MVTA amendments create provincial unease

TORONTO (March 26) — For all the hew and cry among truckers demanding that Ottawa take back responsibility for extra-provincial trucking, provincial transport regulators have said there are good reasons to tread carefully following the introduction of proposed amendments to the Motor Vehicle Transport Act in the House of Commons yesterday.

The amendments would require each province to develop and maintain a carrier profile system based on National Safety Code Standard 14 and capable of producing comparable ratings for comparable performance no matter where a carrier is based.

With implementation expected in September 2000, some provinces look to be better prepared to comply than others.

“We still have a ways to go,” concedes Derek Sweet, director of road safety programs at Transport Canada. “We have some jurisdictions that will be ready in 1999, most scheduled to be on board next year, and a few that may need another two years to develop their systems.”

What would happen if a province doesn’t have a safety ratings regime in place when the revised MVTA takes effect?

Ottawa could nullify a province’s ability to issue safety certificates to extra-provincial carriers. Without a safety certificate, a trucking company would be legally restricted from operating outside its home province. “That’s one way we would exert our influence, if you want to put it that way,” says Sweet. Ottawa also distributes about $20 million among the provinces each year to pay for NSC programs, and would likely link any future funding to compliance with a revised MVTA.

It’s also conceivable that some jurisdictions will decide they can’t implement the safety rating standard as it is written and ask that it be somehow watered down prior to federal regulatory approval — relying on motor carrier convictions alone to determine the safety rating, for example, and not reportable accidents and safety-related infractions, which are harder to obtain and codify.

That prospect makes transport regulators in Ontario and Quebec uneasy. The two provinces together control about 75% of heavy-duty vehicles in Canada, and both plan to turn the key on overhauled provincial motor carrier registration and rating systems this year.

“The feds have the power to enforce harmonization across Canada, but I don’t want to see them deviate from the current standard,” says Mike Weir, director of motor carrier compliance with the Ontario Ministry of Transportation. “We’ve invested a lot of time, money, and policy effort on our system. It complies with Standard 14 as it sits now. We’re burning the midnight oil here. People are working weekends to get ready for implementation of our system. I’m concerned that a legislated change at the federal level, if it deviates from the NSC, could really throw a wrench into the works for us.”