|
From The
Editors Desk
John
& Kodiak
Dear Premier Gordon
Campbell, (Open Letter)
I attended the luncheon
hosted by the BCTA on January 17, 2005 at the Sheraton Guildford
Hotel and I found your speech about the future of trucking in BC to
be very informative and encouraging. One of the topics that you
very briefly touched on concerned improved certification for
industry employees. I interpreted that to include truck
drivers.
As you know we are facing a
critical shortage of qualified drivers in Canada. Unfortunately
this current driver shortage could be the tip of the iceberg since
indications are that the worse is yet to come. The number of new
recruits coming into the industry at this point is losing ground to
the ever increasing number of baby boomers that are
retiring.
One of the major problems in
recruiting young people is the lack of respect that the public has
for truck drivers. This comes from the old attitude that anyone can
be a truck driver. Unfortunately, the public is right, as far as
licensing is concerned, anyone can become a truck driver – all they
need is the money to attend driver training school. But these
people are far from professional drivers.
To be fair I must emphasize
that this is not the fault of the schools. To be competitive many
times schools can only spend enough time with the students to
ensure they can pass the basic test required by ICBC. Often the
only road course driven by the student is the one that is used to
take the test on. To give some indication of how basic this test is
I received an email from ICBC where the writer proudly announced
that for the last few years the test has actually included hooking
a truck up to a trailer.
I believe that in order to
attract more young people truck driving needs to be recognized as a
certified trade. This certification does not have to be a difficult
or drawn out apprenticeship. The groundwork has been done with the
excellent federally recognized and approved Earning Your Wheels
Course.
There are just a few schools
using this course at this time but they are producing good
qualified truck drivers after only three months of extensive
mountain, city, and classroom training. The students graduating
from this course are immediately being hired by some of BC’s top
carriers. The main advantage of this course is that in most cases
it eliminates the need for the normally required two years driving
experience. Reports from these trucking companies indicate that
graduating students are fully qualified in all aspects of the trade
including good knowledge of all required paper work.
Surely a three month
apprenticeship to fully train a Canadian worker in a certified
trade where the job market is growing by leaps and bounds is more
beneficial to our economy than importing drivers from other
countries. (Sent Jan. 24 2005)
| 