“It is time to end the danger posed by illegal immigrant and foreign national truck drivers who are not capable of safely operating an 18-wheel commercial vehicle or, in many cases, understanding English language warning signs and road instructions,” Van Duyne said in a news release.

Among those falling under the bill’s definition of “ineligible foreign nationals” are apparently Canadian commercial drivers because it proposes to remove the licensing reciprocity agreement the United States has with foreign countries.

Currently the only countries to have such agreements with the U.S. are Canada and Mexico.

The bill goes on to require any non-resident holder of a state-issued commercial driver’s license to prove residency in that state.

It would seem that this would prevent Canadian drivers from entering the U.S. with a Canadian licence or obtaining a recognized U.S. licence, meaning only U.S. drivers could handle cross-border freight hauls with Canadian carriers effectively shut out.

This is how Section 3 of the proposed bill describes it: “Not later than six months after the date of enactment of this aAct, the administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration shall take such actions as are necessary to terminate any existing reciprocity agreements that recognize foreign commercial driver’s licenses in the United States or permit holders of foreign commercial driver’s licenses (CDL) to operate a commercial motor vehicle in the United States, unless expressly authorized by statute.”

Reciprocity for Canadian CDLs stems from a notice published in the FMCSA Register as of May 1989.

The U.S. government shutdown at the time of writing made it impossible to get further comment for this article.

In her online press release, Van Duyne said the bill is in response to an immigration crackdown and a high-profile commercial motor vehicle collision that involved an immigrant driver.

That incident and another fatality crash have spurred a number of government actions in the U.S. aimed at immigrant drivers, including a rule that drivers must pass a roadside English proficiency exam by traffic officers or be placed out of service. In some cases, the truck can be impounded.

Van Duyne’s bill hasn’t yet passed, but if it did and reciprocity was terminated, the disruption to cross-border trade and Canadian commercial carriers would be enormous.

When contacted, a Canadian Trucking Alliance spokesperson said the bill hadn’t yet been brought to its attention and the organization would need time to study it before commenting.

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Every year authorities organize pop-up roadside inspections to check heavy trucks for safety violations. And although farm trucks and drivers get a variety of exemptions from some regulations commercial carriers must follow, passing a roadside safety inspection isn’t typically one of them.

So how do you get through a spot check and avoid a ticket — or worse?

The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) was set up several years ago to standardize equipment requirements and inspection procedures across Canada and the U.S. Most officers checking trucks will be certified by CVSA. Inspections will be carried out in a similar way no matter the province where they occur, although exact regulations and some exemptions vary a little.

“We have level one, two and three inspections,” CVSA roadside inspection specialist Jeremy Disbrow said during an information webinar in May. “A level one is we’re looking at driver credentials, their hours-of-service status, and it’s a complete vehicle inspection. It includes all the components underneath the vehicle as well. And it focuses also on cargo securement.

“A level two inspection involves everything except going underneath the vehicle. It’s called a walk-around inspection, basically. A level three is just a driver-only inspection.”

Farm truck drivers will usually be exempt from the hours-of-service regulation.

First impressions

The first step in acing a spot check inspection is to do a thorough daily pre-trip inspection on the truck before starting work. That ensures you find any defects before heading out onto the road — and repair them.

Officers doing inspections get an overall impression of a driver and truck pretty quickly. And first impressions are important, so having a clean, well-maintained truck will help.

“If you have your vehicle in order and you’re ready for the day, you’re likely to get a clean inspection,” Disbrow says. “Quite frankly, you can tell a lot within the first 30 seconds of interaction. A driver that seems to be prepared shows a level of professionalism.”

READ MORE: Driving a loaded grain truck

Drivers must make a written record of daily pre-trip inspections, but some farm truck drivers are exempt from needing to create a written report. For example, in Manitoba, the Commercial Vehicle Trip Inspection Regulation exempts a “two-axle or three-axle commercial vehicle or any trailer attached to it while being used primarily for the transportation of primary farm, forest or aquatic products if the driver or driver’s employer is the producer of the products.”

In Saskatchewan, only two- and three-axle farm trucks are exempt. Drivers of a farm semi will have to produce a written inspection report and show it to police when requested, according to the Saskatchewan Highway Patrol.

Them’s the brakes

One of the defects most commonly found at inspections is brake problems. Though nearly all modern heavy trucks with air brakes use automatic slack adjusters, some may not realize a driver still has a procedure to follow to ensure they are set correctly.

Making six full brake applications and holding them momentarily with system air pressure above 90 pounds per square inch is required for automatic slack adjusters to set up correctly. Failure to do this at the start of each day may mean push rod travel will exceed the maximum limit, putting brakes out of adjustment.

Making a full-service brake application and holding it for one minute to measure air loss is a key pre-trip test. Single-unit trucks cannot lose more than three p.s.i. in that time. Semi-trailer trucks with one trailer cannot lose more than four.

READ MORE: Truck is key piece in transport puzzle

There are other tests as well, such as ensuring the tractor protection valve closes at no less than 20 p.s.i. when the trailer lines are disconnected.

Farmers who’ve never had to take additional training to drive a Class 3 truck with air brakes may want to pick up a copy of their provincial air brake manual to ensure they understand the full test procedure, and make sure they know how the system works. Pre-trip regulations typically require a driver to have a reasonable working knowledge of the systems they’re checking.

“Last year the top out-of-service violation we had was for brakes,” Disbrow says. “Some of the other common violations were tires and lighting devices, things like that.”

Finally, even if you’re in a hurry and annoyed at the delay, curb your attitude when pulled into a roadside inspection. Being rude and abrasive won’t help you in the least.

“Something we look for is the professionalism of the driver and their attitude,” Matthew Austin of the Saskatchewan Highway Patrol said during the webinar. “That’s immediately noticeable as soon as we walk up and say hello. Things we’re looking for — do they have their proper documentation; do they know what documentation they’re giving us? Do they understand the expectations of the inspection? That all builds up to a good interaction during the inspection.

“The more organized the driver is, the smoother the inspection goes. It speeds it up.”

To find out more about CVSA inspections, visit the alliance website.

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The mandate, imposed by Ottawa to help curb the spread of the virus, has cost six Canadian trucking companies about 10 per cent of their international drivers, and many are hiking wages to lure new operators during what they said is the worst labour shortage they have experienced.

Within the next two weeks, consumers will see “there’s not as many choices on the shelves,” said Dan Einwechter, CEO of Challenger Motor Freight Inc in Cambridge, Ont.

“Eventually the prices will be passed on from the sellers of those products, because we’re passing on our increases to them,” he said.

Canada’s inflation rate hit a 30-year high of 4.8 per cent in December and economists said the vaccine mandate may contribute to keeping prices higher for longer. In the United States, inflation surged seven per cent on a year-on-year basis in December, the largest rise in nearly four decades.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who has championed vaccine requirements for federal employees, has resisted pressure from industry to delay or drop the mandate that was announced in November.

The vaccine requirement to enter Canada started on Jan. 15, and the one to enter the United States begins on Saturday.

Since more than two-thirds of the US$650 billion in goods traded annually between Canada and the United States travels on roads, truckers were deemed essential workers until now and traveled freely even when the border was closed for 20 months.

Trudeau defended the mandate on Wednesday, saying Canada was “aligned” with the United States, its largest trading partner.

“We will continue to make sure that we are getting what we need in Canada while, as always, putting the safety and health of Canadians as our top priority,” Trudeau said.

As many as 32,000, or 20 per cent, of the 160,000 Canadian and American cross-border truck drivers may be taken off the roads by the mandate, the Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA) estimates. The industry was short some 18,000 drivers even before the mandate, CTA said.

“We raised our base rate for cross-border drivers effective Jan. 1 by almost 20 per cent… and it didn’t gain us any drivers,” said Rob Penner, CEO of Winnipeg-based Bison Transport. “There’s more freight than there is people right now.”

Canada’s transport ministry said in a statement the measure was not negatively affecting the supply of goods, while cross-border truck traffic had not varied significantly since the mandate came into effect.

Bad timing

The six executives who manage nearly 9,200 trucks between their companies and have a combined 173 years in the industry say strong demand for freight during a labour shortage will inevitably translate into higher prices for consumers.

“We’ve been oversold by five or 10 per cent, depending on the day, for the last four or five months … The timing of all this couldn’t have been worse,” said Mark Seymour, CEO of Kriska Transportation Group in Prescott, Ont.

Canadian firms see labour shortages intensifying and wage pressures increasing, according to a Bank of Canada survey released on Monday. Investors increasingly expect the central bank to raise interest rates next week for the first time since 2018.

Fresh foods are particularly sensitive to freight problems because they expire rapidly, though all imports from the U.S. could be affected, the trucking managers said.

“We have to move the milk, we have to move food. But the rates are going to be much higher,” said Doug Sutherland, president of Sutherland Group Enterprises in Salmo, B.C.

“Inflation is going to be the biggest impact of what’s going on here.”

— Reporting for Reuters by Steve Scherer in Ottawa; additional reporting by David Ljunggren.

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Canadian truck drivers who aren’t vaccinated may enter Canada by right — but starting Saturday (Jan. 15), unvaccinated Canadian drivers will need to meet requirements for pre-entry, arrival and Day 8 testing, as well as quarantine requirements, Canada’s federal health, transport and public safety ministers said in a joint statement Thursday.

However, also starting Jan. 15, unvaccinated or partially vaccinated foreign national truck drivers who try to enter Canada from the U.S. by land will be directed back to the United States, the ministers said.

Information released late Wednesday suggesting any exemptions from the new requirements would be granted to unvaccinated truckers was “provided in error,” the ministers said Thursday. The rules taking effect Saturday, as announced Nov. 19, have “not changed.”

The United States has signaled, without providing details, that foreign truck drivers will have to show proof of inoculation to enter the United States starting on Jan. 22.

So if both countries keep their respective bans on unvaccinated foreign drivers, thousands will be taken off the roads, creating the first policy measure since the pandemic began that could limit cross-border trucking traffic.

Canada’s rules “will prevent (unvaccinated) U.S. drivers from entering Canada, and our proposed rules will prevent unvaccinated Canadians from entering the U.S.,” said Bob Costello, a senior vice-president and the chief economist at the American Trucking Associations (ATA).

Costello said he fully expects both countries to enforce the mandates, but he urged “leaders in Ottawa and Washington to reconsider these mandates so we can avoid any further economic disruptions.”

“We’re asking both countries to work together to remove their foreign national (vaccine) mandate and look for a better date to put this in place,” CTA CEO Stephen Laskowski told Reuters.

The trucking industry carries more than two-thirds of the $650 billion in goods traded annually between Canada and the United States.

The CTA estimates 10-20 per cent, or between 12,000-22,000 of Canadian truck drivers, and 40 per cent, or some 16,000, of U.S. truck drivers traveling into Canada would be sidelined by mandates.

Supply chain disruptions drove Canada’s headline inflation to an 18-year high in November, and the Bank of Canada has signaled that it could raise interest rates to counter rising prices as soon as April.

In the United States, inflation rose at its fastest pace year-to-year in nearly four decades in December.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday blocked President Joe Biden’s pandemic-related vaccination-or-testing mandate for large businesses, including for trucking companies with more than 100 employees. But that is a separate measure from the border requirement due to take effect later this month.

Both the ATA and the CTA argue that the nature of trucking means that drivers stay mostly isolated from the general public, and that has meant low coronavirus infection rates among drivers.

Canada’s border agency and the ministry of public safety, which oversees the border, did not comment when asked about potential exemptions for foreign drivers.

The White House declined to immediately comment.

— Steve Scherer is a Reuters correspondent in Ottawa; David Shepardson reports on the U.S. transport sector for Reuters from Washington, D.C.

CLARIFICATION, Jan. 13: This article has been changed to clarify that Canadian truck drivers returning to Canada from the U.S. may still enter Canada, vaccinated or not.

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