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Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Transport and Communications

Issue 6 - Evidence, April 24, 2001

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OTTAWA, Tuesday, April 24, 2001

The Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications, to which was referred Bill S-3, to amend the Motor Vehicle Transport Act, 1987, and to make consequential amendments to other acts, met this day at 9:30 a.m. to give consideration to the bill.

Senator Lise Bacon (Chairman) in the Chair.

[English]

The Chairman: I call the meeting to order. We have before us today Bill S-3. Our witness is Mr. Peter Turner.

Welcome, Mr. Turner. First, let me thank you for sending your written brief in advance. We would ask you to make a 10-minute presentation, following which committee members will ask questions. Please proceed.

Mr. Peter Turner: Honourable senators, I have been a truck driver for some 25 years. I have hauled almost everything from blasting caps explosives to raw milk. You name it; I have hauled it. I have had one speeding ticket. I have had one overweight warning for a lift axle. I have had one ticket for being 12 hours behind on my logbook.

I have been a witness to many accidents. Unfortunately, I have been involved in three weather-related accidents, two of them minor fender-benders caused by other vehicles. I am here today to share with you the industry through the eyes of a truck driver.

I will now take you on a run to help demonstrate the delays and pressures that a truck driver must deal with every day. As a company driver, your week will start with an address from which to pick up freight. Year ago, it was expected that a driver would need two hours to load or offload these loads. This has now been extended to four hours, which a driver is not paid for. On a good day, a driver could be loaded within an hour or half-hour. On a bad day, it takes anywhere from two to eight hours to be loaded or offloaded, on the average.

Keep in mind that a company driver is paid by the mile, not by the hour. The chance of getting paid for extra hours is rare. Ninety per cent of the loads going to and from the United States are floor loads, which means that there are no pallets, that the load is not put on with a forklift. The load is put on the floor. Today, a driver is expected to help load and offload. A driver will throw 20,000 to 25,000 pounds of freight. He is then expected to get into the truck and drive to the destination. When a driver gets to his destination, he is also expected to offload. This is expected when a driver is travelling to the United States. The term "driver assist" is written on all work orders. A driver is not paid to offload. The alternative is to pay $60 for a lumper to do this, and that is U.S. funds.

Most companies do not want this reflected in a driver's logbook. They want it reflected as off-duty time. This is what many of the drivers do, and I have done it. A driver will mark in 15 minutes for loading or offloading. The rest of the time, even though the driver is parked there, is recorded as off-duty time. Do not forget that we are not paid by the hour; we are paid by the mile. I am required to log off-duty time. That cuts into my salary. If I spend 20 hours a week loading and off-loading, those are 20 hours that I am not paid for. I lose that 20 hours in pay, because I am not driving.

Most companies give a driver written permission that, first, he does not fuel the truck and, second, he does not load or unload the truck. This is in writing. Every company gives you this, but we also have to fuel our own trucks. We are required to check our brakes, everything, on a regular basis. These are things we are not paid for. Since we are not paid for this, we are not about to put it down as off-duty time, not driving.

The next pick up could be across town or hours away. Normally, a driver gets a full load, and usually there is room to put on one or two more pallets. This is what we call the "gravy." This is where we get $200, $300 or $400 to pick up one skid.

They expect you to pick up the skid and go. We are paid mileage to get the stuff, but we are not paid to sit and wait. Sometimes we have to drive five or six hours to get this load, and we have to get there before the company closes. Usually, we arrive just as the company is closing. I have been sworn at, because these guys want to go home. Sometimes they just tell us to come back the next morning. Then we have to call our boss and explain why we did not get there on time. Nine times out of ten, a driver will be reamed out by his boss for this. Generally, the boss tells the driver to sit and wait.

As a result, at my cost, I have to wait around another 13 or 14 hours. If I am in the United States, I have to buy meals, take a shower, or do whatever I have to do, and that is all on my time.

When a company does not allow us to load that night, we are not allowed to park on their property, due to insurance regulations, according to what they tell us. The company wants us off their property, because if we are on their property they are responsible for us and for our equipment. They tell us to go to a truck stop. Most truck stops in the United States are 25 miles to 30 miles outside of city limits. We are not paid mileage or for our time to drive through the city to the truck stop. A driver is required to log it, which is an hour out and an hour back. This is stuff we are not paid for.

To wrap up this sample day's events, let us say that a driver has logged four hours of driving and two hours of on duty but not driving, a total of six hours. A driver is looking at about a $50 day. That is for a day that starts at seven in the morning and ends at six at night, but only six hours have been logged. When it is all worked out, I make $4.55 per hour for that day.

If a driver has to cross the border and the load is not parsed through - which happens half the time - he hopes that somewhere on the paperwork it indicates the broker's name. If the broker is not open 24 hours, the driver has to find out who covers for the broker and where they are located; that could take over an hour. Sometimes the brokers will hold the paperwork because the customer has not paid his bill. I have had this happen to me several times and have been penalized by sitting at the border for 12 to 14 hours simply because a customer did not pay his bill. I sat for 14 hours at my cost.

At these custom brokers at the border crossings, a driver cannot take the unit - he cannot leave. The driver stays put, where there is no place to eat, shower or go anywhere. The truck must stay at customs; the driver cannot leave. If a driver were to leave, it would result in a $5,000 to $10,000 fine. It is the responsibility of the driver to ensure that he complies with all the regulations.

The time a driver spends at the border depends on whether the paperwork is in place and what the backlog looks like at the border. A driver could spend anywhere from a half-hour to 48 hours at the border. I once spent 48 hours at customs because I could not get the load through the border, but it was the only border where I could cross. Unfortunately, it is not mandatory for customs brokers to be open 24 hours a day at these border crossings. That delay ties up freight, which ties up everything.

Drivers spend hours, and sometimes days, sitting at customs brokers houses trying to get their loads through. If the paperwork is not properly done, not only is Canada Customs upset but so too are the brokerage houses. Drivers become frustrated, because they may have just driven eight or nine hours to get to the border, because of a rush load, or perhaps it is one of the "just-on-time" freight loads. There is a deadline, but no one seems to care about that deadline at Canada Customs - and I understand that Canada Customs must do its paperwork.

However, it should be up to the companies to ensure that they have hired someone to do this paperwork properly. Nine times out of ten, they hand the driver the paperwork and tell them that it is at the border.

Over the years, I have learned that what needs to be done and what I need to have to get that load across the border. If I did not know this, nine times out of ten I would show up at the border and they would not have the federal I.D. number, or any number of required things. I would then have to make telephone calls to track down the information. In such a case, if I have arrived at 6:00 p.m. or 7:00 p.m. to get the load across the border, I would have to call the customers, but they have all gone home. Now, I must sit and wait until morning - until these people come in - to ensure that I have all the proper documents to take the load through.

They might have a bond number to get the load through, but then a driver has to go to a customs place, a severance house. I had to haul my last load into Ottawa because I could not get it cleared at Alexandria. I brought it to Ottawa, and I parked my truck there. I had to leave everything at the severance house. I was there for 48 hours, at my cost; I had to pay someone $100 a day to sit there for 10 hours. I do not know whether it was the fault of the brokerage firm or what the reason was, because you can never find out the truth, but for 48 hours my truck was parked at the Ottawa severance house trying to get the this load cleared. When I billed the company, they said that they would not pay.

When a driver finally arrives at his destination, nine times out of ten the receiver either does not want it or is livid because you were supposed to be there two days ago. You tell them that you just loaded it two days ago, and you ask them how you could have delivered it two days ago, but they do not answer. They do not care. Most of the shippers and receivers think that we are just a sounding board and that they can be rude to us and can swear at us. However, as soon as we say something back to them we are fired.

I have been blackballed by Domtar. I pulled into Montreal - into Lachine - to pick up a load of paper. I drove empty from Ottawa to Lachine, at my cost, because I was an independent. They loaded my trailer improperly. Being an independent, I have air gauges on my trailer and my tractor so I know where the weights are. The guy loaded the paper from the front to the back, which you cannot do with a 53-foot trailer because you will be over on your tandems - on your trailer tires. So I asked him to reload it. He told me that he thought it was a 48. I told him that there is a five-foot difference between a 48 and a 53 and that he should know that because he loads trucks for a living. He got very belligerent with me. I said, "Take it off. This is my truck, my trailer, my running rights and my insurance. Take the load off." The police were called, and it took me two-and-a-half hours past my appointment time to get to the dock, and then it took me three-and-a-half hours to get the load off, because I refused to do it after the guy physically tried to assault me and verbally abused me. I told him that I did not need his work, that I had been in this business for a long time and that I had only pulled three loads for him. I called the load broker and told him that I would not pull the freight, because I did not need to be abused in this way. He paid me $200 for my time, but from what I hear I am not allowed on any Domtar property ever again because of that.

The Chairman: I will stop you now because we still have a half hour for questions. I am certain that some of the questions will be directed to you in your everyday work.

You said that you were an independent trucker and that you own your own truck.

Mr. Turner: Yes, I did say that.

The Chairman: Were you affiliated with a group or association?

Mr. Turner: I was working for a couple of load brokers. My last stint, I was running for a company out in Russell. I used their authority, because the insurance was cheaper. I used their authority and they dispatched me. They went bankrupt and took me for $70,000. I lost my truck and everything.

The Chairman: In your letter to the Minister of Transport, you have seen the downfall of the Canadian Trucking Alliance. Could you explain that?

Mr. Turner: They are a specialty group that represents the firms. They do not represent the drivers or the safety of the industry. Since the 1970s and deregulation, we have watched. I have read and watched, but I could not quite figure out how the industry was now shuffling all the responsibility to the driver - everything is on the driver's end.

For example, when the temperature is minus 40, you still have to get out and do the pre-trip inspection. No one from the Canadian Trucking Alliance is crawling under your truck to check the brakes to make sure it is working right.

The Chairman: You are saying that it is the trucker's responsibility.

Mr. Turner: Yes, it is totally the trucker's responsibility for everything.

The Chairman: Do you mean the independent or the affiliated trucker?

Mr. Turner: It does not matter. All truck drivers in this country are held accountable for everything - the shippers, the receivers, the load brokers and the companies assume no responsibility or liability whatsoever any more, whereas in the past they did assume some responsibility.

The MTO used to go after companies and fine them, leaving the drivers alone. Now they go after the drivers more than anyone else. A logbook violation in Ontario costs $250. If we do not comply and run illegal, we do not make any money. On average, a driver makes $150 a day, running 500 miles per day. One logbook violation amounts to two-days' pay. How is a driver to make any money? It costs $175 if you roll onto a scale and there is a burnt headlight on the truck, and the fine is another $175 if you do not have a spare headlight.

As a company driver, I am not putting out that money to buy the headlights - give me a visa card or something to buy them. Most of these drivers - 90 per cent - have to pay the tolls up front and the repairs up front on a company truck. Why would anyone want to drive? Many of the guys get into the business and buy a truck, not realizing that over the last 12 years guys have been running at $1 per mile. Cross that border and it is 50 cents a mile. How can you operate a truck at 50 cents U.S. a mile?

I was running for a company out of Jacksonville, Florida, a company called Land Star. They are the largest owner-operator company. They have 14,000 power units, all owner-operators. I have pulled loads for $2.25 U.S. a mile. My cheapest rate was $1.25 U.S. Why do our guys in Canada have to run for $1 a mile, Canadian? I do not understand. There is not a load that turns in this country under $2 a mile.

Senator Forrestall: This gives you some idea of the work that the now defunct Subcommittee on Transportation Safety was doing. It is precisely this type of evidence that encourages us to move on with the work one way or another. Safety is not only related to the condition of the tires, the road and the mechanical gear on the truck, it is also related to the mental attitude of the driver, the well-being of the driver, and many other things. What you have said speaks for itself.

I do not think that this particular bill will allow us to make much more progress towards a national safety code, a one-stop shop. However, it is a step in the right direction. As slow and as painful as it is, it gives us an opportunity to understand the difficulties that are being faced by you and your colleagues on the road.

In Canada, we have provincial regulatory forces at work that require the payment of bills in less than 90 days, without some card or arrangement and agreement. Could you elaborate a bit more? If you are owed $1,000 for 90 days, it is not a lot of money in the run of one year, if you have been driving for 20 years or 25 years; however, over the years, if you put that interest in a savings account you might be amazed at what you would have. I presume that you live here in Ontario.

Mr. Turner: I live here in Ottawa.

Senator Forrestall: Have you pursued with the province methods of swifter payment?

Mr. Turner: It is a free society.

Senator Forrestall: Free society?

Mr. Turner: In the way they pay. It is the way that the industry is run. In the United States, they do it completely differently. Down there, companies like Burlington Motor Express pay their drivers immediately. The drivers get half up front, and when the load is delivered their company drivers are paid immediately. When I worked for Land Star Ranger, I got half my money up front. A week later, I was paid in full. They understand that you need money to run.

When a driver is hired on with a company here in Ontario, he must put up $5,000 for accident deductible, paid in the first month. He pays for plates up front, which is around $3,000. There is a fuel bill at the end of the month. A driver gets a $1,000 draw two weeks into this. You are using their fuel card, so they are charging you 1 cent to 2 cents above pump price - not what they get it at but 1 to 2 cents above pump price. That can vary.

At the end of the month, you end up owing them money. You are now a month behind. Your house mortgage and truck payments were not made. Nothing got paid. You are starving yourself.

Senator Forrestall: Let me stop you there because this is precisely what concerns me. If you are leaving home, and leaving an upset family situation, and are going to be away for two weeks and not sure whether there will be a cheque to make the car payments or some other household emergency like food, are you a safe driver? If you are not in a good mood and your family is not terribly happy, are you a safe driver?

Mr. Turner: No. I am an angry driver; I am an upset driver. It's important to understand that truck driving is not a job; it is a lifestyle. You are out there by yourself; you have no support except for the other drivers around you.

You must understand, if it is happening to me, it is happening to all of them. You can feel the tension when you stop at a truck stop. You can feel the hostility in the air.

My wife is here. We had phone bills of $500 and $600 a month. She was the only person I could talk to, because she understood the problems that I was having out there. I could talk to her; she would boost me up, and away we would go.

You are out there by yourself. You have no means of support, emotional or financial, because everyone is in the same boat. What do you do? You work harder. You lie on your logbook, and you just keep going. You try to get the extra miles in, and hide this and hide that.

My wife and I did a load down to Wildwood, Florida, out of Toronto, on a flatbed. I was carrying stainless steel. I was going down to Wildwood to get some pipe made with the steel I was carrying. My wife came along to wake me up while we were driving because I was being pushed to be there. We had a schedule. They were late in loading me. They said that I had to be there on schedule because it is just-on-time freight.

She would wake me up. I would pull over and go to sleep for three hours. I would wake up and do it again. I went down the road. I was running on two or three hours sleep.

The average driver gets only four hours to five hours of sleep per day. When you sleep in your truck, you are only half asleep; you are waiting for someone to bang into your truck or to steal something from your truck. You are always on edge when you are in a truck stop. You never know what will happen. You are always on edge, so you are only getting three hours, four hours or maybe five hours of sleep, and it is not a restful sleep. My wife can attest to that.

I would come home after two weeks of being on the road and sleep my first day away. I slept it away. On the second day, I was getting ready to leave again.

The reset of 36 hours does not work. Currently, you run your 60 hours. In Canada, you can run up to 13 hours driving, two hours for loading and unloading, and while your driving you do your pre-trip, your post-trip, your lunchtime and all that. That is 15 hours a day. You can do that in four days, which gets you up to 60 hours. You then get three days off in order to reset it.

Now, they are proposing 70 hours, get one day off, and then you get to do it all over again. I do not understand this. I talked to three guys in their trucks with my CB while coming here. None of the drivers knows about this proposed law. When they hear about it, they cannot believe it.

I got out of the industry because it is too frustrating. Previously, drivers were helpful people on the road. They would stop to help at accidents and to change tires for people. I have done all that; I don't do it anymore. There is no time. At one time, I was able to stop and talk to my buddies on the road or stop and have a meal or a coffee with them, catch up on the family. Our world out there is other truck drivers.

There is no time for that anymore. There is absolutely no time. You are on the go constantly. From the time I would get into my truck and leave the house until I got back, it was non-stop, go, go, go. Even though you have booked your time off and you are offloaded, you are still on call. They say that you should sleep, but I cannot sleep on demand. And I can't go to sleep while I am waiting to get unloaded because they do not allow it.

If I am in a lineup and sleep, others move ahead. National Grocers did that to me here in Ottawa. I fell asleep in the seat. I was really tired, and I fell asleep in the seat. Three guys went ahead of me. They would not wake me up. I was then penalized $50 for being late. How do you deal with that?

Senator Forrestall: There is much that must be done, no question of that. I appreciate your frankness. Do you get the same sense of frustration, or another sense of frustration - I have been reading some very revealing studies - about information that indicates that it is not necessarily bad roads and bad tires but that sometimes it is just the damn frustration of traffic congestion that can lead to some of the problems? How does it affect your mental capacity to drive safely, when you want to go 20 k.p.h. over the speed limit, and you can only go 40 k.p.h. under the limit because of the congestion on the roads?

Mr. Turner: It all depends on how much rest you have.

Senator Forrestall: Do you see a relationship there?

Mr. Turner: There are days when I have no patience for anything, and it is because I have been up for 18 to 30 hours. However, when I have had eight hours off, I can deal with traffic. If I have had a good sleep, I can deal with it. If it takes four hours to go from Mississauga to Bowmanville in rush-hour traffic - it normally takes 45 minutes - there are days I can deal with that. When I feel frustrated, I pull off and wait until 7:30 p.m. or 8:00 p.m. There is no point getting frustrated. Most of the anger out there is because we are not getting enough rest.

I do not know where they come up with the idea that we can drive for 14 hours and then take eight hours off. In the real world, on paper, that looks really good, but you will find that guys will now drive 14 hours. They will not log "unloading-offloading", et cetera. They will be doing 14-hour days; some guys will do 16-hour days. I have done 70 hours, then I slept for three days. That is why we took bennies and other pills years ago, to stay awake so that we could work 70 or 80 hours a week, or even 90 hours a week.

The guys now are working 80 hours a week, but we spend anywhere from 20 to 40 hours sitting at docks each week. That is our work week. That is not including driving, taking a shower, eating, fuelling or anything else. That is what we do.

You can go out here to National Grocers or Loeb and the guys will be parked out there for hours, and they have to stay awake because they will call you on your radio and tell you that it is time to come in. However, you never know when that will be.

Last Sunday, my friend Ken sat there all night, from 11:00 p.m. until 6:30 a.m., to be told they did not have time to offload him and that he would have to return that night. Ken had to inform the shipper at the next place he was scheduled to make a pickup that he could not take the load because National Grocers could not unload him. And National Grocers will not pay for that time. We are running into shippers and receivers who will not respect their appointment times.

Senator Callbeck: Certainly, I understand that you must experience a great deal of frustration and stress in this type of job, with such delays.

You are an independent trucker and you are not paid for any of the delays. If you have to sit for five hours, you must sit. What about the driver that is hired by a trucking company? If they are not independent and they are driving someone else's truck, do they get paid?

Mr. Turner: They are not paid to load or unload. They are paid mileage only. We do not fall under the labour code. We have nothing to fall back on. We are told, "If you don't like it, hit the road." That is why there is 100 per cent turnover in this industry. The drivers are trying to find someone who is willing to pay for their time. City drivers get paid $8 to $9 per hour to drive a tractor-trailer through the city and to do pickups, which is minimum wage. That is why everyone is getting out of it. There are not enough drivers because you do not make any money; and there is no money.

If you calculate 34 cents per mile, and the driver runs 3,000 miles in a week, that is his 60 hours. He will gross $1,002 for the week's work. From that, he will lose 30 per cent in taxes, which brings it down to $700. He will spend $100 if he is in Canada, and in the States he will spend another $200 off his paycheque. In the end, he is making $400 a week. I make that working where I am now, at $14 per hour. I am home every night and I only work eight hours a day. I do not work 16 hours a day.

Senator Callbeck: What do you propose can be done to help this problem?

Mr. Turner: The only thing I can see is that the National Trucking Association finally put their foot down and demanded certain concessions and got them. Unfortunately, it is hard to get everyone on the same page, but the companies have to start putting out the money.

They have been charging their customers top dollar to pull the freight. When fuel goes up, they add it on to the cost of the freight. That is just a given. However, the rates do not go up for drivers, for brokers or for lease operators. The companies put all that money in their pockets. I do not understand why the money is not being put back into their businesses. They are not paying their drivers for downtime, waiting time or delays at border crossings. Many of the U.S. companies pay their drivers $50 just to cross the border; that is extra. They understand that a driver could be there for two to three hours.

Senator Forrestall: They should take $50 away from them coming north and give them $50 going south.

Mr. Turner: You run into the same problem on both sides.

Senator Forrestall: Many companies will pay extra from the U.S. side. They will pay extra to have their drivers cross the border.

Senator Callbeck: I want to be sure about the driving times. You said that you could drive 14 hours in a day before you have to take eight hours off. You could drive for seven hours, pull in somewhere, take five hours to get unloaded, and then you can drive another seven hours. Thus, you have actually worked 19 hours.

Mr. Turner: That does not include a stop to eat or shower. Now, we will bump it up another two to three hours. That will happen, I guarantee, because it is happening now with the 60-hour log. The way I was told that this bill is written is that it does not matter whether you are driving or not driving, it is a 14-hour day. Why would you want to mark it as not driving? You are not making any money at this. In Europe, they pay their guys by the hour. There is a reason for that. We can only run 55 or 65 miles per hour in this country on a good day. We have to speed. Legally, we are only supposed to drive 55 or 65 miles per hour. Lord knows, I am guilty, but we are running on such a fine schedule.

The CTA has brought this up because it is a 14-hour round trip from Toronto to Montreal, which are our two main hubs. That is why I believe that this is coming in. They only have to hire one truck to do a round trip, as opposed to having one driver go down and another come up. With the changes, they will get 24-hour use out of their vehicles. We are only human; we cannot work for 24 hours straight.

The high-tech industry has worked it out: if you work a 12-hour shift, then you do three days on and three days off. Where I work, the guys work 12-hour shifts: four days on and four days off. You are asking us to work for 14 hours each day for five consecutive days, and then take only 24 hours off and do it all over again. How do you think the drivers are going to be physically and mentally - more mentally than physically?

Senator Forrestall: How safe is it?

Mr. Turner: It is not safe. I have seen myself do stupid stunts just because I was so tired. I have seen myself not remember having driven 50 miles. I drove it; my computer indicated that I drove it, but I do not remember it.

The Chairman: We have about five minutes left, and we have two more senators who want to ask questions.

Senator Fitzpatrick: Mr. Turner, you have answered some of the questions that I was going to ask. However, I am interested in the situation in which you find yourself in the industry. You are an independent?

Mr. Turner: I was. I would not be able to come here and speak and still be in the industry.

Senator Fitzpatrick: When you were, you owned your own truck?

Mr. Turner: Yes.

Senator Fitzpatrick: How many independents are there?

Mr. Turner: This is a number that we throw out there. In Canada, there are not many. There are not many independent guys who were like me, and find their own freight and do their own thing. Lease operators are classified as independents. They are not. I used the authority and insurance of a friend of mine. We had a written agreement. I paid him a certain amount of money per month to use it. Other than that, he had nothing else to do with me.

Let us say that 50 per cent of the trucks that are leased are leased through companies. They are classified as independents, but they are not. The company owns the truck. They hold the paper on the truck; therefore, if the guy wishes to leave the company he loses all his equity in the truck.

Senator Fitzpatrick: What percentage of true independents would there be?

Mr. Turner: I would say maybe 15 per cent in this country . It is greater in the United States.

Senator Fitzpatrick: From the way that you describe it, I do not see how you could stay in business.

Mr. Turner: You cannot.

Senator Fitzpatrick: The independent operator is a thing of the past, which means the larger organizations will provide the transportation. I was curious about the outlook for independents. I think what you are saying is that they will not exist any longer.

Mr. Turner: They will exist, but they use mostly U.S. brokers. Most of the independents do not run in Canada. They run to the U.S. and back. Why? It is because they are paid in U.S. funds.

Eighty per cent of their mileage is done in the U.S. They link up with brokers down there, and they get in and out of Canada, as opposed to using a Canadian broker, because a Canadian broker will pay you in Canadian funds.

Senator Milne: I need some clarification, Mr. Turner. On the first page of the information you sent to us you say that most loads pay $1.50 to $2 an hour, although the owner-operator receives $1 to $1.30. Who gets the rest?

Mr. Turner: The company. It becomes complicated here. You have trucking companies, you have load brokers, drivers and owner-operators. Ninety per cent of the freight goes through load brokers. They own no equipment. Thus, they go out and hustle all the freight. They will call a company and decide to give it certain loads. They take their 15 per cent to 20 per cent right off the top.

I have had loads where I have had five brokers take 15 per cent or 20 per cent right off the top, and they own no equipment. It is then left up to us to haul. The industry is basically slashing its own throat because the load brokers are not accountable to government or anyone.

A trucking company that has 300 or 400 trucks has some responsibility. Load brokers sit in their basement with a computer. That is it; that is all.

Senator Milne: You should get into that job.

Mr. Turner: No, because it is a cut-throat business. I could not be that nasty to people. I could not do it. That is why I got out of it. I could not be a load broker because I do not like lying.

It was respectable to be in this industry. You were proud to call yourself a truck-driver. Ever since they brought the word "professional" into it, it has gone down. When I was asked what I did, I did not want to say. I was embarrassed to call myself a truck-driver because of the perception out there.

It is a profession. I was on the Lemon Aid show a couple of weeks ago. We had a couple of drivers call in who said that they had been in the business for 25 years. They had reviewed numbers with their wives and decided that it was not worth it any more.

The average truck-driver in this country is 50 years old. I try to talk to anyone and everyone who tries to get a licence. I tell them, "Bend over and let me kick you," because that is what it is like being a truck-driver. I have talked many people out of becoming a truck-driver because there is no respect for drivers. We are out here to be abused.

Senator Milne: If you are talking about an average age of 50 years of age, you are not only talking about people who are under enormous stress and operating under increasingly unsafe condi tions, you are also talking about an age bracket where reflexes are not as good as they were when the driver was in his 20s.

Mr. Turner: You are right.

Mr. Turner: I'm 43 now.

Senator Milne: You have a page in here on charts, 70 hours in seven days. You are pointing out that it is nowhere near 70 hours and 120 hours in 14 days. At the bottom of page 6, there is a heading entitled "What about `switching'?" What is switching? I do not understand.

Mr. Turner: That is where you switch trailers and you do all kinds of stuff. You load your truck. It is the every day stuff for which there is no accountability.

Senator Milne: You are saying that the time involved in that is not calculated in these figures?

Mr. Turner: It is not set out. If you are going to do the 70-hour thing, you are going to get guys who are running on two or three hours sleep a day.

Senator Finestone: I think the nature of the questions has indicated the concern that we feel for the world about which you speak.

I am curious. If you are sitting at a committee in the United States that was looking at this kind of a bill, what would be your observation as the driver? Would you consider that you were better off driving as an American driver? Would you be better off driving as a Mexican driver, or are you better off driving as a Canadian driver?

Mr. Turner: I think that we have it good in Canada. We have it just as good in the States. We must follow the rules of the U.S. Mexico scares the hell out of me.

I have seen trailers snapped in half in Texas because Mexicans have overloaded them. Their vehicles are unsafe. I have taken trailers to the border; they have come back with tires missing and all kinds of stuff.

Canada is a good place to work in the trucking industry, if we could get the respect back into it - and get some money back into it. In the United States, these guys follow the letter of the law to a degree. There never seems to be enough time in the day.

These countries have sought to adjust the time thing. That works in the automotive industry because they want the product. The rest of the world is trying to do this, and it is not working because it is not feasible.

Senator Finestone: The problem is indigenous to the industry and to the people that you are serving. It is not necessarily the laws of the land.

Mr. Turner: No, it is basically the service and the industry in the way it is trying to accommodate its customers.

The Chairman: Thank you very much, Mr. Turner. We have all benefited from your experience. A truck driver's perspective is something different from what we usually hear here. I am sure that some observations can be made as far as the regulations are concerned from this committee. We will work on that.

We all benefited from your own perspective and your experience. Thank you very much for coming here.

The committee adjourned.

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