CALGARY, (June 13, 2005) — In some parts of Canada, hairstylists are considered more “professional” than truck drivers. Two provinces have embarked on a road to change that.

Groups in Alberta and Ontario are raising the driver-training bar by getting companies, training centres, and governments together to develop specialized programs that would produce new drivers that fleets could hire with confidence.

In Alberta, a 37-week pilot-project proposal — which will depend on Alberta Advanced Education funding for approval — would be run by Red Deer College and geared around the Canadian Trucking Human Resources Council’s (CTHRC) Earning Your Wheels program. Alberta Infrastructure and Transportation Minister Lyle Oberg, a driving force behind the plan, is also talking to the insurance industry about reduced rates for graduates.

The program has been in the works in Alberta for some time, but a recent truck-driver training scandal in Calgary pressured both industry and government to act now. Calgary’s Delta Driving School was shut down earlier this year for allegedly selling Class 1 licences to unqualified drivers — many from out-of-province.

Mike Shields, spokesman for Alberta Advanced Education, said his department knows the proposed program is important, but he couldn’t give a timeline. “The department needs to do a comprehensive review to ensure the program meets the need,” he said.

Judy Robins Weir, Red Deer College dean of program development, said approval is needed soon if the program is to launch by fall. She’s already getting calls from both prospective students and potential partners, including driving schools and trucking firms.

Tuition for the program will be about $3,000, said Robins Weir. The province would pick up the balance of the program’s cost — which can total around $7,000. Students will be paid for part of the time they are enrolled, she added. “Students don’t have to bear the entire cost of the program. For a good part of it they will be on paid work experience. So for them, it’s a good deal — really quite reasonable,” said Robins Weir.

The college will wait for Advanced Education approval before finalizing partnerships with driving schools and trucking firms, which will provide much of the training.

The program has four segments: a three-week orientation; the industry-standard eight-week Earning Your Wheels curriculum; a seven-week practicum driving at a mentor’s side; and a 15- to 17-week co-op-which will be a paid position with a partner trucking firm.

And in Ontario, there’s a movement toward a quasi-structured truck-driving apprenticeship program. A group led by Kim Richardson of Kim Richardson Transportation Specialists in Caledonia, Ont. and Ray Haight, CEO of Guelph, Ont.-based MacKinnon Transport, is working to establish a “voluntary unrestricted apprenticeship” program that would see driving schools and carriers partnering in a mentorship program. (In this case, “apprenticeship” refers to a ministry-approved finishing program of a defined period that a driver would participate in after graduating from a training school and receiving a Class A licence.)

The Ontario Trucking Association (OTA) threw its support behind the program last year and the Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities’ Apprenticeship Board is reviewing the proposal.

The program would help attract young people to the industry before they make alternate career choices. “We’re getting the second pickings,” said Lisa Arseneau, vice-president of Kimberly & Associates, an affiliate of the Precept Group Insurance Brokers. “This industry seldom gets first consideration.”

– with files from Timothy le Riche