Ottawa pledges $17.8 million over three years for National Safety Code

HALIFAX (Sept. 20, 2001) — Transport Minister David Collenette yesterday pledged $17.8 million in funding over the next three years to help provinces and territories develop carrier profile and safety rating systems under the National Safety Code. Collenette made the announcement in Halifax during a meeting of the Council of Ministers Responsible for Transportation and Highway Safety.

The National Safety Code is a set of 16 standards which the provinces use as minimum guidelines when developing truck-safety policy and regulations. They include medical qualifications for truck drivers, hours of service, load securement, and facility audits.

In addition to the funding announced yesterday, Transport Canada has poured $51 million into helping the provinces and territories with National Safety Code management. The current round of funding is earmarked for systems to collect information about safety-related violations and make it accessible to other governments for the purposes of rating carriers on their safety performance.

While Collenette called the code “an excellent example of federal, provincial, and territorial cooperation,” provincial governments have struggled to generate consistent policy and regulation from the standards. Since its inception in 1987, only one of the 16 standards has been applied uniformly across Canada.