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Just say no
No parking
Drive for diversity
Saskatchewan maintains firm stance on carbon tax.
Abbotsford deals with unlawful truck parking.
CentrePort Canada aims to help Indigenous workers.
APRIL 2018 VOLUME 29, ISSUE 3
Reach us at our Western Canada news bureau Contact Derek Clouthier Derek@Newcom.ca or call 403-969-1506
WWW.TRUCKWEST.CA
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Eyeing the future, remembering the past AMTA celebrates its 80th anniversary during annual Leadership Conference By Derek Clouthier
Aspiring drivers rejoice Manitoba government offers full driver training funding for those with offers of employment By Derek Clouthier WINNIPEG, MANITOBA Manitobans looking to receive funding for a Class 1 driver training course are in luck. It wasn’t long ago that Manitoba provided no clear funding path for aspiring truck drivers, but the province has done a complete 180 to help get more qualified drivers behind the wheel. Under the new program, any Manitoban who has a document stating an offer of employment from a “certifying partner” carrier is eligible for full funding through the Manitoba government’s education department for a Class 1 driver training course from an accredited school. Terry Shaw, executive director of the Manitoba Trucking Association (MTA), said previous government funding models were not nearly as effective and were financially wasteful. “What the government did previously, is people said ‘I want to be truck driver,’ so they trained them to be a truck driver, and the stats indicated that 40% of these people never got a job as a truck driver,” said Shaw. “Why? Because they weren’t employable as a truck driver.”
Various reasons, such as being a single parent looking to be home every night, an inability to cross the border, or a tarnished driver’s abstract, would prevent companies from hiring many of these Class 1 drivers. “We saw a lot of people saying they wanted to be truck drivers who never really had any chance of being a driver,” said Shaw, “so the government invested previously in training people who never ended up being employed.” This muddied the water of the Class 1 driver pool, as they were technically able to work, but were not economically viable as drivers to carriers. “This program provides a clearer path to employment for the employer and employee,” said Shaw, “because they’ll know before they invest a lot time training to be a truck driver whether or not anybody will actually consider employing them.” Manitoba has been a long-time supporter of Ontario’s mandatory entry level training (MELT) program, but has had to deal with its own unique hurdles in the past when it came to driver training. Shaw said unlike any other province, Manitoba faced a unique challenge in that its apprenticeship program, that supports trade professions, is publically funded. Continued on page 8
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Following a brief dry period, the Manitoba government will offer funding for driver training to those with an offer of employment.
EDMONTON, ALBERTA With the Alberta Motor Transport Association (AMTA) celebrating its 80th anniversary at its Leadership Conference and AGM this year, Truck West takes a look at the association’s history, one that stretches back to a time when trucking was in its infancy. History tells us that the first truck manufactured in Canada was by the Canadian Motor Syndicate in 1898. The start of the Alberta trucking industry occurred in the 1920s, with 4,362 trucks registered in the province by 1926. In the U.S., Winton Motor Carriage Company also came up with the concept of the truck trailer in 1898. In the early 1900s during the First World War, the use of semi-trucks took off south of the border with the U.S. military using them to move supplies. By 1920, millions of trucks had hit North American roadways.