The Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA) has engaged the Traffic Injury Research Foundation (TIRF) to gather and document all the great work across the country aimed at creating a safe, professional & sustainable labour supply for the trucking industry.
When completed, TIRF’s report will describe the cross-section of initiatives in development which are designed to address some of Canada’s labour supply challenges.
“The future of the trucking industry and its ability to safely deliver goods across the country is highly dependent on the availability of a skilled and appropriately trained pool of qualified drivers. This is essential to maintain and continue to improve upon the safety performance and professionalism of commercial truck drivers,” said Greg Munden, CTA Chairman.
There are many organizations, industry sectors and various governments working to provide solutions to certain issues, however, a lack of coordination leaves critical gaps and could ultimately result in a collective failure to meet the industry’s objective of securing a safe workforce of drivers for the future.
“Our goal is to paint a full picture of what needs to be done across Canada. With a varied, cross-section of views and on the table we can make the right decisions going forward,” said Munden.
The project will lay the groundwork for CTA’s policy development process to make consensus-based recommendations, which will enable the industry to help industry partners and stakeholders understand the industry’s needs and challenges much better, work to remove barriers to entry and improve safety for all road users while increasing the professionalism of the occupation. Ultimately, the proposed solutions in the report could make the trucking industry more attractive to a larger population of potential drivers.
“While the driver shortage issue has direct implications for the trucking industry, there are several inter-related aspects in which other sectors play an important role, such as insurance considerations and immigration processes to safely welcome new industry participants,” said Robyn Robertson, TIRF’s President & CEO. “Collaboration and coordination are equally important to promote professionalism and find solutions that are aligned with Canada’s Road Safety Strategy 2025 “Towards Zero – The safest roads in the world.”
To date over, 20 organizations are scheduled to participate in this work, which is expected to be completed later this year.