Canadian Alliance was opposed to the idea and the Liberal government did not do anything to enable us to travel.

    However, you have nevertheless painted a clear picture of the industry and its effect on families and on you, as union and worker representatives. That is what is a bit difficult to understand.

    In December, the government attempted to get us to quickly approve regulations based on an agreement that had been negotiated with the Canadian Trucking Alliance and Teamsters Canada. Were you aware of that, Mr. Foucault? The Teamsters tell us that they represent the majority of truckers in Canada. Can you tell me why they were prepared to negotiate an agreement similar to the one you are criticizing, at behest of the government? Why was the industry prepared to do that, especially since it is facing a crisis? You are absolutely right. There is no one to replace you, and the money is indecent, but the unions were prepared to negotiate an agreement with the Canadian Trucking Alliance. Can you clarify that for me, Mr. Foucault?

    Mr. André Foucault: Seeing the Teamsters adopt such a position was very perplexing for us. We are frank and open with you. The people before you are members of our union who earn a living as truck drivers. You have heard various perspectives, and your questions are undoubtedly designed to have us outline matters that are important to you. You will soon have a better understanding of how the industry works. We do not understand why the Teamsters want to move in that direction.

    Representatives of the Steelworkers Union are here today, and I have discussed the matter with them. They too are confused. It is true that the Teamsters represent a lot of truck drivers in the country, but from what I have been told, in general, less than 5% of the workers are driving trucks. Although we do not claim to have as many members who are driving trucks as the Teamsters, we do represent more than 1,000 people who work for trucking companies and 1,000 other people who are working for companies that do something else, but that do nevertheless require our services. So we are not a minor player.

    We are speaking on behalf of the individuals who will have to live with the outcome of what you eventually decide on a daily basis. We are asking you to carefully consider the employees themselves, people who have to earn a living and who are required to be on standby for hours on end without being paid, who are subsidizing the industry, if I may put it so boldly. In this situation, the big losers are the employees, as well as their families and the general public, because of road safety.

    These issues are not separate from each other; they are linked. You are asking me to explain the Teamsters' position. I cannot do that.

Á  (1130)  

    Mr. Mario Laframboise: I think you have done a good job of shedding light on the situation. I can tell you that I am very happy to have contributed to thwarting this agreement on which the government was proposing to legislate. That would have been included in a regulation, because that is what we were being asked to do. You have provided an excellent explanation. Somewhere, there is a crisis that is much more important than a simple agreement between an industry and the Canadian Trucking Alliance. I see the transportation industry as an intermediary between those who produce the goods and services, who have them delivered by an industry, and those who receive these goods and services. You represent the workers who participate in that.

    Everyone should agree that there is a real problem. The best evidence of that is that there are no young people to take over. If young people do not want to go into your industry, it is because the living conditions are unacceptable. It's passé, outdated, and no longer attractive. So the industry has to bring pressure to bear on workers. And that leads me to a question for Mr. Stevens.

    In the end, the employees are bearing the brunt to this pressure. Now, older workers are being kept on, because there are no young people to take over, and these older workers are getting more and more work. You are a good example of that. You left, and now you are paid an hourly wage. That is what you said. Now, you have a set job and you are paid an hourly wage, Mr. Stevens.

    I would like you to explain what you did. You must have found a niche in the industry that enables you to live a more acceptable lifestyle, but it undoubtedly did not help the industry. If you changed jobs, the industry that you left lost a good employee, and that is unfortunate. Mr. Stevens, I would like you to tell us about your experience changing jobs and why you made that change.

[English]

    Mr. Blaine Stevens: Thank you. I was in my late twenties or early thirties, and of course, when you're a truck driver, you have a lot of time to think—too much time, in fact. I got thinking about retiring and about “retiring to what?” The only people I knew were the people I drove on the highway with. My neighbours... We had weekends and we had friends over, but I didn't have hobbies, and as you said, there was no time for volunteering. There was no time for any of that.

    So when my back finally did give out from too many years of sitting, I asked our manager at the time if I could get a job working in the city. It just so happened that about three or four months after that, a position did come open. So I still am involved in the trucking industry, but I'm driving in town. I have to load and unload, so I'm moving all the time, all day long. Even though the hours are longer than the norm—because we usually put in between 45 and 50 hours per week—I get home evenings now and I have a life. It's much better. I'm here lobbying because, contrary to my advice, my sons and my stepson are now truck drivers, and they're all regretting their decision. They're all looking for ways out of the industry.

Á  (1135)  

[Translation]

    Mr. Mario Laframboise: Thank you. Mr. Hicks, my last question is for you.

    Industry representatives, with their expert researchers, told us that in the end, fatigue depends on the individual. According to their expert research, they are prepared to tell us that the problem is not the same for everyone. It depends on how a person can adapt... At any rate, it's a problem with physical make-up. That is more or less what we were told. We were told that fatigue was not as serious or as important a problem as all that.

    However, you are forced to keep logbooks. No one told the committee that everyone complied with that. All of the stakeholders, all of the witnesses that we have heard to date know that the tool, which was created to monitor your work time... It's still important. And it is the reason why we talk about hours. But some say that fatigue is not important. The hours are recorded in a logbook, but since the problem is not recognized, we are told that it is not important.

    You have presented your position, which is similar to that of most of your colleagues. That is what I want you to tell us. You say that you count your hours and that you adjust it so that it works. That is how the industry works. I would like you to testify to that, Mr. Hicks. That is what the industry is doing. Most workers play with their logbook to be paid as much as possible, since they are paid per kilometre and that is what is important.

    That is the problem with all of this deregulation. It probably affects almost 90% of the industry. You are paid for the kilometres you travel. The more kilometres you travel, the more you are paid. But to go a kilometre, you still have to spend the same amount of time behind the steering wheel. No one is inventing that. So I want you to tell me what the common practice is with doctoring the logbooks.

[English]

    Mr. Darryl Hicks: You do. You're allowed 15 hours a day, 13 hours of driving and two hours on duty not driving. You're allowed 70 hours total at the end of the week. That's the average we run most of the time. I work for a federal carrier, and that's what they regulate. It's not American hours; it's on a 70-hour work week towards that.

    If you were to say that when I leave Monday and get home Friday night or Saturday morning I've only worked 70 hours, you'd be wrong. If I were to include my waiting time... Waiting time includes not only loading and unloading. There's waiting time on the employer itself. Again, I'm a foot soldier; I get told what to do.

    I could be sitting in a place being told to wait, call back. A very popular term with the employers out there is “call back”. It's call back every 15 minutes, then it's call back every half hour, then it's call back every hour. Am I sleepy? How can I sleep and then call back my company every 15 minutes? It can't happen. Then I'm constantly on this hold. It's like a hold button, and they hold me there until they say I can go.

    What they're saying is, “I'm holding you here, but I'm not going to pay you. You're going to stay there and you're going to wait six, eight hours, possibly longer.” I've waited over 30 hours for loads, and they just tell you you're on hold. Then they say, “Okay, now you can go and drive”. And you say, “Well, I'm tired”. No, you have to drive. You have 9, 10, 12, 13 hours in your book that you can drive, because that's what's available to you.

    At the end of the week, if my 70 hours aren't cooked... You said it; if I don't log the 70 hours, I don't go home because the company tells me I have hours. So then you work and you don't go home. I have to tell them. I have to work my log book to the point where I say I'm out of hours and I need to go home.

    We need regulations. We need it. It's going to be wide open and drivers won't be allowed to go home. They're going to say, “You can drive, you drive. We have loads that have to be delivered and you need to deliver them. We have customers.” So that's the way it works.

    Yes, I try to work out my 70 hours at the end of the week so I can go home, but I work a lot more than the 70.

Á  (1140)  

[Translation]

    Mr. Mario Laframboise: Thank you.

    The Vice-Chair (Mr. Marcel Proulx): Thank you, Mr. Laframboise.

    Mr. Laframboise, you said that the Alliance refused to allow us to travel. You are absolutely right. You also said that the Liberal government did not do what it should have. If we went beyond that, you would be the first to accuse the government of not being democratic.

    Having said that, Mr. Harvey, you have the floor for 10 minutes.

    Mr. André Harvey (Chicoutimi--Le Fjord, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. What you just said is pertinent, and I thank you for having taken that responsibility.

    Allow me to thank our witnesses, especially Mr. and Ms. Hicks. Your comments have substantially enriched the work that we are currently doing. We consider that a very important aspect.

    Mr. Foucault, I will ask you to elaborate on the changes that need to be made to the profession and on the issue of regulations. These are both important aspects.

    Has your proposal been tested in the trucking industry? Is it possible, given the distance to cover, to enforce a regulation that would substantially decrease the number of hours per day, perhaps to 12 hours, or 60 hours a week? There are a variety of possibilities. I would like to know if this change, which is quite substantial, is applicable. I understand that on the human side of things, there are matters that must be carefully examined.

    Mr. André Foucault: I will provide a preliminary answer to your question, and then I will ask the researchers who are accompanying me today to respond in more detail. I can tell you that we are proposing measures that aim primarily to protect the interests of the members we represent, in other words the truck drivers.

    Having said that, we do not have the resources necessary to design a model that can be tested. However, we know that in other jurisdictions, mainly in Europe, there are different approaches taken. We cannot simply adopt those measures, because European countries are much smaller. Quebec is about five times larger than a country like Germany. So we're talking about different distances. But there are nevertheless some aspects that can be imported from elsewhere. I think that here in Canada, we have not paid enough attention to the way things are done.

    I'm going to ask Mr. Newman or Ms. White to add to my remarks in order to answer your question more specifically.

    Mr. André Harvey: Could you provide us with some statistics to compare with Europe?

    Mr. André Foucault: In Europe, in each truck, they have...

    Mr. André Harvey: Which countries in particular?

[English]

    Mr. André Foucault: Where we find the trucks in Europe, where they have the computerized element in them that allows the...the question has been asked of me on that.

    Ms. Julie White (Researcher, Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada): In Europe, it's standard practice to have a device that tracks trucks. It's sort of like airplanes or railways here, where there's always a black box on board tracking the situation so that in case of an accident, for example, it is possible to check what has happened.

    One of the things I discovered when I went to talk to truck drivers in Saskatchewan was that, actually, many of the trucks are already equipped with exactly such a device. They often have computers on board that are linked to satellites. It's just that that information is available only to the company and not to anybody else. So, as Darryl Hicks was saying earlier, I think the companies do in fact know how fast the trucks are moving, where they are, how long they're there, how long they're waiting and so on. It really isn't a very complicated thing to put these devices on board, so in terms of enforcement there really isn't a problem.

    In terms of the scheduling, I'm absolutely sure that the trucking companies would say the distances are too long, it's extremely difficult to schedule, and so on and so forth. I would only say that in industries we represent, and we represent quite a large number of industries in the private sector, we have quite a lot of fairly complicated scheduling issues that go on.

    What we hear from the truck drivers we've spoken to is that because there is no pressure on the companies or on the customers to schedule more effectively, since truck drivers are not paid anything while they are waiting, there is no reason for them to ensure that the truck is hooked up to a new load and moved on quickly. I think what we're proposing with the 12 hours and the 60 hours would actually put a lot of pressure on trucking companies to organize their work more effectively.

    I guess what we're saying is if it doesn't touch the bottom line—which it doesn't in this case—then at least ensure that the hours of work include that waiting time, which simply puts a lot of pressure on the trucking companies to schedule their work in a better fashion to make sure those trucks are available to the drivers when they arrive to move on again.

    I'm not saying it's an easy thing to do, but I'm saying there are lots of industries where scheduling is complicated and what you must do is have people dealing with those scheduling issues to try to ensure that waiting times are as short as possible. Right now there's no pressure in that direction at all.

Á  (1145)  

[Translation]

    Mr. André Harvey: In the research that you have done in preparing the recommendations on changes to the number of hours, did you prepare a theoretical schedule for the industry to verify if your recommendations are applicable, given that the distances are not the same as they are in Europe or in some other countries?

    Mr. André Foucault: No, because we do not have the resources we need to do tests like that. What we want to add to the debate is the most urgent aspect, in our opinion. We are speaking on behalf of employees. At some point, we must rely on our government to provide the industry and the community at large with some direction, and some priorities. When we talk about priorities, we want to make sure that we don't forget about the people who are doing the work on a daily basis.

    We can undertake formal discussions from a technical point of view, but perhaps not today, because we do not have the necessary resources. We are presenting one perspective at the table. We would like to come up with a solution for this situation in the context of the general challenge facing the industry, but it must be an integral part of the debate. We cannot forget about them. We talk about just-in-time delivery and all sorts of other issues, but we must not forget that our priority is the daily lives of our members, the people working in the industries, as well as public safety. The trucks on the roads today are much larger than they were in the past. They are literally trains on the road that are being driven by a person who must be alert at all times and motivated to work in a vigilant way. If the driver is tired and frustrated, if he lacks experience, because everybody who has experience has left the industry, it is the industry and the general public who will suffer.

    I'm doing my best to answer your question. I understand it, but...

    Mr. André Harvey: Thank you, Mr. Foucault. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    The Vice-Chair (Mr. Marcel Proulx): Yes?

    Mr. André Foucault: Mr. Stevens would like to add a few words.

    The Vice-Chair (Mr. Marcel Proulx): Of course.

[English]

    Mr. Blaine Stevens: I think to some extent you're right, it would be a problem. But I think what could work is if there was a variation--something similar but not the same--to what we have now with the extension of exceptions on certain long hauls. But when that person gets back to his base he would have to take the extended time off so he's rested when he goes back out.

    I don't know if you understand what I'm saying. If it was 12 hours a day for five days a week, it would be 60 hours, but if the run he has to make would be 72, I think there could be exceptions whereby he or she could make that run. You could get to the 72 hours or 84 hours, whichever, without extending it too far, but when he or she gets back, on their days off it would be mandatory that they took the extra time off, equivalent to the time they were gone, if that is a problem that is bothering the industry.

    I know, for instance, to come out of Saskatoon and go to Montreal and come back to Saskatoon it would be pretty much impossible to make it in 60 hours. In cases like that there should be an extension so they could get home, but when they get home they have to rest. I think that would solve some of the problems.

    The Vice-Chair (Mr. Marcel Proulx): Thank you.

    We are now going to move over to Madame Bev Desjarlais, please, for ten minutes.

Á  (1150)  

    Mrs. Bev Desjarlais (Churchill, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    I also want to thank you for coming. My colleague from the Bloc has mentioned that it was the hope of this committee to travel nationwide to hear from persons such as yourself, the drivers who are out there on the roads and the family members who become part of the equation, because it's not always easy to have your life running smoothly when you're working excessive hours. Those excessive hours do have an impact on how you perform your job, and your family life has an impact on how you perform your job. However, as was indicated, we sort of had that travel blocked. Actually, it wasn't blocked. I won't say “blocked”. We had that travel cancelled--and I don't want to say “block” because I know Mr. Laframboise felt the travel should happen.

    But, no, it was the decision of the committee, I'm happy to say, that we would travel, and much of that travel was planned in Canada, throughout the nation—B.C. and Alberta. We were going to have witnesses in Manitoba, Ontario, New Brunswick, areas where there were large traffic flows of truckers. For the most part, we recognize that there is a problem out there that needs to be addressed. But as was indicated, the Alliance felt it wasn't a serious enough issue, that grassroots people in Canada didn't need to have a say in that matter.

    So we will continue to push to have people in Canada be given the opportunity to have a say. I recognize, as I know most of these committee members recognize, that the people who have a stake in truckers on the road are not just the truck drivers, not just the trucking industry, but the 30 million Canadians who travel those roads as well. So I think it is crucially important that we travel and do hear from Canadians on the issue—and I'm actually going to take an opportunity, because quite frankly I've had a lot of my questions answered by what you've had to say. I'm glad you've come to confirm a lot of the concerns that have been brought forward by other witnesses, including researchers, but we need to have truckers themselves affirm that this is the way the industry is operating, so that people will look at it more thoroughly and recognize that we can't be looking at increasing truck drivers' hours. It is a serious issue.

    I do want to indicate that I kind of feel like I'm a long-haul driver sometimes, because I live in Thompson, Manitoba. My riding starts about one hour out of Winnipeg. I drive huge lengths of road on a very regular basis. Quite frankly, I know what it's like to be in a situation where you know you have to get to a meeting by this time in the morning. You have to get up at 4:30 a.m., you're trying to get to that meeting for 8:30 a.m., and it's four or five hours away, but you get yourself there. You know there's only going to be this many trucks on the road and not a whole lot of traffic, so if you're a little bit tired, maybe you can make it okay without any problems. You hope you don't sway a little off to the side and a moose doesn't come out when you're a little bit tired.

    But I have the advantage of being paid a salary and being able to hire someone who will travel with me, and if I'm a little tired, that person takes over. So I would rarely be in a position where I'm forced to travel those hours to make a living, just by the nature of the job. But I'm extremely sympathetic to the long hours you're driving. I know what it's like to turn the window down to keep yourself awake. It wasn't anything strange to me, because it is -40° when we're doing that. We do the same things. You stretch, you get out and walk a few minutes, and you hope you can carry on for another 100 kilometres without having a problem.

    I do want to ask a specific question. Mr. Hicks, you mentioned that you had travelled throughout North America. Can you give us some kind of comparison as to the regulations? Do you find a difference in the regulations, what you were allowed to do in the U.S. as compared to Canada, and whether that has an impact on your driving as well?

    Mr. Darryl Hicks: Yes, the regulations are definitely different. They're enforced a lot more stringently across the border. But the infrastructure the Americans have for the trucking industry is quite different from the infrastructure Canadians have. Rest areas are available, going down the highway. There are adequate truck stops. There are adequate supplies.

    When you drive in the States, there's an adequate infrastructure there for truck drivers. So when they run a 10-hour day down there, they have a place they can pull into and go to sleep. But 90% of the time we're pulling over onto the side of the highway, which is a hazard. If you want to stop here in Canada, you have to pull over to the side of the road. It's not unheard of to drive around in this country and see a sign that says, “No facilities for the next 200 kilometres”. I have 15-minute increments where I'm supposed to log. Well, it takes me more than 15 minutes to drive 200 kilometres.

    The infrastructure is totally different in the States. It's designed for trucking. We don't have that here.

Á  (1155)  

    Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: How many hours are you allowed to drive in the U.S.?

    Mr. Darryl Hicks: They work 70-hour weeks and 10-hour days. So there's 10 hours of driving in a day. It's a pretty reasonable day.

    Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: Have you had discussions with truckers in the U.S. about whether or not they're looking to reduce those hours; whether they're satisfied with those hours?

    Mr. Darryl Hicks: I believe they're trying to reduce them, but they're asking how it can be accomplished. Basically, it can be accomplished by doing switches. One truck leaves Saskatoon and one truck leaves Montreal. They meet in the middle, exchange trailers, the trucks return to their original destinations, and they have their time off. That's how it's accomplished.

    That happens quite frequently in the States, and even on a smaller scale, where guys are home every night. They drive out in the morning, switch in the afternoon, come back, and they're home that night. So it can be done.

    Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: I believe a number of busing companies operate like that, do they not?

    Mr. Blaine Stevens: Yes. One driver jumps out of one bus and into the other.

    Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: I don't want to know your absolute income, but what's the average annual income of a truck driver?

    Mr. Darryl Hicks: I put in two years' worth of work in one year's time, so by the hour it's fairly low. Annually I made $39,000 last year.

    Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: Is that a rough average?

    They're witnesses and I get to ask them, just in case they have different answers.

    Mr. Blaine Stevens: It varies. People who drive the long haul south can make as much as $50,000 and in extreme cases $60,000, but that's very extreme. They don't have a life.

    Mr. Darryl Hicks: I fight to be home.

    Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: That's fine for now.

    Mr. André Foucault: On the issue of public debate that's been raised a couple of times now, I think it would have been well received by our organization, and I'm sure others, if we'd had an opportunity to interact locally on this.

    The public has a stake in all this too. We're talking about a huge piece of equipment rolling down the highway here, and if people knew just how little integrity the whole system has, based on a log book where everybody has reasons to enter something other than the truth, there'd be some general concern among the population about what's rolling on the highways.

    We're being frank here and trying to help and analyse the situation. It's not flattering for us to admit that we are, in a way, part of the fraud, but we're saying it because people have to recognize why that's the case--the underlying reasons why we, as an industry, and the various companies are in the situation where all the pressure is to misrepresent the facts, so we can go on using these flawed approaches to doing things. So I just want to flag this. This is very important. It's a public debate that we see as relevant to all.

    Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: Thank you. I appreciate that.

    The Vice-Chair (Mr. Marcel Proulx): Thank you.

    We'll now move to Mr. Shepherd for ten minutes, please.

    Mr. Alex Shepherd (Durham, Lib.): Just to carry on with Mrs. Desjarlais' comments, if I add your waiting time to your actual time and figure out your hourly wage, it's $11.28 an hour. Is that reasonable?

    Mr. Darryl Hicks: Our numbers are lower than that.

    Mr. Alex Shepherd: We've been talking about changing the regulatory environment, yet at the same time we hear you say you don't abide by the regulations; you find ways to cheat, and so forth. But the real problem is that this industry doesn't remunerate its workers very well. Isn't that the bottom line?

  (1200)  

    Mr. André Foucault: It doesn't take into account the contribution the workers make. I want to be guarded here about not entering into collective bargaining with the committee. That's a job we do with employers. However, the fact is somebody can sit for ten hours waiting for a truck to be filled, or not only wait but also participate in the loading, for free, and then have that undeclared, because if they declare that time it impairs their ability to work for an hourly rate. There's a conflict in the whole thing.

    So to answer your question, to some degree that's a factor and can be addressed, perhaps on the legislative side. But on the other hand, the structure of the way the accountability takes place is flawed. It encourages everybody to not tell the real story. That's not what this is about. If you're going to log something, it's about finding out the truth. It's about measuring what is truly happening, so certain measures can be taken, and certain increases in staffing, if necessary, rerouting or efficiencies can be gained.

    Mr. Alex Shepherd: I think what you're telling us as a committee is that there are two factors involved as we stand back from this. There are efficiencies within the industry that the industry is not twigged on and doesn't really care about because they're not paying for the inefficiency. You want essentially to change the regulatory environment so that the efficiencies become paramount and they change the structure of how they utilize the drivers' time.

    The second issue is that maybe freight rates aren't high enough in this country, that the money coming through the economic pipe just isn't rewarding truckers for their work. That's a whole different issue. I don't know what freight rates are in Canada compared with Europe. Maybe Ms. White can tell me some of those things. Are freight rates on a per mile basis--on a per kilometre basis in Canada--significantly different from, say, the United States or Europe?

    Ms. Julie White: Do you want to answer?

    Mr. Blaine Stevens: Yes, I'd like to handle that one, please.

    Freight rates basically have not increased much in the last 15 or 20 years. In certain LTL situations—that's “less than trailerload”, or small parcels—it has increased somewhat, but in trailerload divisions what they have done is add combinations, if you can understand what I'm talking about. They'll put one trailer behind another so the weight's increased but the freight rate remains pretty flat. As a result, you get more bang for your buck; you can haul two loads instead of one. If you went back, 25 years ago you were allowed 32,000 pounds, as we measured at that time, on your drivers and your back axle—you only had tandems, or two sets of wheels per axle—and a maximum of 10,000 on the front. Now we're up to 37,500 pounds on each of those, and in a tridem—that's three axles—we're allowed 23,000 kilograms or 50,600 pounds.

    So the weights have gone up dramatically, and the industry I suppose in that sense has become more efficient. But I think we're paying a higher price on our highways, because it is definitely detrimental to our highways. The shipper is definitely the winner in this situation. If you look throughout the country you'll see that warehouses have closed down because freight rates are so cheap. You can haul it from one central warehouse and distribute it off the back of that truck cheaper than they can maintain a warehouse in a certain city.

    Mr. Alex Shepherd: We get involved in this argument continually between the rail and the truckers. The rail lines will argue, “Look, you're subsidizing the trucking industry because you build highways out of public funds, but we don't build railways out of public funds.”

    Getting back to my initial question, I was just wondering what freight rates are like in Canada compared with the United States or Europe. Are they lower here? Obviously, that would be an argument here: they should be higher, and some of that remuneration should go towards the operators.

    Ms. Julie White: I haven't looked at international comparisons about freight rates, and I guess you'd have to take into account more than just the freight rates in terms of what proportion of the expenses of an industry they would represent. I think what we are talking about here is an increase in freight rates; I think that's exactly right. I think we have to see that if the hours are going to be properly controlled and enforced, then truck drivers' pay is going to have to go up, and somebody is going to have to pay for that. Ultimately, presumably, that's going to be the customers who want the freight delivered.

    What we were saying in the brief fairly directly was, we have to look that in the face and say this is something that's necessary in order to deal with what are intolerable conditions of work. There has been a free ride in a way in the transport industry for a long time for shippers and they're going to have to face the fact that there is a payment to be made for just-in-time deliveries and for not having warehouses.

  (1205)  

    Mr. Alex Shepherd: Fair enough.

    Mr. André Foucault: In most industries covered by the federal or provincial codes, workers, for example, have a right to refuse a job that is dangerous to themselves or to others. It's a fundamental right in the workplace that's been there for about 25 years. In the trucking industry there is no such application, because the judgment call the employee in the cab has to make about his personal state at that time is, in the eyes of all--the law included--irrelevant. That shouldn't be the case. We trust people who work in mines, paper mills, auto plants--in anything else that contributes to the economy in a product kind of way--with that judgment call. Who is better positioned to know that than the person themselves? But in this industry, if the trucker says, “I'm tired, I can't do this”, basically the employer can say, “Sorry, you've got to do it.”

    In fairness to the employer, once again, he's operating in a deregulated environment where if he doesn't do it, somebody else will do it cheaper. It's really the law of the jungle we've got here--in a situation where there's no fit for it, I might add.

    Thank you.

    The Vice-Chair (Mr. Marcel Proulx): Thank you.

    Mr. Szabo.

    Mr. Paul Szabo (Mississauga South, Lib.): I want to thank all our guests for helping us out.

    In addition to cross-border impacts, the committee is looking at the other key aspect of safety. You've raised a whole bunch of issues here that are interesting to know as the rest of the story, to put it in context.

    Mr. Stevens talked about a scenario whereby sometimes somebody would have to do 72, maybe even 84, to get back. That doesn't sound like a commitment to safety to me.

    Mr. Blaine Stevens: I understand what you're saying. We're also saying it would be a 12-hour day. It would not be a 14-hour day like we have right now.

    I think fatigue is something that accumulates. In the short run, speaking for myself, there was a time when I could go two or three days with no sleep, absolutely none. But then you hit the wall, and when you crash it's for a full day.

    Mr. Paul Szabo: Are you supportive of the 72 limit?

    Ms. Julie White: Can I clarify something?

    Mr. Paul Szabo: No, because I only have a couple of minutes here.

    When you make a presentation to us and then you say something different--

    Ms. Julie White: It wasn't something different.

    Mr. Paul Szabo: If somebody is working 84 hours a week, that's different from what this says.

    Mr. André Foucault: That's including this. We're talking about--

    Mr. Paul Szabo: I understand that. But this says up to 72. That would be the exception. That's my point.

    Mr. Blaine Stevens: I'm sorry. I was wrong then.

    Mr. Paul Szabo: Okay.

    Have you worked out the scenario? You're making some significant proposals with regard to the fact that now waiting time, etc., all has to be included in determination of the 60. I'm sure you're familiar with the fatigue studies, etc., that indicate just how much even some of the non-driving activity does add when you're on the road. Have you figured out what impact this will have on the compensation that trucking companies are going to be prepared to pay for this reduced driving time?

    Mr. André Foucault: That's a very good question. I think it follows along the lines of an earlier one that Mr. Harvey was raising about the model.

    No, we don't have the resources to be able to analyse this all together, but--

  (1210)  

    Mr. Paul Szabo: Do you have a guess about what putting this proposal in place is going to do to the income level of a truck driver? What would it do in terms of the net paycheque to a truck driver?

    Mr. André Foucault: I think it would significantly increase his revenue. It would also decrease the amount of time he spent doing nothing and being unproductive, yet still being away from home, a time that nobody benefits from.

    Mr. Paul Szabo: What you've just said is that they will be providing fewer driving hours and earning more money. That's a good trick.

    Mr. André Foucault: No, no. Wait a second. I'll let you finish, and then I'm going to respond to that.

    Mr. Paul Szabo: You said that with this proposal there would be more revenue for the driver.

    Mr. André Foucault: By the hour.

    Mr. Paul Szabo: No, no. I'm talking about--

    Mr. André Foucault: We're talking oranges and apples here.

    Mr. Paul Szabo: But the couple here is talking about their income for raising a family, to provide food, clothing, shelter. If you want to play games with hourly rate, I can do that too. I'm a chartered accountant by profession.

    But overall we're saying we want fewer driving hours. The trucking industry is going to say that if it's getting less productivity per driver, it can't continue to pay...it's actually like getting a raise.

    Having said this, under your proposal, is it possible that every driver on the road could work 72 hours a week every week that they work?

    Mr. André Foucault: No, that's 3,600 hours a year.

    Mr. Paul Szabo: No, I said every week that they work. Could they be on for three weeks and off for one?

    Mr. André Foucault: Well, I'd have to talk to the drivers.

    Mr. Paul Szabo: No, it's up to the trucking companies. As Darryl explained to us, you're on call and you have to go when they say you go. So they send you out for a week for 72 hours, and then a second week for 72 hours, and a third week for 72 hours, and the fourth week you're not going anywhere.

    They have other drivers. They'll just get more drivers and everybody is going to work 72 hours. If you're driving, you're working 72 hours per week. Once you reach your four-week average, you're not driving until you reset the clock.

    Ms. Julie White: We are proposing 12 hours of daily work, 60 hours a week. The 72-hour figure is in recognition of the fact that trucking companies do have to schedule their times, and some of these are long-haul drivers.

    We have suggested that the 60 hours a week could be averaged over a four-week period, which would mean that you could work up to 72 hours a week, which would still only be 12 hours a day, so you would have six times 12 instead of five times 12. Then you would have additional time off to recover within this one-month period once you got back to home base.

    It's not a question of saying it will be 72 hours, not 60; it's a question of allowing averaging. This has been introduced across Europe. They're now moving to 48 hours a week, but they are going to allow an averaging system where people would be allowed to work up to 60 hours a week as long as the average over a period of time remains at 48. We're talking about 60.

    The Vice-Chair (Mr. Marcel Proulx): Mr. Szabo, if I may interrupt, could we please let Mr. Moore ask a question and then we'll come back to you?

    Mr. Paul Szabo: I'm just about finished, Mr. Chair.

    The Vice-Chair (Mr. Marcel Proulx): Fine, go ahead then.

    Mr. Paul Szabo: I'm talking about safety issues, and you're saying that over a four-week period you could put in three weeks of 72 hours a week. In terms of safety, this doesn't provide much assistance. If Mr. Hicks is correct that the trucking companies are going to be deciding when drivers go, they could push them to the 72 hours and then say they're not working for the week. I'm not sure whether this is a good life either, and it's not achieving the safety objectives.

    I sense that your arguments have been based more on the economic plight of the truck driver and less on how to make improvements in safety. I'd like you to put forward the safety argument.

    Mr. André Foucault: I welcome the opportunity to do that.

    We are looking at a solution to a situation relative to what exists currently. If we were to come here and advance the perfect panacea for drivers, we would be looking at what we find in other industries--40 hours a week for everything, including truck safety checks, border crossing times, waiting time, loading time, everything. We would see drivers on an hourly rate, quite frankly, and this would be the end of that conversation.

    We're not here to finesse anything. If it looks like we are falling short of a perfect solution to the safety issue, it's because we're trying to improve it relative to the horrible situation that exists right now. I suspect if we came here with a 40-hour week proposal and a flat salary for all occupations truckers do, you would accuse us of living on a different planet--and maybe you would be right to do so. We're trying to be practical and still address some of the issues by saying they should be improved in a certain way.

    The point you make has some value if you're looking at it in absolute terms. If you look at it relatively, we stand before you still seeking improvements.

  (1215)  

    Mr. James Moore (Port Moody--Coquitlam--Port Coquitlam, Canadian Alliance): Sorry I came in late. I did have an opportunity to read through your whole presentation, though, and actually I don't really have a lot of questions for you. But I did want to take the opportunity to respond to what Ms. Desjarlais said, just for your organization's benefit, given that she took half her time to slag us.

    I want to let you know that when she said the Alliance doesn't care about this issue, frankly, nothing could be further from the truth. Our party has dedicated one member of Parliament, full-time, to focus on this issue. We have two researchers who are on this issue full-time. We take this issue very seriously, and we understand that the industry wants resolution on this issue. You don't necessarily want more talk, you want resolution, and experimentation not just with theoretical models but actually some experimentation with some real models put in place, with real enforcement, so we can see what works and what doesn't work in the real world rather than on paper. This is one of the reasons why we said we don't want to necessarily have to travel, because it's time for the government to act and to do less talking, and this was an attempt to try to do that.

    So I wanted to put that to rest, because the Alliance very much understands the seriousness of the issue. We understand that trucking is the number one employer for men in this country. My campaign manager was a truck driver; my brother-in-law's father is a truck driver. I understand very personally the concerns about this industry. We do take it very seriously, and don't let anybody take this opportunity at committee to play partisan games and all that sort of thing. Everybody at this committee, every party, takes this issue very seriously.

    The Vice-Chair (Mr. Marcel Proulx): So is that your question?

    Mr. André Foucault: Would it be appropriate, Mr. Chair, if our research director, Mr. Newman, made a comment at this time?

    The Vice-Chair (Mr. Marcel Proulx): You absolutely may.

    Mr. Keith Newman (Director of Research, Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada): Thank you very much. I'd like to make a comment specifically about the issue of efficiencies. Our union has done a great deal of work in the area of reduction of work time in a number of industries, and what uniformly happens, and this is the reason why we're recommending it yet again, is that when work time is reduced, it does put pressure on employers to be a lot more efficient. What we have found, as some of the people here have mentioned, is there are ways to organize the work so that the equipment is used more efficiently and work time by workers is used much more efficiently.

    This gets to what Mr. Szabo was saying before, that it's a static model where you would reduce hours and therefore pay would go up substantially. We are saying that pay should go up because of the circumstances, but the fact is that in the work we've done, and that many others have done, what we believe would happen is the efficiencies in the industry would increase substantially, and this would in fact make up for a large part of the increase in remuneration.

    Currently, of course, there is no incentive whatever to bring those efficiencies into effect because the inefficient part is not paid for at all.

    The Vice-Chair (Mr. Marcel Proulx): Thank you.

[Translation]

    Mr. André Harvey: Mr. Chairman, I think that Mr. Hicks would have liked to have made a short comment on the questions my colleague Paul asked. I would simply like to give him an opportunity to respond. I do not know if my colleagues agree.

  (1220)  

[English]

    Mr. Darryl Hicks: On the hours we work and the hours we log, you were trying to say we're trying to make it safer for the highways. We are. We definitely want to make it safer. In order to make it safer, drivers have to log what they do, and in order for that to take place, they need to be paid for what they do. If we were to log what we do and then drive, it would be hard to get to 72 hours in a week, and when you say 72 hours, 72 hours, 72 hours, yes, where's my down time? Is that in Montreal? Is that in Toronto? Is that in Vancouver? Where's my down time? Is that at home? If I drive 72 hours and they keep me out for three weeks, my family life is going to be non-existent, my social life is going to be non-existent—I'm not going to have a life. I'm going to be basically, again, handcuffed to my truck.

    We need to enforce these rules, yes, because even at 70 hours, that's not what's going on. If we show 70 hours in our book, 90 hours is what's going on, and that's a safety issue, and that's correct because we shouldn't be out there working 90 hours in a week. Pay us for what we do and we'll show it, and that's the way it works, and enforce it. Then if you want us to work 12 hours in a day, we'll work 12 hours in a day, but pay us for the 12 hours; then we don't have to work 19 or 20. That's what we're asking for.

    Basically, to make the roads safe, pay us for what we do, and then we'll show our hours. And enforce it, not through the driver—I'm a foot soldier—but enforce it through the companies. Regulate the companies. They have ways of regulating us. If you regulate them...and I know that's where the dollar is. They're the employers. We don't like to dump on them because they're creating the jobs. I understand that.

     But pay us for what we do. Regulate the companies so that they pay us for what we do, and then we'll work our 12-hour days. I don't mind working a 12-hour day. It's the 19- or 20-hour days I have a problem with, and never getting home.

    Mr. André Foucault: It's unfair to characterize being paid for what you do, where you weren't being paid for what you do, as a raise. I think that's the point he's making.

[Translation]

    The Vice-Chair (Mr. Marcel Proulx): Thank you.

    Mr. Laframboise. In principle, this is now the five-minute round. In principle.

    Mr. Mario Laframboise: This is a very important discussion. It is probably the first in-depth discussion we have had on work hours, and I thank you.

    I am going to play politics, because politics has been used at the truckers' expense. The industry was deregulated. At the time, the Liberal Party followed through on the Conservatives' philosophy and the Alliance is getting ready to adopt it as well. Deregulation has become fashionable in Canada, a country of 30 million inhabitants and a huge, developed territory especially in the resource areas at the country's extremities.

    I can understand why there is now a problem. Goods have to be moved. The problem with deregulation is that anyone can get a permit to transport goods and the companies who used to have niches were squeezed out of the market by the numerous firms that went into that business. How was that done? At the workers' expense. Increasingly, we work on contract, paid by kilometre rather than by the hour. That is the reality of 20 years of deregulation.

    Of course we will never revert back to regulation, but all this has created a safety problem. So much pressure was put on the industry and the workers that now you have to do hours and cheat in the logbooks in order to survive. I blame the Canadian Trucking Alliance, which is scared... Mr. Shepherd said we are scared of the rail industry. The problem is that if you do not have any new truckers coming on stream, you will disappear anyway. So now, it is important to talk about work hours, and of the working conditions of workers which, for the past 20 years, have been deteriorating to a point where there is now a public danger because of the equipment we currently use. We were correct in saying that the huge trucks now being driven are like trains. You do back-to-back trips. If you are tired, you become a danger to the public. One must recognize that this situation is caused by deregulation.

    At the time, so-called forward-thinking politicians decided to deregulate. You are entirely correct. Transportation costs have not increased at the same rate as the cost of gas and diesel fuel over the past few years. The businesses absorbed part of the tax increases and all that. The additional sums the government got in taxes is greater than the truckers' salary increases. If your salary does not go up, it is because your industry absorbed some of the gas price increases. That is the reality you have to deal with every day and that is why the hours of work are those you have described to us.

    In the United States, the truckers have hours that you find more reasonable. There must be decent working conditions if the industry is to survive, otherwise it will disappear. If there is no one to take over the day you all retire, because some day you will want to... I hope you will not work like that until you are 80, Mr. Stevens and Mr. Hicks. You will want to retire. If there is no one to replace you, obviously the transport industry will collapse, and I do not want to be part of that. When the time comes to discuss reasonable work hours, there will be talk of exhaustion.

    Mr. Szabo is right. The industry is trying to tell us that according to researchers, exhaustion is a problem, but by the time they have finished their presentations, exhaustion no longer is a problem; it depends on each person's constitution. In that case, only the big and strong can work in the transport industry because the weaker ones will not be able to do the work. That is the issue. It's crazy, but that is what is really happening, and the situation is supported by the Liberal Party, who does not want to annoy the industry.

    The industry will only change once standards are set, once computers are there to ensure that, once there is some control mechanism and people whose responsibility is to fine those who do not meet the standards. Don't worry about that. If it takes two truckers to move a load from Vancouver to New Brunswick, there will be two and we will organize ourselves accordingly. The bus industry does it. But so long as the industry is not obliged to do so, it will always try to make a profit at the workers' expense.

    Here is my question, Mr. Foucault. Have I been misreading the situation in the industry for the past 20 years? Correct me if I am wrong. I would be pleased if you would because we are here to get to the heart of the matter.

  (1225)  

[English]

    Mr. Blaine Stevens: It's pretty close. As far as wages in the past 23 years are concerned, they have gone up approximately...I don't know the percentage, but I was making 25¢ a mile in 1980 to pull a five-axle and now our members are making 34¢. That's in 23 years. So I don't know what the percentage would be, but I'm thinking probably 30%.

[Translation]

    Mr. Mario Laframboise: Thank you.

[English]

    Mr. Darryl Hicks: The trucking industry has gone downhill, and, frankly, recruitment and retainment is an issue in this field. If you go out there and look, everybody is hiring because they can't get drivers. The younger generation doesn't want to come into this field. When they do so and get a brief look at what is expected of them, they don't stick around.

    The majority of people are retiring, like you said, and like the dinosaurs, we're going to be extinct. Recruitment and retainment is a huge thing with this industry, and they can't do it. It's an issue and they can't do it. The reason is because of the working conditions and the hours.

[Translation]

    The Vice-Chair (Mr. Marcel Proulx): Thank you. Ms. Desjarlais.

[English]

    Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: Thank you.

    Actually, I tend to think you probably won't be extinct. I think what will happen is what was happening the first year I was elected, when I would open a newspaper and see that companies were being allowed to have immigration policies for truck drivers. I was flabbergasted. I'm thinking, what the hell is going on in Canada? We have all these unemployed people, but they're having specific immigration policies for truck drivers because they can't get enough to work in those conditions. So what we'll do is allow immigration...and we'll take advantage of those immigrants coming over and make them work those types of hours, work in unsafe conditions, and not bitch and complain because they don't want to have to go back or not be able to make a living. That's the reality.

    As a result, our roads will remain unsafe, unless we look at the whole picture of why the roads are unsafe and why the fatigue is there with drivers. It is because they don't have the opportunity to get the proper rest by nature of the working conditions they're in. That's the reality.

    My question is in regard to your opportunity to appear before us today. Mr. Stevens and Mr. and Mrs. Hicks, are you here at your own expense?

  (1230)  

    Mr. Blaine Stevens: No. Actually, Julie White came to Saskatoon. We had a local union meeting at which I asked if there were any volunteers to speak to Ms. White. I had a list of 15 names, 10 of whom were available for the weekend. I phoned Julie and explained that if she wanted to do some research into the industry, I would have 10 people at her disposal.

    She came into Saskatoon on a Thursday night and she left early on Sunday morning. From Friday evening at about 3 p.m. until Saturday evening at about 10 p.m., she did nothing but interview drivers. After she'd finished interviewing them she came back to Ottawa. She put together a draft copy of this brief and then she phoned to tell us you were sitting on this day and would have room for us to appear. They would fly us out if we would take time off from work.

    Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: So you're both from Saskatchewan, actually from northern Saskatchewan—

    Mr. Blaine Stevens: Yes, we are.

    Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: —the Prince Albert region. I know where it is. I go there quite often. It's another eight- to nine-hour trip from Thompson, so I know what type of travel you'd be doing.

    So you're here because your union was able to give you the opportunity to appear here as witnesses before us.

    Mr. Blaine Stevens: Exactly.

    Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: Do you think there would be the opportunity for a number of, say, independent drivers or other Canadians to be able to afford to appear here to have their say, or—

    Mr. Blaine Stevens: No. I'm actually surprised the teamsters didn't have drivers to talk to you. I'm amazed. I think they would have--

    Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: I actually had a number of letters that teamsters—individual drivers—sent in as well, opposed to this. I presented them to the Minister of Transport prior to the last recess, because a good number of them feel the same and agree with the comments you've made in regard to how things are operating.

    I just wanted to get on the record that you were able to attend to be witnesses and have a say on this very important public policy issue because you had someone to fund you, to back you, to get here. But a good number of other Canadians will not have that opportunity because this committee is not travelling throughout Canada.

     Thank you.

    Mr. André Foucault: I suspect that if a hearing of this sort had taken place at home, so to speak, the 15 people who spoke to our researcher would have been in front of this committee, talking directly to the committee instead of talking through a brief.

    Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: Thank you.

    The Vice-Chair (Mr. Marcel Proulx): Ms. Desjarlais, let me remind you that the committee has a policy as far as expense reimbursement is concerned. Arrangements can be made in regard to travel and per diems, so this is not, let me use the word, “charity” from the union. We have an expense reimbursement policy with the committees.

    Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: Okay. So it would be no problem for as many Canadians who wanted to travel from, say, British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Ontario, or from Gaspé, Happy Valley, Goose Bay? They would be able to come and appear without any problem?

    Mr. André Foucault: We never tried to pretend that we did anything charitable here. We're doing our job for our membership. There are aspects of this that were a cost to us, although we appreciate what we got from the system.

    The Vice-Chair (Mr. Marcel Proulx): There's no problem. I was using that word because Madam Desjarlais was trying to get us to understand that the committee had no expense reimbursement policy. We do have such a policy.

    Mr. Moore, do you have anything else, sir?

    Monsieur Laframboise, avez-vous d'autres questions?

    Madam Desjarlais, do you have any other questions?

    Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: Just to clarify, I wasn't suggesting that the committee wouldn't attempt to have witnesses. I was emphasizing the fact that a good number of Canadians will not have the opportunity to have a say because one particular party made a decision that this committee would not travel.

    The Vice-Chair (Mr. Marcel Proulx): Okay.

    Thank you very much for appearing in front of this committee. We appreciate your taking the time, the effort, and some expenses. We found it most interesting.

    Have a safe return.

    Mr. André Foucault: Thank you for the opportunity to talk to you.

    The Vice-Chair (Mr. Marcel Proulx): You're quite welcome, and thank you for appearing.

    The meeting is adjourned.