Truckers association calls for mandatory certification of livestock transporters

Thursday, May 21, 2015

by SUSAN MANN

Certifying truckers who transport livestock seems like a good idea but it must be made mandatory for all drivers, an agreed-upon standard reached and enforcement, says an Ontario Trucking Association spokesman.

Currently certification is voluntary and there are several training programs truckers can take, including reputable carriers having their own rigorous training program for drivers. Those programs cover both vehicle driving and livestock handling, says vice president Steve Laskowski. “You’re dealing with livestock that needs special treatment and special care and that requires special training.”

He says the trucking industry recognizes training is necessary but “some of these standards being proposed to the carriers are actually less rigorous than their own training standards” and they duplicate what’s in the carriers’ programs, he explains. On the flip side are some other programs for drivers that are too detailed “and have more to do with veterinary school than driving.”

The truckers’ frustration with the current state of affairs is “not all carriers do it (driver training) and who’s enforcing that carriers are actually taking the training,” he adds. “You need 100 per cent of the shippers and receivers involved in the system checking for certification.”

Laskowski made the comments in the wake of an announcement earlier this week of nearly $200,000 in federal funding to an online certification and training system for drivers that will be developed by Canadian Animal Health Coalition. The non-profit coalition is based in Guelph.

Mark Beaven, the coalition’s executive director, says the new initiative will be based on the coalition’s existing four to six hour certification program that’s offered across Canada in a classroom setting.

“We envision it will still be the same four to six-hour training requirement but the driver will be able to do it at their own pace,” he says.

They plan to pilot the course in the fall with the goal of having it fully operational in May 2016.

Beaven notes that increasingly processors are starting to require drivers be certified. “It’s becoming more and more where the end user is demanding it (driver certification).”

He estimates 20 to 40 per cent of the country’s 5,000 to 10,000 transporters are certified. It’s difficult to get an accurate number for transporters across Canada, he says, because there isn’t a livestock transporter association.

Jim Laws, executive director of the Canadian Meat Council, says drivers need to be part of the highly trained supply chain to “ensure everybody is doing their job making sure livestock are treated properly. You can’t just have anybody.”

He says the council — the national trade association for federally inspected meat packers and processors — wants all drivers certified.

But the system “could be mandatory through company actions,” such as companies only hiring certified drivers or processors only accepting animal shipments from certified drivers or dealing with transport companies who use certified drivers exclusively.

“It doesn’t have to be (government) regulated,” he says. BF