Canada’s first ministers have committed to expanding a trucking pilot to remove trade barriers. At meetings in Saskatoon, Sask., they announced an agreement to implement a strategy to coordinate major nation-building projects.

They directed ministers of transport across the country to cooperate in rapidly expanding the trucking pilot announced in 2024, with the goal of removing many internal trade barriers within the domestic trucking supply chain, according to a Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA) news release. 

“The prime minister and first ministers have reaffirmed the critical role the trucking industry plays in Canada and made it clear to Canadians and the business community that measures to improve productivity and efficiency in the supply chain will be implemented quickly,” Stephen Laskowski, CTA president and CEO, said in the release.

“Today’s announcement to expand the trucking pilot should allow our industry, all levels of government and the contractors for these nation-building projects to mitigate costly permitting issues that create significant delays. CTA welcomes the strong leadership from the first ministers.”

Oversize permits

Through a CTA-led initiative and submission by the alliance to the federal government on reducing internal trade barriers in trucking, a trucking pilot was announced in 2024. Ongoing feedback from the industry throughout the process was that the pilot should be expanded, including dealing with issues pertaining to the issuance of oversize and overweight shipment permits. 

The materials to construct the mega-projects being discussed are moved by the trucking industry, including specialized trucking equipment and configurations that moves oversize/overweight cargo and materials needed for such projects. These trucks require permits through provincial and municipal government regimes, and too often are held up by administrative red tape, differing time-of-day definitions, or limited permit staff taking vacation, the release stated.