The Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators (CCMTA) on Monday told the industry that full enforcement of the federal ELD (electronic logging device) regulation will be delayed until Jan. 1, 2023. Enforcement was set to take effect on June 12.

The devices were first mandated for federally regulated carriers in June 2021. Full enforcement of that rule was delayed until June 2022, largely because of a lack of certified equipment.

Considerable progress has been made toward putting in place the regulations and infrastructure to enforce the federal ELD mandate, including a notable acceleration in the number of certified ELD devices available in the marketplace, CCMTA said in a press release.

Jurisdictions have been monitoring progress and determined that an extension of the transition period is required. This will allow sufficient time for industry to purchase and install certified ELD devices, and conduct training to be compliant, CCMTA added.

The Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA) is very disappointed by this announcement and has reasonable doubts that the new January date is certain, from a national perspective, based on the lack of legislative preparedness of four jurisdictions.

To enforce the federal mandate, each jurisdiction needs to have its own law on the books. Currently, four provinces are still without the required legislation or regulations in place to successfully transition their industries to ELDs – British Columbia, Quebec, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.

CTA believes that governments which are ready with their regulations and legislation should have maintained its position of escalating enforcement starting in June 2022. Waiting for all jurisdictions to be ready, whenever that may be, in the name of ‘national unity’ is not in best interest of public safety or the trucking industry, which has already made the proper investments to comply with the ELD mandate.

Most federally regulated fleets already have ELD technology and the three certification bodies approved by Transport Canada and the Standards Council of Canada have qualified multiple ELD offerings, totaling 22 devices from 15 individual ELD vendors.

“ELDs improve safety, fleet and driver performance and are a cost-effective alternative compared to the current paper logbook regime, which is cumbersome, archaic and can be easily falsified,” CTA president Stephen Laskowski said in a press release. “There’s simply no reasons pertaining to operations, cost, or safety for trucking fleets and drivers not to be ready for escalated enforcement by June 2022.”

With the announced delay, those provinces that are not yet ready need to prioritize the ELD mandate within their legislative/regulatory process and immediately commit to the industry and the public to begin hard enforcement by Jan. 1, 2023, CTA said. If those four provinces cannot make this guarantee, then the other jurisdictions which are ready by that date must commit to proceeding regardless.

“Without one or both of these commitments, the validity of CCMTA’s January 2023 is in question,” says Laskowski. “There should be no more moving the goalposts on dates and no more delays. The time to finally start this important safety regime is past due.”

Meanwhile, the Private Motor Truck Council of Canada (PMTC) is in favor of the delay.

“While we have always been in full support of the ELD regulation, the continued issues with a lack of approved devices have continued to plague the mandate, and although we now have 22 approved, industry has not been provided enough of a runway to select a device of their choice and implement it into their fleet in time for the June 12 deadline,” PMTC president Mike Millian said in a press release.

“We are also waiting for a PKI vendor and system to be announced by Transport Canada that allows for ELD data to be transferred securely from the device to enforcement personnel, as well as enforcement protocols, training and how the regulation will be enforced uniformly between jurisdictions.

“This final delay provides enough time for industry to select a new approved device, or transition from their current device, in time to comply with the mandate, as well as provide enough time for regulators to address some of the issues mentioned.”

Millian added, “I suspect this will be the last delay in full enforcement we can expect to see, and carriers should ensure they are fully prepared to comply by January of 2023.”