OTTAWA — The chief of Motor Carrier Safety Policy at Transport Canada says he doesn’t think the provinces and territories will miss implementing Canada’s new hours-of-service regime by the Jan. 1, 2007 deadline.

Transport Canada’s Brian Orrbine made the comments to TodaysTrucking.com as rumors swirled through the industry that some jurisdictions might not be ready to mirror the federal rule by the New Year’s target date.

Jan 1, 2007 is a new day for hours of service
rules in Canada — at least we’re pretty sure

While no formal acknowledgement has been made by any provincial government that the deadline would be delayed, the Canadian Trucking Alliance says in a press release that “there is increasing concern among industry representatives that not all jurisdictions will be ready” and that there “are real concerns in the industry that different jurisdictions might implement the regulations on different timetables.”

“So-called legislative windows are needed in some provinces, public hearings must be held in others, and in all of them the new regulations must be signed off by government lawyers and provincial cabinets,” CTA continued.

The carrier group urged the Council of Ministers Responsible for Transportation and Highway Safety not back away from the scheduled implementation date. “Slippage in the implementation date of the new rules would put motor carriers across the country in an untenable position, unless a significant amount of prior notice is given, and this seems unlikely given that we are only a little more than six months away from the deadline date and the federal regulation specifically states that the start-up date is January 1, 2007.”

However, Orrbine clarified the situation by explaining that all jurisdictions state they could have complimentary regulations in place by the Jan. 1 target and have expressed their desire to do so.

Transport Canada’s Orrbine says some technical
changes to the HOS text is just ‘clean up’

But at a recent Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators annual meeting, some provincial stakeholders responsible for drafting a HOS interpretation guide could not officially commit on the spot to Jan. 1, ’07 without being given “a legislative window to do their work” — something Orrbine says he’s presently working on.

“An informal canvassing showed that there is a desire to have complimentary regulations in place. Some could not commit to that being absolutely the case until they also had confirmation back home,” he tells TodaysTrucking.com.

“I think what you’re hearing (apropos concern a few provinces may miss the deadline) is how some people are interpreting what some folks are saying around the table, which is, ‘I can’t absolutely commit to it now, but I expect to be there.’ The question is, what do you want to take away from that? I take the positive side, which is the desire to do what has to be done to (meet the deadline),” he continued.

“My discussions with the provinces lead me to believe that everybody wants to be there at the same time.”

Orrbine also dismissed gossip that possible amendments to the language of the HOS rule could perhaps hold up the compliance deadline — although he did confirm Transport Canada plans to go forward with a few technical changes to the text of the regulations.

“We’re not making any modifications to the concepts. Most of the changes are omissions or errors to (references) or conflicts between the English and the French text,” he says. ” There are no policy implications to the regulations. We’re just doing clean-up.”

Under Canada’s new HOS regime the minimum off-duty time increases from 8 to 10 hours per day; the ability to split sleeper and on-duty/driving time for single and team drivers will be retained; drivers may reset their hours after 36 or 72 consecutive hours off duty, and they may use one of two cycles — 70 hours in 7 days or 120 hours in 14 days.