CTA Chief Gives His Three
Priorities for Shaking Up Canada’s Transportation
Industry
(June 4, 2008) -- The theme for the 2008 annual
meeting of the Canadian Transportation Research Forum underway in Fredericton,
NB, is Shaking Up Canada’s Transportation System. David Bradley,
CEO of the Canadian Trucking Alliance was one of the transportation industry
leaders invited yesterday to speak on his industry’s three essential
priorities.
Ensuring a strong, competitive customer base featuring
an efficient, predictable, and reliable supply chain was Bradley’s first
priority. “Truckers are in the transportation service business,” he
said. “With all the issues currently conspiring to alter the volume,
trajectory, and mix of freight in North America capacity of available truck
service and balance of freight to, from, and within Canada, has changed
drastically. In some parts of the country, there is too much capacity, in others
not enough it seems. Where the economics of trucking is predicated on how empty
a trailer is many lanes have seen balance turned on its head. To counteract both
the capacity and balance challenges many things need to occur but it is
essential to the trucking industry that we have a strong and diverse customer
base that can create freight volume and allow carriers a better opportunity to
balance their loads.” He said this is an issue whether you are a
transborder carrier operating between Canada and the US; or a carrier operating
between Alberta and the rest of the country.
While the responsibility for creating that customer
base rests with the industrial sectors themselves to improve their
competitiveness and for governments to use the means at their disposal to
encourage direct investment in Canada (through reduced business taxes,
infrastructure investment, smart borders, etc.), Bradley said that trucking can
also play a role if it is allowed to do so. And, his second priority would be to
remove impediments from the trucking industry’s ability to contribute to a
strong, competitive customer base. “The hallmark of the trucking industry
is its service, its efficiency and its productivity,” he said. “But
further efficiency and productivity gains are constrained in part by aging and
rigid regulation of such things as weights and dimensions, taxation of
investment in business inputs, a lack of harmonization of truck safety
standards, congestion due to bottlenecks on the highways, and a thickening of
the border.” Taxing investment in new equipment, for example, and
requiring carriers to take a payload penalty in order to accommodate fuel
efficiency devices on their trucks makes little sense,” he argued.
“Especially now that fuel has displaced labour as a carrier’s number
one operating costs in many cases.”
By accomplishing the first two priorities, Bradley
said conditions would be created that would assist carriers in what is perhaps
their number one priority – earn a reasonable rate of return on
investment. “We shouldn’t have to be shy about stating that our
companies’, like any other businesses’, goal is to maximize profit.
That’s what creates jobs and wealth for all.”
Bradley was also quick to state that in today’s
world the industry’s economic goals are more closely aligned with
society’s environmental and safety goals than ever before. “Safety
is good business; and with commercial diesel fuel prices going through the roof,
improved fuel efficiency is a major preoccupation for the trucking
industry,” he said.
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The Canadian Trucking Alliance is a federation of
provincial trucking associations. We represent a broad cross-section of the
trucking industry—some 4,500 carriers, owner-operators and industry
suppliers. With our head office in Ottawa and provincial association offices in
Langley, Calgary, Regina, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal and Moncton, CTA
represents the industry’s viewpoint on national and international policy,
regulatory and legislative issues that affect trucking.
www.cantruck.ca
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