The Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA) is calling on the federal government to issue a moratorium on all administrative monetary penalties (AMPs) until the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) develops a “volumetrics-based” system or similar mechanism.

Writing to CBSA, the alliance has repeated its position that monetary penalties to address deliberate non-compliance is important, but that there needs to be compliance thresholds or volumetric thresholds that account for the number of shipments a carrier transports.

As things are now, Canada’s largest trucking association says there are concerns about a lack of fairness when it comes to fleets with a proven track record of compliance – such as Trusted Traders and those participating in Partners in Protection (PiP).

While CBSA’s “outreach-first” approach and increasing educational efforts have seen compliance improve, fleets with “exceedingly high” compliance rates can still be penalized because of existing regulatory parameters, CTA says.

“Issuing monetary penalties for unintended or unforeseeable instances, such as clerical errors or honest mistakes that can occur in any busy workplace, remains a major irritant, especially in a complex, highly regulated environment,” the alliance said in a bulletin.

“These types of instances are becoming much more difficult to manage as fleets deal with staff turnover, vacation coverage, and other business constraints which are only increasing under the current economic landscape.”