Alberta carriers blast province for not adopting federal HOS rule
CALGARY -- Officials representing some of Alberta's largest for-hire trucking carriers say they were shocked when the province's minister of Infrastructure & Transportation announced last week that Alberta would not be mirroring new federal hours of service legislation scheduled to take affect January 2007. Despite that there have been ongoing consultations provincially, nationally, and internationally for the past 15 years, the government ruled that more consultation is required before any changes are made to the provincial Drivers' Hours of Service Regulation, which governs carriers that operate solely within Alberta. The province will continue to enforce current HOS rules for provincial truckers in the meantime. Under the new federal rules, drivers will further limit the number of hours they can operate in a 24-hour day. They will not be allowed to drive after having accumulated 13 hours of driving time or 14 hours of on-duty time, including driving, in a day. The Minimum off-duty time therefore increases from 8 to 10 hours per day. AMTA Executive Director Mayne Root noted in a statement that the 15-year consultative process to develop the new rules has already been a long and arduous for all jurisdictions -- involving industry, labor, government, scientific experts, and enforcement. Henry VanSteenbergen, president of Legal Freight Services and President of the Alberta Motor Transport Association, responded in writing to the minster "…to express our extreme disappointment in the position that the Alberta government has taken." "The recently announced decision to isolate this province with unique, non-standard HOS regulations, has placed Alberta businesses in the difficult situation of having to deal with two very different sets of rules for provincially and federally regulated carriers and has created a distinct disadvantage for federally regulated carriers in Alberta to compete in their operations within the province." Adds Root: "It also forces the enforcement community to have to interpret and apply all of the complexities of two sets of legislation. This places the drivers, carriers and enforcement officers in a very difficult and confusing position in their attempts to insure compliance." Jim Davis, president and CEO of ECL Group and AMTA past president says the Alberta government's decision position "presents a serious deviation from (the) intended objective" of industry to perform on an equal basis of competition in a safe, efficient manner.