Kriska Slots 92-Year-Old Mayor in Driver’s Seat
MISSISSAUGA, ON — Ontario-based trucking company, Kriska Transport turned 35 today and Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion came out to their Mississauga office to celebrate.
“I’m very proud of the trucking industry,” McCallion said. “I recognize the contribution of the trucking industry to the economy of the country – the country, not just the province of Ontario or the city of Mississauga. The movement of goods is so important.”
The mayor, who coincidentally is celebrating 35 years of running the city of Mississauga and who will turn 93 in February, took the opportunity to talk about trucking.
“I emphasize the importance [of trucking],” she said. “When it comes to banning trucks on roads, people can say ‘Oh. It’s nice to ban trucks,’ but the people who want trucks banned want the benefits of the products that are delivered by trucks.”
Kriska, which started in 1978, is a privately held, family owned Canadian corporation that delivers dry and temperature controlled truckload products in Canada and the U.S. Head office is in Prescott, ON.
Kriska’s President, Mark Seymour, told Mayor McCallion they do a lot of work with Metro, delivering food.
“The trucking industry is just as important as Microsoft,” McCallion said. “We have to upgrade the opinion and public perception that skilled workers – which you folks are – skilled workers in the transportation sector … are so essential to the success of our province and our country.”
Over lunch, McCallion met some such skilled workers; she met Kriska drivers Jennifer Duval, a single mom with two kids and Jim Anstey, a veteran truck driver in his 70s originally from Nova Scotia.
Duval informally told McCallion she loves her job and that there is not a single day when she doesn’t wake up wanting to go to work.
To that, McCallion replied that people such as Duval and Jim should have an opportunity, such as on television, to tell the media about their job, and how great trucking is.
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