A new study, prepared for Transport Canada by transportation consultant Fred Nix, finds little consistency in the way Canadian provinces and territories are approaching implementation of the National Safety Code standard that would introduce safety ratings for individual motor carriers.
It concludes that there will not be a consistent rating regime across Canada by the target date of December 2000. Some jurisdictions will not have procedures in place. Others will have procedures but will deviate from a previously agreed-to national standard. The result: motor carriers under similar circumstances will not be given the same safety rating in one jurisdiction as they will in another. The report was to have been discussed Sept 21-22, 2000, at a meeting of government administrators and industry in Toronto.
According to David Bradley, chief executive officer of the Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA), "Our preliminary reading of the report confirms what CTA has been saying for years about the potential for different and inconsistent safety ratings systems across the country. But more than that, it underscores a chronic weakness in our Made-In-Canada approach to developing national safety standards through the Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators."
