TORONTO — A group of Canadian owner-ops is urging Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation to extend the window for truckers to weigh in on a proposal to mandate speed governors on all trucks operating in the province.

Last week, the Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation announced it would solicit input on the Ontario Trucking Association’s controversial suggestion that trucks be limited to 105 km/h. The deadline for accepting comments from industry stakeholders is this Friday, Dec. 23.

But that’s not enough time for truckers to have their say, according to Joanne Ritchie, executive director of the Owner-Operators Business Association of Canada.

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“That you should consider 10 working days in the pre-Christmas period adequate time to review and provide thoughtful commentary on such a significant issue can only be charitably described as unreasonable,” she states in a letter to Ontario Ministry of Transportation enforcement director Peter Hurst.

She is asking the MTO set a “more appropriate window” for comments.

Ritchie adds that owner-ops would be the individuals most directly affected by the OTA proposal, and a “10-day turnaround time for comments” shows, in her opinion, a lack of understanding on the part of the government of the demands on drivers’ time.

“They do not work 9-to-5, they do not have ready access to some means of data transmission, and they are in no position to simply stop what they are doing in order to call or write to me expressing their views,” she states.

Ritchie also hints that her group is being kept out of the loop. She claims that neither OBAC nor the U.S.-based Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) — which represents 133,000 members in the U.S. and Canada — were invited by the OTA’s Blue Ribbon Task Force to provide input on the proposal.

Earlier this week, OBAC and OOIDA announced they were joining forces in opposition to the plan.

OTA has repeatedly said that, ideally, it would like to see the proposed regulation expanded across Canada and the U.S.

The carrier group maintains that the plan would make highways safer, and create a more level playing field between carriers that are currently obeying the law and those that exceed provincial speed limits.