June 2010 Volume 30, Issue 6 Delivering daily news to Canada’s trucking industry at www.trucknews.com
Canadian Tire wins contract to pump fuel at Ontario’s highway service centres But what’s in it for truckers?
Quadrangle Architects Limited
By Harry Rudolfs TORONTO, Ont. – The recent announcement that Canadian Tire is going to have a fuel monopoly at all 23 of Ontario’s 400-series highway service centres provides some comfort, if not heightened expectations, to freeway travellers who have seen some of these sites closed and shuttered for years. Canada’s largest independent petroleum retailer has inked a deal with Host-Kilmer Service Centres to build and operate the fuel bars and adjacent convenience stores for the next 50 years. (And who knows what kind of fuel they’ll be selling 50 years from now – hydrogen, natural gas, plutonium)? Seven of the fuel bars on the 401 are expected to be up and running this summer, including Morrisburg, Bainsville, Trenton North (Wooler), Tilbury North and South, West Lorne and Dutton.
According to Susan Goyette, senior director of communications for US parent company HMS Host, “The fuel offering from Canadian Tire includes gasoline at all sites and diesel in a number of locations. Each site will have no less than two fuelling positions of diesel for commercial vehicles.”
CTC spokesperson Rebecca Mills confides that these won’t be high-speed pumps or a cardlock system, but she does expect fuel will be “competitively priced.” Mills won’t speculate on how much fuel CTC will sell at these locations, but I can almost see her eyes light up over the phone when she
mentions that the fuel bar venues are expected to generate “six million transactions per year.” This is a good fit for CTC. They will enhance their brand and get their funny money into the pockets of the travelling public, who might then be enticed to stop at Continued on page 20
Michigan vote could hold key to new border crossing Canada offers to cover Michigan’s share of new bridge By Ron Stang WINDSOR, Ont. – Now it will be up to the state of Michigan to decide – and decide soon – whether to accept Canada’s offer to provide up to $550 million to fund the cashstrapped state’s share of the proposed Detroit River International Crossing (DRIC) project. Federal Transport Minister John Baird said his government, frustrat-
EPA2010 from behind the wheel
The Michigan state legislature has set a June 1 deadline to endorse funding for DRIC. The $550-million offer could help sway that vote. But the vote might not come easily. State Republicans, for example, have long argued against the spending of tax dollars on the project, especially in a state ravished by job losses and that in March had the highest unemployment in the US
ed by decades of fighting and delays over the proposed Windsor-Detroit crossing, decided to come up with the April 29 offer, which he told Truck News was not unprecedented. “This project is tremendously important for Canada,” he said. “It’s the most important infrastructure project in the country. It’s desperately needed. And it’s been worked on literally for 20 years.”
Continued on page 8
Inside This Issue...
• A natural solution?: Would a natural gas corridor through
Ontario be enough to convince trucking companies to convert their fleets to natural gas? Page 10
• It’s a wrap: We take a look at some of the highlights from Truck World.
Page 22
• Going long with LCVs:
Challenger Motor Freight has purchased 300 trailers to expand its LCV fleet and 300 more are on the way. Why Challenger feels the future is long. Page 34
• Licence renewed: Mark Dalton offers some tips on how to
See pgs. 32-33
pass an A/Z written test. Will his protege pass?
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Careers 36-43
Industry Opportunities 37
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