TRGO Committee Meeting

37th PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION

Standing Committee on Transport and Government Operations

COMMITTEE EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Thursday, February 7, 2002

Á

1100

The Chair (Mr.Ovid Jackson (Bruce--Grey--Owen Sound, Lib.)

Mr. Derek Sweet (Director General, Road Safety and Motor Vehicle Regulation, Department of Transport)

Mr. Brian Orrbine (Senior Policy Adviser, Road Safety Programs, Department of Transport)

Á

1105

Á

1110

The Chair

M. Moore

The Chair

Mr. Mario Laframboise (Argenteuil--Papineau--Mirabel, BQ)

Mr. Brian Orrbine

Á

1115

Mr. Mario Laframboise

Mr. Brian Orrbine

The Chair

Mr. Proulx

Á

1120

Mr. Brian Orrbine

The Chair

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais (Churchill, NDP)

Mr. Moore

Á

1125

Mr. Brian Orrbine

Mr. Moore

The Chair

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais

Mr. Derek Sweet

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais

Mr. Derek Sweet

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais

Á

1130

Mr. Derek Sweet

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais

Mr. Derek Sweet

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais

Mr. Derek Sweet

Mrs. Desjarlais

Mr. Derek Sweet

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais

Mr. Brian Orrbine

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais

The Chair

Ms. Val Meredith (South Surrey--White Rock--Langley, PC/DR)

Mr. Derek Sweet

Ms. Val Meredith

Á

1135

Mr. Derek Sweet

Ms. Val Meredith

Mr. Brian Orrbine

Ms. Val Meredith

The Chair

Mr. Mario Laframboise

Á

1140

Mr. Derek Sweet

The Chairman

Mr. André Harvey (Chicoutimi--Le Fjord, Lib.)

Mr. Brian Orrbine

Á

1145

The Chair

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais

Mr. Brian Orrbine

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais

The Chair

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais

The Chair

Mr. Paul Szabo (Mississauga South, Lib.)

The Chair

Mr. Paul Szabo

The Chair

Mr. Paul Szabo

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CANADA

Standing Committee on Transport and Government Operations

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NUMBER 049

l

1st SESSION

l

37th PARLIAMENT

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COMMITTEE EVIDENCE

Thursday, February 7, 2002

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Á  (1100)  

[English]

    The Chair (Mr.Ovid Jackson (Bruce--Grey--Owen Sound, Lib.): Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'd like to start on time and finish on time. I think I see a quorum, so I'd like to have the officials at the table.

    This morning we have orders of the day. There's a briefing session from officials from the Department of Transport, and with us we have Derek Sweet, the director general, and Brian Orrbine, senior analyst.

    Gentlemen, we appreciate your coming to us. You usually come at very short notice. As you know, we're doing the truckers' hours of service, and you can give us some background information and top us up on where we're at with regard to the information that has come in.

    So over to you.

    Mr. Derek Sweet (Director General, Road Safety and Motor Vehicle Regulation, Department of Transport): Thank you very much, Chair. It's a pleasure to be with you once again. I think my last appearance before you was in the spring of last year, and the topic at that time was Bill S-3, amendments to the Motor Vehicle Transport Act. I thought I might reassure you that we are working very hard with our provincial partners to implement the provisions of Bill S-3, and we're hopeful that we might bring into force those provisions later on this year.

    As you know, this will bring into effect a national system of safety ratings for all carriers, and we're very hopeful this will help to improve commercial vehicle safety.

    I have one other note by way of openers, Mr. Chair.

    Since I was last before you, we now have our latest fatality data for the year 2000. Road fatalities in Canada are now at an all-time low: 2,917 fatalities in the year 2000. This is still quite unacceptable, I think you'll all agree, but it is our lowest total so far, and we are making slow but steady progress to attain the goals of Road Safety Vision 2010, which is to have the safest roads in the world.

    So with that brief introduction, Mr. Chair, I might pass to my colleague, Mr. Orrbine, who knows far more about hours of service than I do. As you can appreciate, Brian has been before you before. He will perhaps open with an update on where we're at on this particular file.

    Mr. Brian Orrbine (Senior Policy Adviser, Road Safety Programs, Department of Transport): Thank you, Derek.

    Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It's a pleasure to be here again.

    It's on a little short notice, but what I thought I would do is spare the committee a speech. I'll try to provide an update in terms of what has happened, what has gone on, since I believe we last addressed the issue last May.

    So if I might, I'll be relatively brief, and I'll be pleased to answer any questions anyone may have.

    We did meet last in May, and I believe at that time I presented an overview of the work that had been accomplished by the Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators--and this was the several documents that were presented to the committee that outlined the proposed changes to the hours of service rules.

    I say “rules” just to remind the committee that we have a national safety code standard and we have federal hours of service regulations. There are also individual provincial regulations that basically mirror each other. So the CCMTA committee decided we would just deal with the issues rather than calling it any specific document at that time. That's why I often make reference to rules.

    Those rules changes we presented to the committee last May were based on several years of consultation. They were based on input from many stakeholders. The committee I chair in CCMTA has some 40 members, who usually show up. It can be quite a lengthy session, and everyone on hours of services definitely has an opinion. But that document did present a consensus, with a few exceptions, in terms of proposed changes.

    I'll remind the committee that when Transport Minister Collenette asked the standing committee to examine this issue further, one of the areas we had not accomplished as a committee was wider public consultation. There have been selected focused consultations that were done, and I think I explained those the last time; however, consultations with the public and other interested parties on a more generalized basis had not been accomplished.

    I would like to break it down into two areas. One is what is going on from a regulatory perspective across the country, and maybe indeed the world, if I can just take a few minutes and talk about the work that has gone on behind the scenes. I think maybe the most important element... Of course, prior to the tragic events of September 11 in the United States, the committee requested interested individuals to present briefs on the proposed changes, and I understand the committee has received several briefs from individuals, or several parties and organizations, with respect to those changes. Transport Canada has received copies of some of them directly from those parties.

    With respect to the work being done at the Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators, we made a decision early in the game that as soon as the standing committee was presented with the task or the opportunity to review hours of service, CCMTA should probably slow down the process a bit. Allow me to explain why.

    It's an issue that requires somewhat corrective action from time to time. There are many different ways to state some of the issues that we're doing on hours of service. For the most part, I think we got most of it right, but there have been some changes that were necessary. We decided we would like to stop the clock and live with what we have put out so far, as a basis for this committee to consider and to base their deliberations upon. We do have some proposed changes that will come back. Most of them are very minor in nature.

    We have one issue that has come up over the summer and into the fall, which we believe requires a clarification that the committee might appreciate, and we're in the process now of writing to you, Mr. Chairman, with a correction to one element contained within those proposed changes.

Á  (1105)  

    We have also decided, as a CCMTA committee, to wait until the House standing committee comes back with some recommendations before we sit down and re-evaluate the issue. Again, for the sake of everyone, we didn't really feel it was appropriate to have two parties out there trying to address the issue and there possibly could be changes coming from both sides. Most times we just won't know what we're dealing with. So we thought we would just take a bit of a hiatus, considering that most of them are minor technical corrections.

    Over the fall, an interesting development that happened was an agreement that took place between the Canadian Trucking Alliance and Teamsters Canada. I believe it was December 11, Mr. Chairman, when the committee last met to discuss this issue, and folks from those two organizations were present to explain or to discuss that issue. The interesting note for us is that the Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators committee has not discussed that agreement. My intuition is telling me that what has happened between those two parties is that they have agreed to reduce the number of hours an individual can be on duty or drive from 14 hours down to 13 hours. I suspect most people would view that to be a move in a positive direction.

    Maybe the most important item with respect to that agreement was the fact that Teamsters Canada, who were one of the vocal opposers--and I think everyone understands this--to the proposed changes... My understanding is that through that agreement Teamsters Canada has now agreed to all of the other proposed changes that were presented to the committee. So that is probably the most noteworthy event that happened this past fall. However, I don't want to be repetitive, but that agreement has not been discussed internally with the CCMTA committee, so that would have to be done.

    Another interesting development since we last met is what is going on south of the border in the U.S. with respect to hours of service. You may recall that at that time the U.S. had put out a very extensive notice of proposed rule-making and were soliciting comments. Well, they received so many comments--the last I heard, 50,000 to 60,000, and maybe in excess of that, which is an exceptionally high number of comments--that they hired a consultant to try to distill those comments down and to put forward some options. That work was done. I understand that a confidential report was presented back to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration not too long ago, and they're now in the process of engaging another consultant to look at some cost-benefit work and some other options relative to where they might go with this in the future.

    If we're thinking of a sense of timing, I suspect we will not see anything substantive at this point. The end of the year, I think, would be optimistic. I suspect sometime into next year is maybe a little more realistic in terms of where the U.S. see things going. I raise that only because we often are compared to the U.S. in any of the discussions here.

    Very briefly, Mr. Chairman, I did a quick scan as to what's going on around the world on this issue, and there's a significant amount of research currently under way, but the research is not coming up with any solutions at this point. There's a lot of work in progress, multi-year projects that are just not coming to fruition in the short term. I suspect--and again it's just my opinion, based on what I've seen--that we're likely not to see any significant research direction in this, at least over the next year, that's for sure, and possibly a lot longer.

    Other countries and other areas have obviously come up with rule changes and proposed action with respect to hours of service. Australia is into a 14-hour day and a 10-hour off-duty day. That's the way they see it. And they have many little quirks with respect to the length of time one can work consecutively, etc. So they have come up with proposed changes.

    The European Community has had longstanding opinions on how hours of service should play out. They have a different set of rules. Once you get past Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and the European Community, you're hard-pressed to find any other significant activity going on concerning the issue of hours of service. So we're pretty limited from that perspective.

    Mr. Chairman, since we last met the work is continuing on research. The CCMTA committee is doing some fine-tuning. At some point we will re-evaluate the issue. And that's where we stand, sir.

Á  (1110)  

    The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Sweet and Mr. Orrbine.

    We'll start with a ten-minute round of questioning.

    James.

    Mr. James Moore (Port Moody--Coquitlam--Port Coquitlam, Canadian Alliance): Go ahead.

    The Chair: Mario.

[Translation]

    Mr. Mario Laframboise (Argenteuil--Papineau--Mirabel, BQ): Mr. Orrbine, you've drawn a rather pessimistic picture of the coming year. You don't foresee any development in the research. We want to take care of this matter. Are you recommending we continue looking into this file in depth during the coming year?

[English]

    Mr. Brian Orrbine: Thank you. I definitely would suggest the committee continue with its work. Allow me to explain why I believe so.

    One of the comments I made last May was that with all of this research that is going on out there, no one has come up with, or is likely to come up with, the magic silver bullet. No one appears to be coming up with one way to address the issue of hours of service. No one is coming up with a way to cap limits. Everyone has an opinion. We've heard from scientists and regulators in the past, who all have opinions. I don't want to sound pessimistic; I just think the reality of this file is that it is progressing on a research-type basis and is not being rushed at this point.

    I do believe that in the end, a committee like CCMTA will be faced with making decisions that are not anecdotal but subjective, based on good solid knowledge and research. In all honesty, I think that's what will happen maybe a year from now.

    One of the important points is that because hours of service often tend to be misunderstood, or the folks who are actually living with this process have difficulty understanding certain elements of it, it's important that the committee understand the nuances that take place and the different elements. If we wait for something to happen possibly one or two years down the road, we would be at the same point we are today, where the committee would have to make a decision, but they would base it on more knowledge, more information.

Á  (1115)  

[Translation]

    Mr. Mario Laframboise: So, you're recommending we continue our research and, as we all hope, come up with a proposal.

    You mentioned that there is work being done in the U.S.A., Australia and the European Community. We're thinking about going to see what's going on in Mexico because of NAFTA and all that. I can see you're smiling. You're probably not going to recommend that we go down to see what's happening in Mexico. So, what countries or organizations would you recommend we visit?

[English]

    Mr. Brian Orrbine: I guess Canada would be a good start. That's a good question. I was smiling only because I'm involved with Mexico and the United States on some other NAFTA issues.

    I think what has happened over the last two years is that through the NAFTA process Mexico has been improving their systems and they've been coming up with changes to their procedures and their monitoring, which will eventually allow access into the United States. I think you may be aware that this door still has not been opened by the U.S. Once that door is open, Mexico is going to have to follow the U.S. rules. My understanding is that Mexico has not in the past had an hours-of-service set of rules, nor do they monitor that. However, they will be required to do that in the future once that border is opened.

    It might be more advantageous for the committee to deal with countries that have experience in this matter as opposed to countries that are looking at getting into this but don't have that practical knowledge on how to address hours of service.

    Having said that, I also made comment last May that there are some significant differences between the United States and Canada. I don't think we can get away from comparing the two. It's always done, and it's a natural thing to do. We have to understand where the U.S. is coming from on this.

    I think there are other areas, and the country that comes to mind is Australia, because Australia, when you compare it to Canada, is very similar: a huge country, a vast area with low population densities, and a lot of activities. They have a system and an infrastructure that are very similar to Canada's. They have been working very hard on putting forward fatigue management concepts, work that is being done in Canada as well. They're looking outside the box, as we are.

    The difficulty I have with Europe--and it is really not a knock on Europe--is just that there are so many small countries and the distances are so much smaller that I'm not sure how applicable that might be in a Canadian setting.

    So Australia is the first place that comes to mind for me when I look for a comparison of Canada to some other country on hours of service. The United States--I think because we are so closely tied to the U.S.--is a natural. Mexico--I would probably suggest that you wait until they've had some experience, if we ever revisit this down the road. The EEC--I'm not sure it's totally applicable at this point.

[Translation]

    The Chair: Thank you very much.

    Mr. Proulx.

[English]

    Mr. Marcel Proulx (Hull--Aylmer, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    I'd like to pick up where you just finished. Are there not studies and findings done in the U.S.A. that we could use? I have difficulty in believing we're going to invent the wheel here. I think somebody else must have invented the wheel before us. Are there not studies, findings, or recommendations, whether they be from Australia or the U.S.A.?

    I think you're right in saying that we can forget the other side of the big lake for now. The European situation doesn't apply to us particularly. They don't have the same conditions, the same distances, and so on and so forth. But the U.S.A., Australia, and Mexico are relevant because we deal with them regularly.

    Are we the first ones to look at this? There must be something else that has been done, something we would not necessarily copy but could use.

Á  (1120)  

    Mr. Brian Orrbine: hrough the work that's gone on over the last three or four years on hours of service we have done just that. We have tried to avail ourselves of as much of the research out there as we possibly can. We engaged an expert panel of such noted experts as Alison Smiley and Dr. Ron Heselgrave, folks who have a wealth of knowledge and experience on hours of service. So we've tried to do just that; we've tried to learn from the experiences of others.

    I would agree with you. I don't think any of us will reinvent the wheel when it comes to hours of service. It's that kind of issue... am I so fatigued right now that I'm under-performing in front of all of you? There's no way to test that; there's no way to measure that. We have that same problem with truck drivers or in any other walk of life--with surgeons, you name it.

    So we try to base the rules or... we believe other countries are also trying to base the rules on understanding the issue and making the regulations or the rules applicable to their environment.

    The short and sweet answer is no, I don't believe you will learn a lot. But if you decide to visit, for example, with Mexico and the United States and with any other country, you will learn what they've done.

    Allow me to expand on this for a moment. In that notice of proposed rule making that the U.S. put out over a year ago, the front end of that very extensive document talked about the research that was out there. If you point to the research, the U.S. noted in their rule making that they were coming up with incidences of fatigue. The most I saw in any of the research that the U.S. referenced was 1%, 2%, 3%, 4%. From that point forward they made a comment, which I think most people would agree with, that it was probably under-reported, but nobody knew the extent. The U.S. said it could be as high as 15%--very subjective, it was just a guess. And it was quite honestly no more than that.

    If you look at the research that's out there, if you look at the incidences of fatigue being reported--and there are all kinds of reporting issues--the numbers are infinitesimal compared to many of the other things that happen on the road.

    My impression is the committee... to understand this beast called “hours of service”, to understand what others have looked at and done I think is a valuable element to this issue. But again, there won't be silver bullets. With all due respect, I hope you don't reinvent the wheel, because there's very little new coming out in terms of finding out how to address fatigue.

    I made a comment the last time that the only way to combat fatigue is to get some sleep. That's fairly simple to do. The question is, how much sleep? It's the quality of sleep someone gets.

    There's also a misconception. I'm sure you all work long days. If we reduce that day by half, under the assumption that you will get more sleep, I suspect you won't get more sleep. I suspect you'll do what all of us do, even if you're a professional driver or in any other profession in life: you will do all the other things you don't have time to do today. So we walk away thinking the individual will become better rested, more rested, but you end up going out shopping or doing something else. All that activity, the scientists tell you, is work. It all adds to your level of fatigue.

    So we're dealing with a very difficult issue that doesn't have a standard, pat answer, nor have I seen anywhere around the world where anyone has come up with something where we have said, there it is. I think to understand it, it would be helpful to understand what others have experienced, how others are addressing the issue.

    The Chair: I'll go to Bev Desjarlais and come back to James right after that.

    Mr. James Moore: I wonder if I could go first.

    The Chair: Bev, is that okay with you?

    Mrs. Bev Desjarlais (Churchill, NDP): Yes, go ahead.

    Mr. James Moore: have just one question. Perhaps it's not a grade-A kind of a question. I'm moving furniture from Ottawa to Vancouver this coming week, so I called one moving company that said yes, they do door to door. I said that sounded good, and I asked “Once you pick it up, how long does it take you to get it to Vancouver?” He said three days. I said “It takes three days from Ottawa to Vancouver?” And he said yes. I asked if they rotated the drivers. He said “No, our drivers sleep on the weekend.” I thought, okay, I'm buying some extra insurance.

    When you encounter something like that and when we have moving companies going across country like that, what are the enforcement mechanisms, jurisdictionally, and what are the punishments? What happens?

Á  (1125)  

    Mr. Brian Orrbine: n Canada there are three maximum levels a driver can attain. When you hit any one of those three levels you then have to take forced rest, if I can call it that, eight hours off duty. In Canada there's a system that allows you to move between those three cycles. I think I tried to explain it the last time. I probably didn't do a very good job of it.

    In Canada right now it's 13 hours. You drive for 13 hours, you take 8 hours off duty, you drive for 13 hours, you take 8 hours off duty, and so on, until you hit these various maximums. They are probably running with two drivers, so it's a team operation. They rotate. Each driver does 12 hours a day, and it goes on forever. It's not uncommon to make Vancouver in 72 hours.

    When you talk about enforcement, enforcement happens on the road. It's a provincial issue. It's delegated through the Motor Vehicle Transport Act to the provinces.

    If a weigh scale is open and the light's flashing--and I know we talked about this the last time--any large commercial vehicle has to pull in. It's then up to the enforcement official from that location to decide whether they want to stop the vehicle... whether there's a weight problem with the vehicle, whether they suspect the vehicle has been driving erratically, or whether it looks like it's in disrepair. All of those can or cannot happen. You could go, in theory, across Canada and never go through a weigh scale and never be stopped.

    The stopping, though, would only be a verification if the officer wished it to be a verification of the driver's hours of service. If there are two drivers on board, they can rotate, flip back and forth, and if they shared the driving, you're only driving 12 hours a day, forever almost.

    Hopefully I've answered the question. It's easily done. It's not out of the ordinary. I suspect it's probably with two drivers. Moving companies tend to do it that way.

    Mr. James Moore: One driver... so you must have a hell of a cappuccino maker in that truck.

    Thank you.

    The Chair: Or he may have two log books...

    Bev Desjarlais.

    Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: First, you mention the number of fatalities as a result of fatigue and that it has dropped. Could you tell me whether or not the accident rate has dropped or what the accident rate is?

    Mr. Derek Sweet: The data again are somewhat difficult to derive when we're looking at exposure, but we do know a couple of things for sure. We know the number of fatalities is slowly decreasing. We know that commercial vehicles, consistently over the last decade or so, have been involved in about 10% of fatal collisions, and yet those collisions account for between 18% and 20% of the fatalities. That's understandable, I think. We're talking about larger vehicles. It's physics at work here. When there's a collision involving a larger vehicle, the odds are greater that you're going to have a fatality.

    When you talk about rates, you need to account for some measure of exposure. The best measure of exposure, of course, would be the amount of distance these vehicles travel, and that's--

    Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: My question to you was this. How many accidents have there been?

    Mr. Derek Sweet: That's very difficult. Perhaps I could just finish with respect to the rates.

    We know that domestic trucking activity has increased by about 50% over the decade--

    Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: I want the percentages. I would like you to tell me how many accidents there have been involving commercial vehicles.

Á  (1130)  

    Mr. Derek Sweet: I think about 43,000.

    Mr. Chairman, perhaps I might refer the committee to the document to which I just referred, entitled, “Heavy Truck Collisions 1994-1998”. That is our most detailed data.

    Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: Okay, thank you. That's 1994 to 1998?

    Mr. Derek Sweet: We just released it in December. Yes.

    Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: On the figure of the fatalities that you gave us, the 2,917, what years were those based on?

    Mr. Derek Sweet: Those are for the year 2000.

    Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: Is the data available on how many accidents have happened in the last couple of years? Are they not reportable?

    Mr. Derek Sweet: They will be available. The detailed data take us longer to develop. We get some of it from Statistics Canada, for example, but we will be producing this data.

    Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: You were very up front about the fact that the meetings you have had previously have been broad public consultations. Who were the stakeholders involved at those meetings?

    Mr. Brian Orrbine: We engaged a consultant to do a cross-Canada tour and visit various stakeholders. We asked them to visit the provincial governments to gauge their reactions. We asked them to seek input from the trucking industry, but this is difficult to do. The Canadian Trucking Alliance, the Private Motor Truck Council, if my memory serves me, the Owner-Operators Independent Drivers Association, Canadians for Responsible and Safe Highways--CRASH--the Canadian Automobile Association... My memory is failing me, but it was a very wide range of stakeholders, including unions as well, like Teamsters Canada.

    We tried to get as broad a brush as we could, though still targeted. These were not general sessions held in arenas asking the public to come and talk with us. We were asking, if we are on the right track here, does this make any sense in terms of the work we're doing, because we were basically working from somewhat of a clean sheet.

    Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: That's it for now. Thanks.

    The Chair: Val.

    Ms. Val Meredith (South Surrey--White Rock--Langley, PC/DR): I appreciate your comments. I attack this from a different level than my colleagues.

    I want to ask if you think it's feasible to be considering hours of driving without considering all the other factors that are part of the trucking industry--the infrastructure, the time of day they are moving, the increased commercial traffic on the roads. Can you isolate one element of it and study it without contemplating all the other things that are involved? I mean, 43,000 accidents sounds like a hell of a lot of accidents, but consider the number of trucks on the road at any given time and that for the most part our roads have only two lanes of traffic--not all of them, some are four lanes, divided.

    How can you isolate one element and study it only?

    Mr. Derek Sweet: If I could begin with this, Mr. Chair, truck accidents usually involve another vehicle, for starters. I mentioned at the top about Road Safety Vision 2010, which establishes a number of targets in a number of areas in road safety in general. For example, there are targets for drinking and driving, seat belt wearing, young drivers, intersection accidents, rural roads, and so on.

    Along with our provincial colleagues, we are looking at the road safety problem as a whole. Commercial vehicles are clearly an important part of the road safety equation. A specific target for commercial vehicles has been established: a reduction of 20% in fatalities between now and 2010. We are looking at the entire road safety issue.

    There are other initiatives going on within the commercial motor vehicle community itself in addition to hours of service.

    Perhaps, Brian, you could comment.

    Ms. Val Meredith: My question is not what are you doing. I would assume that you and the Department of Transport are looking at all these issues.

    I'm asking you if it's realistic for us as a committee to be taking out of this whole package of crashes and fatalities involving commercial vehicles on our highways the one element of commercial transportation and saying this is going to be the one area we will study. Should we not be expanding it to look at the other issues? How can you say it was only the fact that this guy had driven so many hours, and it wasn't that it was a two-lane road and somebody quickly came in front of him and he couldn't stop in time, so there was nothing he could have done anyway? We're assuming it was because he was fatigued. It may not have been, because there are many other factors in commercial transportation.

Á  (1135)  

    Mr. Derek Sweet: That's a very good question, Mr. Chair.

    There are a number of factors that come into play in any road accident. The member has mentioned the infrastructure, the weather, the driver, and the vehicle, in fact, the carrier. So there are many, many factors involved in this rather complex business.

    I can't really pronounce, quite frankly, on whether or not simply looking at hours of service would be useful or whether it would be more useful to look at these other factors. We can certainly conclude that hours of service are important, and it's very complicated. It's a very current issue and can be somewhat controversial. Whether that's enough for the committee at this particular point in time is certainly not for me to speculate on.

     Ms. Val Meredith: I apologize that I have to leave now, but in your opinion, can we do it? Can we justify it?

    Mr. Brian Orrbine: I think it's very difficult to exclude all of the other factors. I think you have to be aware of those other factors. We're doing that in the research. One of the things we're looking at now is something called fatigue management. That is lifestyle training--your wife, your kids, your employer, the demands that are placed upon you. You can't go into this without really understanding all of those issues. You can come up with an arbitrary rule change today, but have you really accomplished anything without looking at that? Again, my intuition is telling me you've got to look at other things. The problem is, I don't know of anyone around the world who's ever attempted to do that so I don't know how doable it might be. But I would agree you've got to look beyond, in certain areas.

    Ms. Val Meredith: Thank you, and my apologies.

[Translation]

    The Chair: Mr. Laframboise.

    Mr. Mario Laframboise: I found what you had to say about the future of the situation a bit pessimistic. I,for one, believe, on the contrary, that the situation is urgent for the whole industry.

    I was very disappointed with the agreement the teamsters signed. We could feel that it was a commercial agreement because somebody is afraid of goodness knows what. I had problems, even having heard the answers to the questions we put to the employers and employee representatives. You could feel they wanted to agree to ensure the economic stability of the industry.

    But I find we're lacking vision in the sense that the industry is in a state of crisis. There's no new blood. The younger people aren't interested in driving trucks in Canada anymore, precisely because of the working conditions. Besides the safety issue that is really important, you really have to... How can we get our young people interested in becoming truckers when we're already having discussions on safety problems?

    You're quite right. Research is being done on fatigue and all that. It's already a disadvantage for someone looking for a job and figuring that he's looking at a profession that's already dangerous because there are risks of pressure.

    What my colleague Moore was saying before made me smile. It's true that there's a lack of employees in the industry and it's probably true that, when you're moving, you have a single trucker driving from Vancouver to Ottawa. He's not doing that because he likes it but to preserve his company and the future of the business. The trucker has no other choice than to use all means possible and to work an excessive number of hours to be able to deliver the goods to his employer so as not to lose any contracts or anything else.

    So I think it's important that this work be done, even more so because I feel the industry is in a state of crisis exactly because of the vastness of our country. Canada is an immense country and because of the working conditions, there is less and less new blood. Has any analysis been done on who will be replacing the veterans in this industry or even about the future of truckers? Do you have any analyses? Do you feel, like I do in Quebec, that our young people are going into that trade less and less? Actually, you can see it with the job offers. In newspapers and everywhere else, you can see the demand for truckers. That means that there aren't enough of them. So people have to push on the system to be able to keep their business alive.

Á  (1140)  

    Mr. Derek Sweet: It should be said that Transport Canada's main priority is safety, as you know. The interest shown by young people for the trucking profession would mainly fall under the purview of Human Resources Development, which takes care of things like that.

    The Chairman: Mr. Harvey.

    Mr. André Harvey (Chicoutimi--Le Fjord, Lib.): I have a brief comment for Mr. Orrbine, Mr. Chairman.

    Did you actually say that a lot of people were working on the question of the hours of service? And did you also say that, for you, it would be important for the committee to try to meet the Canadian stakeholders, first and foremost, so as not to come up at the last minute with a few recommendations that would be lacking in perspective, really?

    I know that someday we may perhaps have to think about bringing in other players from the outside, but for a rather long while, we'll have to put on our thinking caps with our Canadian stakeholders to get a better idea of the whole problem, which is actually rather complex and goes well beyond the matter of hours of service.

    Are you suggesting that the committee work together with people who are already working on this, to get a better idea of the overall problem ?

    It isn't strictly a matter of hours of service that's necessarily going to settle the problem. As you were saying so cogently, cutting the number of hours would not necessarily lead to progress in the area of accidents. It's rather phenomenal to look at the results. We all have family members working in that industry and it is actually a huge problem in the areas of safety and family life. It's really an overarching problem.

    Is that sort of the message you're sending us here?

[English]

    Mr. Brian Orrbine: Mr. Chairman, I think there are two areas that one should look at. One is the research that's going on around the world. That's being done by sleep and fatigue researchers looking specifically at the issue of rest, rest recovery, how to combat the effects of fatigue. That's going on in spite of the work being done in other areas by the regulators.

    You have various countries faced with the same challenge that we are faced with, trying to improve upon a set of rules that, for the most part, have been in place for decades. We know enough today, based on some of the research that has gone on over the last couple of decades, to make improvements to what's going on today. This other research may be long term, it may come up with different answers for us down the road, but I believe you can't tie the two together. You almost have to separate the activity that's going on, for example, in a country.

    If you meet with the U.S. and you talk to the regulators, they incorporate the research they have been party to, just like we do. They are starting to make decisions or coming up with positions that are based on the knowledge of the research, but they're still decisions that are being made without specific, solid... I don't want to say guidance, because that's too strong a word, but much of what comes out of the fatigue research tends to be recommended activities. How one pieces that together I think is the important part, for regulators or administrators of the system. So learning from other countries or other individuals or bodies that are going through the same process we're going through... I think everyone can learn from each other, absolutely.

    From the research perspective, I think that will go on even if this committee and every other committee around the world stops work tomorrow on hours of service. Those researchers are still tasked with trying to find the answers to this issue of fatigue.

    I might add that they're coming up with areas as a side benefit. For example, one of the things that's been uncovered is sleep apnea, which is a disease that is very prevalent in truck drivers. One of the areas of research is able to uncover that and treat the driver. So there's a side benefit from this research, but it's not necessarily totally tied into the regulation or the regulators' work.

Á  (1145)  

    The Chair: Are there any further questions?

    Bev.

    Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: You commented on them recognizing that sleep apnea is a disease of drivers. Hasn't part of the research on sleep apnea also indicated that in a number of cases it's usually a result of erratic scheduling and changes in the body's biosystems? Isn't that one of the major reasons why there is sleep apnea?

    Mr. Brian Orrbine: Unfortunately, I'm far from an expert on that. I really would not be qualified to comment on that.

    What we do know is we have uncovered it. We know it's there. We know that some of the work that's being done in Alberta right now is starting to address ways to detect it and actually treat it.

    Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: It is important, then, to recognize that maybe something that is happening within the trucking industry is resulting in this as well. So it is important to look at it from all aspects.

    The Chair: Bev, if I may add, after the recess some of our first witnesses will be those doctors, so you might be able to pose your questions then.

    Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: I've been there. I've heard the info.

    The Chair: Have you any further questions?

    If you don't have any further questions, I want to thank our witnesses, Mr. Sweet and Mr. Orrbine, for being here.

    The committee will continue its work in order to look at this documentation regarding hours of service.

    We'll adjourn until a week next Tuesday.

    Oh, there is one quick question.

    Paul.

    Mr. Paul Szabo (Mississauga South, Lib.): The clerk sent us some material on a ruling that was made by Susan Whelan on the industry with regard to the ethics commissioner. I think it's something we can probably tidy up now.

    It appears that the matter relates to the mandate of the committee. The ethics counsellor has no mandate here, and we have no jurisdiction there. The clerk's assessment appears to have been correct--we have no possibility of being able to have the ethics commissioner here. He would not be able to do that. So I think we should probably just accept that.

    Unfortunately, it wasn't readily evident when Mr. Ghislain Lebel brought his motion forward, because he would have been advised that it was out of order.

    The Chair: Well, we can still ask, and the counsellor can tell us to go to hell, or it's not our business, whatever.

    Mr. Paul Szabo: Yes, but Mr. Chairman, the reason I raised it is that although the committee is master of its own operations, I think our first chore is to follow the rules, and if we wish to override them, for whatever reason, it should be discussed, rather than summarily saying let's just ignore them and do it. I think in that particular case, it was an important issue for Mr. Lebel.

    The Chair: We are adjourned, but go ahead.

    Mr. Paul Szabo: No, we weren't adjourned. I had asked for the floor before you put it down, but you turned away deliberately because you didn't want to recognize me.

    Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

    Mr. Paul Szabo: But I wanted to thank the clerk for bringing the information to clarify the issue. I think it's a closed matter.

    The Chair: The meeting is adjourned.