REGINA – The Regina weigh station was a hub of activity on Thursday, but for a different reason than usual.
Instead of bringing in their trucks to be weighed on the weigh scale on highway 11 north of the city, truck drivers were provided packages of food and other items in appreciation of the work they do to transport goods across the country.
It was part of an event hosted by the Saskatchewan Trucking Association for National Trucking Week running from Sept. 7 to 13.
The STA hosted a Driver Appreciation BBQ at the Regina Weigh Scale during the day. There, burgers were cooked up to hand out to truckers and others who showed up, along with pop and chips and some swag items such as gloves and pens.
Susan Ewart, Executive Director of the Saskatchewan Trucking Association, said National Trucking Week is “designed to celebrate those individuals working within trucking, because a lot of times they're the unsung heroes of our industry.”
“So in Saskatchewan, 80 per cent of our goods move in or out by truck. So I said, if you got it, a truck brought it.”
Ewart pointed to the important role trucking industry to Saskatchewan.
“It plays an extremely important role within the supply chain logistics, especially for a province like Saskatchewan that's landlocked,” said Ewart. “How do we get our goods to market? Some of it does move on rail, but a lot of times trucks are involved with that as well. So they'll go to the yard, they'll pick up commodities to move to other places. So trucking is vital to Saskatchewan's economy. It is the supply chain value-add piece to moving of goods and services. So when you go to the grocery store, you need to thank a truck driver for that.”
Ewart said that within their own membership, they represent carriers that have over 5,000 trucks, 12,000 trailers and over 4,500 drivers.
The trucking industry does face some issues. Ewart acknowledges workforce development is a big challenge for the industry in Saskatchewan, due to an aging workforce and an average age of a truck driver between 45 and 64 years old.
“So we've got a big demographic approaching retirement. We definitely need to attract a next generation to the industry.”
Ewart also points to struggles with funding. She points to the requirement of mandatory entry level training in order to be able to drive a Class 8 semi vehicle, and the lack of funding for those types of programs.
“So those are questions that we're definitely working with our province on, on how do we create a Saskatchewan solution to get Saskatchewan people into the cab of a truck and driving.”
Ewart said that for Saskatchewan, there's not a huge driver shortage, but it does go up and down. She also pointed to the impact of tariffs, saying that is “causing a lot of confusion" with "not a lot of goods moving north and south just yet.”
Another important issue for the trucking industry is safety and compliance on the road.
“We want to make sure that we're driving with compliant carriers on the road," Ewart said." So one of the things that we do here is one of our advocacy pieces is we work very closely with SGI around that compliance piece and ensuring that carriers are following the regulations… (that) they’re following the hours of service rules. They're using their ELDs properly. They're checking to make sure their breaks are done properly. That they're actually employing their people correctly and paying, you know, the proper deductions and those types of things. So we do work on all of these things within our province as well as across the country federally.”
Among the changes they want to see happen at the federal level is to put a stop to what is called “Driver Inc.”
“We want them to stop Driver Inc. And Driver Inc. is the misclassification of employees under the labour code,” said Ewart. “And it can be a little bit confusing but what happens is in trucking a company owns a whole bunch of trucks. And they hire you and they tell you you're an independent contractor.
"But you're not. You don't bring your tools to the job. You don't own the truck. The employer guides your everyday, tells you where and how you're supposed to get there, when you're supposed to be there. They control your schedule. So what happens is then there's a failure from that employer to pay any type of payroll burden — CPP, EI, taxes. That’s not happening. And so that is illegal, obviously, not to pay the taxes. And right now the federal government is losing about a billion dollars a year in tax money.”
Ewart said what needs to happen was for the Canada Revenue Agency to “start auditing carriers to make sure they are following the classifications properly. ESDC, which is Employment and Social Development Canada, just actually put out a bunch of educational videos this week targeted at carriers to say it is illegal to misclassify your employees. And they're going to be starting enforcement blitzes and auditing carriers within our province as well and doing some education. So we want to make sure that carriers are following the rules."
All in all, Ewart is urging people to tip their hat and give a wave to the truckers this week.
“Trucking is such an important part of Saskatchewan's economy and it has been for many, many years,” Ewart said. “There's great people that work in this industry. They're proud to be truck drivers and do other positions within the industry. They uphold safety regulations. And there's a lot of great drivers out there. Those individuals in the cabs of those trucks are professionals. And they know better than you and I what's probably happening with the road conditions. So we want to celebrate them this week.”
