CTA looks to immigration for labor

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TORONTO, Ont. – The Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA) is looking for better access to immigration channels to help address a labor shortage.

Writing to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, the industry’s largest lobbying group has identified growing constraints that fleets face when trying to attract qualified labor – and warns that the issue will soon affect the broader economy.

The alliance says there should be a focus on attracting and matching new Canadians to industries like trucking that face such shortages.

The federal government plans to grow immigration levels to 340,000 people in 2020, up from 310,000 in 2018.

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John G. Smith is Newcom Media's vice-president - editorial, and the editorial director of its trucking publications -- including Today's Trucking, trucknews.com, and Transport Routier. The award-winning journalist has covered the trucking industry since 1995.


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  • The problem is low pay for the hours worked compared to other jobs out there in Canada. We need to change the receivers rules that they must pay for unloading time for truckers [O.T.R.] At 1.9 times our minimum wage. We need to have more parking before these new rules come to Canada. E logs will only work if truck drivers are paid for all hours worked at a wage equal to the the national average and overtime after 10 hours per day. All trucking companies need to work with each other to have access to each other’s parking at terminals for trucks to park at for a modest charge for all truck drivers on E log. No trucking company should be able to bring more than 5 truck drivers and or mechanics until their owner_operators make $40.00 hour plus fuel and insurance.

    • I don’t know that I agree with your numbers or not, but yeah… people should be compensated for ALL the time they work. This BS of bringing poor people to our country so that they can be indentured servants has to stop. If you (the global you) want your products delivered then reach into your fecking pockets and pay for the service.

      • These numbers are based on a 2006 study by the are federal government are were index to 2018 . I am wood like to see other numbers and the calculations used to get them

  • There should be a 6 month minimum waiting period for any immigrant driver wishing to work in Canada, in order to familiarize with their rights and responsibilities.

    I once trained immigrants. Some were paid 300 bucks a week and didn’t know their own rights. If they talked about the abuse, they basically got shipped back.

    Many trucking companies take advantage of cheap labour thru immigration channels. The OTA and the parade of usual self praising trucking tabloid publishers, are also contributing to this problem. So, buzz off and look into the real trucking issues before recruiting overseas.

  • I am starting to think that the CTA is part of the problem. Why would you go to immigrants as a labor pool when there are people perfectly capable of working who are already in the country. There’s enough people, there’s not enough pay for the shite conditions that come with the job. The CTA must admit that truck drivers do not currently get compensated for all their time. The CTA must admit that truck drivers do not get adequately compensated for the working conditions. If the CTA is going to do anything then they should start lobbying for truck drivers to get adequately compensated for the conditions and they should lobby for truck drivers to get paid for all their “on-duty” hours. Anything other than that is BS. It just proves that they’re there to help make wealthy people more wealthy. Hiring a new immigrant for what amounts to less than minimum wage is ethically wrong and worse, it’s a form of slavery. Promoting that only makes the CTA complicit in supporting the biggest industry-wide problem which is that drivers do not get fairly compensated for the work that they do. That’s it, that’s all. If you want good, skilled people out there then compensate them fairly and they shall come.

  • Driver shortage my add! Due to poor hiring practices fleets have revolving door hr departments. The shelves are stocked where is the shortage?

  • I drove OTR for45 years and can see why alot of people dont want to go trucking.My kids were grown up and we made good money.Some of our drivers made over 80,000. a year before ELT AND NO ACCIDENTS .iF COMPANIES PAID THAT KIND OF MONEY now they would not need camel drivers..

  • O boy here we go again, I came over to Canada in 2004 as a immigrant from England. Here’s the facts that we need to address, Our Government does not recognize driving a truck as a profession it is unskilled labour!( so wrong don’t get me started) There fore Truck drivers are not part of the PNP program (Provincial nomination Program) so skilled professional drivers from Europe can not work in Ontario unless they come over on a temporary work visa for 1 or 2 years as basic labour. In 2004 I was told that this would change and drivers would be allowed to use the PNP program…… still waiting. I was able to stay because I had other skill sets. Other provinces do allow truck drivers to use their PNP program so skilled drivers go there. Where they can gain permanent residency and in time citizenship. In Ontario we are prevented from hiring long term reliable skilled drivers by our own process.

    • Even our own federal M.P.s do not know the rules in Ontario I can not even bring a truck teck in to Ontario for the red seal program. In rural Ontario hard to bring in plumber or a electrition.