OTA wants to ensure truckers paid for emergency services

TORONTO — A new Ontario bill could order carriers into service during an emergency, but the province’s major trucking association isn’t sure if they’ll be compensated in such an event.

Bill 56, the Emergency Management Statute Law Amendment Act, is also vague in terms of how compensation for a service ordered under the Act is to be assessed or how an assessment can be appealed.

“As a point of law, we are concerned that the Emergency Management Statute Law Amendment Act appears to provide the government with the right to order the provision of services without compensation,” OTA President David Bradley states in a recent letter to Ontario Minister of Community Safety & Correctional services Monte Kwinter.

Bradley pointed out that the federal government’s own Emergencies Act recognizes the need for compensation by making it mandatory for the government to provide compensation. “We believe that (Bill 56) should be amended to provide for similar protection for businesses and individuals ordered to provide services,” Bradley says.

“While the Act provides that compensation ‘may’ be provided in accordance with regulations passed by order-in-council, there is no requirement for such compensation to be paid.

The federal law clearly states that the Minister “shall” (instead of ‘may’) award reasonable compensation to any person who suffers loss, injury or damage as a result of anything done under the terms of the Act, as well as for “costs”.

Furthermore, the federal Act contains regulation-making power to regulate how applications for compensation are to be dealt with, including methods of assessing any losses to the company or individual providing the service ordered, as opposed to Ontario’s recently introduced law with does not explicitly provide for such regulation-making power.