Come to canada ....oops sorry we are full!

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS EX-PAT BRITISH TRUCKERS (INTERACTIVE)
1

Well its looking like the Balloons bust ,tougher rules for unskilled & semi skilled coming in later this yr, Companies having to pay for LMOs,prove that they cant find Canadians to train/training schemes and what steps they are taking to offer employment to out of work Canadians in other provinces.!
this was on breakfast news ,and in globe and mail newspaper and to be formally announced by MPs this week.
seems it rattled a few cages when the RBC tried to dump Canadians and had them employing TWPs in there place

recon anyone wanting tae come get your finger out…looks like certain firms with revolving doors might have to start treating drivers better.
jimmy

2

i aint coming dont like mossies… the rest of it does look good mind …wales is ok for me now…

3

I dont think I’m too far off the mark in saying that the massive influx of foreign drivers in to Canada is a main factor in the job here remaining what it is and not improving and moving forward with the times. Getting paid by the mile, but often waiting by the hour or even day for loads and earning nothing is ridiculous and why no Canadians want to do the job, especially when you factor in that for the privillege they’ll also have to be away from their loved ones for weeks on end. Infact I know a few Canadians who paid a huge sum of money for their licences and no company will touch them because they dont have two years experience, yet the very same cmopanies are 60% or more made up of British, Irish, Dutch, German, Polish, Romanian, Bulgarian, Russian, Latvian etc etc etc drivers, while they wont touch their own people because its cheaper and more convenient to import the finished product (a qualified driver from Europe) than it is to invest in their own local population. Exactly the same thing as what happened in the 2000s in the UK with the influx of Poles and others who had licences and x amount of years experience, they got work and young British lads got a door slammed in their face.
I’m greatful for being able to come to this country but it also ■■■■■■ me off that I’m part of the problem in my own small way in helping keep the industry the way it is and I know full well that if I ever want a life outside of work or to be paid for my time at work, and not merely by the miles thrown at me then I’ll be replaced in a heart beat by the next convenient foreign source of drivers, which at the moment seems to be Russia and the Ukraine for NB firms.

4

robinhood_1984:
I dont think I’m too far off the mark in saying that the massive influx of foreign drivers in to Canada is a main factor in the job here remaining what it is and not improving and moving forward with the times. Getting paid by the mile, but often waiting by the hour or even day for loads and earning nothing is ridiculous and why no Canadians want to do the job, especially when you factor in that for the privillege they’ll also have to be away from their loved ones for weeks on end. Infact I know a few Canadians who paid a huge sum of money for their licences and no company will touch them because they dont have two years experience, yet the very same cmopanies are 60% or more made up of British, Irish, Dutch, German, Polish, Romanian, Bulgarian, Russian, Latvian etc etc etc drivers, while they wont touch their own people because its cheaper and more convenient to import the finished product (a qualified driver from Europe) than it is to invest in their own local population. Exactly the same thing as what happened in the 2000s in the UK with the influx of Poles and others who had licences and x amount of years experience, they got work and young British lads got a door slammed in their face.
I’m greatful for being able to come to this country but it also ■■■■■■ me off that I’m part of the problem in my own small way in helping keep the industry the way it is and I know full well that if I ever want a life outside of work or to be paid for my time at work, and not merely by the miles thrown at me then I’ll be replaced in a heart beat by the next convenient foreign source of drivers, which at the moment seems to be Russia and the Ukraine for NB firms.

All of which seems to miss the point that North American conditions in regards to being paid by the mile were there long before the Canadian job market opened up to foreign drivers probably because at that time it worked just fine and that’s how North American drivers wanted it.

The real problem seems to be that they’ve gone from one extreme of not letting in British drivers to the other of letting in drivers from anywhere.In which case instead of just adding a few more ethnic Brits to an already ethnic Brit colony they’ve now zb’d it up for everyone to the point where it looks like they’re going back to how it was the 1980’s in Canada and still is ( on paper ) in the US,at least for UK drivers.

Just wait until things reach the point where all driving jobs occupied by foreign drivers there have to remain advertised in case a Canadian wants the job in which case the foreign driver has to go home assuming they can even get a work permit to start with.Possibly even to apply retrospectively to those already granted permanent residency. :open_mouth: :unamused:

If only the Brit government was as tough on immigrant workers as the North American ones have been in regard to Brits over the years.

By the way what happened to the great Canadian driver shortage. :confused: :unamused: :laughing:

5

As i was told by many cradle Canadians there is no driver shortage just a shortage of welll paid driving jobs,
a local firm to me is mostly foreign drivers ,warehouse ,some office as well …is it a bad job no it is actually a very reasonable driving job 5 day wk wkends off ,so why no Canadians■■?
answer is its on the fringe of the oil fields so all the locals are there earning silly money.and strangely the company says the foreign employees are more loyal and dont jump jobs every 6months for a cent a mile extra.
Southern irish drivers over here coming in droves .
and yup carryfast many many folk out here in the boonies say the same as you why is it so hard for uk drivers ? and why is it easier for many sub continent drivers !!
after the government bringing in the IELTS exam ,(you must do an english speaking,talking,writting exam)for unskilled/semi skilled workers even though you are born ,an bred and your only language is English in, i thought the writting was on the wall.
Ok its their country and their rules so you do it but it ■■■■■! imo. sorry folks just venting a little!
jimmy

6

It’s turning the clock back 10 years , or an attempt to stop the Taliban invasion . The latter comment was written in jest but the more I think about it the more I feel there could be more to this new judgement than maybe meets the eye .
I can only speak for Saskatchewan , but there is absolutely no reason why anyone who wants to work cannot find a decent paying job . Trouble is that a lot of Canadians involved in manual labour , construction (and related trucking ) etc have become accustomed to working all summer then claiming the equivalent of 90% of their wages on the pogey during the winter months . Typically the government looks at the figures without seeing the facts , or changing their policies to stop this practice , and so the easy target is to blame in influx of foreign workers for the lack of employment opportunities LOL , and excessive unemployment costs .
I’m sure that all the ExPats living here know guys like I have described , I even know of a few Brits who have pulled the same trick , workshy MF’s !
In this Province there is plenty of work to be found , and we have a pro-active immigration minister who last year put an end to certain immigrants abusing the system to bring in any and many distant relatives . There might be a slight hiccup with Federal policy for immigrants , but the fact remains that Saskatchewan does not have enough willing employees , let alone truck drivers to go around . Any new implementations will soon be relaxed .

7

The Brit drivers are the problem? I don’t think so, it’s the Canadian drivers who are fault here, in many areas too, not just wages :cry:

We came here and entered their world, a world where the wages are mileage based, so that a day’s work is dictated by the odometer and not the clock. A world where they’re happy to sit waiting for loads or while they’re broken down for SFA, then they go like the clappers running all hours to make up for lost time, forfeiting home time to meet the monthly mileage target their bills dictate they need to achieve :open_mouth:

Take a look at the average Canadian truck driver, they are as bad as the worst of the worse in the UK, scruffy, unwashed, uneducated slobs who look ten years older than their age from their long hours and poor diet :unamused:

They are prepared to drive with all kinds of defects and their remedy for a check engine warning light is a piece of black tape, they idle their engines 365 days a year and then spend an hour and a half progressive shifting through the box before reaching top speed to save fuel ffs :unamused:

A lot of trucking companies only fix or replace parts on their trucks and trailers when something is completely broken or when it goes in for it’s safety, something VOSA would have a big problem with, an MOT is not a diagnostic tool :bulb: Which is why VOSA go nuts if you fail an MOT. They’re very good at changing oil and filters and getting underneath with a grease gun, but they don’t do much apart from that :unamused:

Some of the cowboy practices out here were already a thing of the past when I started driving lorries 25yrs ago and back then most lorry drivers were speeding, running over their hours and driving poorly maintained lorries, yet that doesn’t compare to some of the antics this lot get up too :open_mouth:

In the five years and 800,000+miles I’ve done since I got here I’ve had one level one inspection (in a brand spanking new lorry) and two log book checks (which were both in the USA) so the risk of getting caught is almost non existent :unamused:

Luckily I don’t work for a company like that, I’m not going to lie and say I don’t get creative every now and then, but I do that to suit myself, it isn’t part of my job, but although I’m happy and I earn good money, I work a lot harder for it than I ever did when I was working in the UK and that’s because I’m following the example set by the Canadian drivers :bulb:

Immigration is another story, the hoops I’m jumping through at the moment are ridiculous. I truly believe that their is a two tier system, one for Brits and another, far easier way for everyone else :unamused:

8

Good points there but on both sides of the pond the problem is the job doesnt attract enough new blood.
How many drivers do you see under 40 compared to over 40?
My firm here had a cull of drivers last week and are getting plenty of people through the gate but in the words of my boss there screwdrivers not lorry drivers.
They pay decent money for the job we do and compared to other local firms.
Theres not a driver shortage just a decent driver shortage.

9

kr79:
Theres not a driver shortage just a decent driver shortage.

I agree with that, but there’s a reason young blood isn’t attracted to the industry, there’s also a shortage of decent jobs :bulb:

10

It would seem that the issues facing the Canadian trucking industry are no different from those effecting the rest of the western world really. There is and has been a shortage of new recruits entering the industry for years, there is no benefit to them entering. Many potential new civilian recruits where lured away in the IT crowd, and the ex forces ones in the UK where lured away by resettlement education which many before did not have.

It’s not unique to Canada it’s not unique to the USA either. I dare say the cpm system is the biggest negative for potential new drivers along with the non stop consistent moaning from both experienced and non experienced drivers. It’s hardly the biggest advert for their industry much as ■■■■ stained parking and sandwich box sized vehicles in Europe is.

Canada does have a shortage of drivers, the banding of not having a shortage but having a shortage of well paying jobs does not really wash. There was a shortage in the UK too, not now the employment market opened up mind and all that happened was people moaned and complained about it. Foreigners are always taking peoples jobs, the jobs that have remained unfilled by the native population because they deemed it below their standards. Unfortunately truck driving falls into that sector.

The IELTS is a good idea along with the proof of high school education to apply for PR. I feel it’s somewhat offensive to require a UK citizen to take an English test, but how many minority communities are there in the UK with non English speaking individuals. Some provinces do not require the English test i believe.

But be all and end all is, what does trucking in any country offer new recruits?

11

well looks like it may get harder for anyone thinking or looking at canada

12

I’m not saying British or any other foreign group of drivers are the problem, but in my opinion our presence and continual importation, wether it be British, Indian or Russian is only re-enforcing the status-quo in the industry and while many jobs in Canada, certainly a vast majority of the ones in the Maritimes are reflected in what NMM says above. Canadian companies need to be made to move with the times when it comes to drivers wages and conditions and indeed maintenance, they will not do it voluntarily. I wouldn’t like to see an end to foreign drivers coming in as I do think that in most cases British and western European drivers get the job done with less fuss and in a much more efficient manner purely because of how we’ve had to work in Europe before we came here but on the same token a constant influx of foreigners to these cowboy companies is nothing more than feeding the water wheel so things never need to change and the wheel continues to go merrily around.

13

when i sold my trucks in 2000 went and did a few days for a pretty good agency paid £9 per hour hauling steel… saw recently they are still paying same money trouble was all the immigrants kept the rate down same will always happen where ever if too many people available to fill the jobs…

14

Pay rates have not really gone up on this continent in all the time I have lived here, companies back then advertised ‘Earn $45k to $55k a year’ and thats what they advertise now. The only way it seems to increase your income is to move on to another job. My old company still has the guys earning a average of $45k pa. My wage has actually risen slightly in the 6 years I have worked there from $64k pa to at the end of last year $71k (this is of course US dollars) and it may sound a lot but the cost of living in this country has gone up by about 50% since comming here so it’s a struggle to live sometimes. I am in the position of never using any credit card of any sort and never will, if I can’t afford to buy it outright I don’t buy it, with the exception of the car and mortgage of course.

15

newmercman:
The Brit drivers are the problem? I don’t think so, it’s the Canadian drivers who are fault here, in many areas too, not just wages :cry:

We came here and entered their world, a world where the wages are mileage based, so that a day’s work is dictated by the odometer and not the clock. A world where they’re happy to sit waiting for loads or while they’re broken down for SFA, then they go like the clappers running all hours to make up for lost time, forfeiting home time to meet the monthly mileage target their bills dictate they need to achieve :open_mouth:

Take a look at the average Canadian truck driver, they are as bad as the worst of the worse in the UK, scruffy, unwashed, uneducated slobs who look ten years older than their age from their long hours and poor diet :unamused:

They are prepared to drive with all kinds of defects and their remedy for a check engine warning light is a piece of black tape, they idle their engines 365 days a year and then spend an hour and a half progressive shifting through the box before reaching top speed to save fuel ffs :unamused:

A lot of trucking companies only fix or replace parts on their trucks and trailers when something is completely broken or when it goes in for it’s safety, something VOSA would have a big problem with, an MOT is not a diagnostic tool :bulb: Which is why VOSA go nuts if you fail an MOT. They’re very good at changing oil and filters and getting underneath with a grease gun, but they don’t do much apart from that :unamused:

The fact is all of that’s a reasonable assumption considering that it’s probably just a reflection of what has been shown to work there over the years.Maybe it doesn’t seem to work so well now for whatever reason maybe for reasons like less reliable trucks and less loads to move over less miles and higher fuel costs etc etc.

But I doubt that introducing euro ideas like VOSA’s draconian approach on everything from small vehicle faults found on route to tachographs and euro hours regs,truck specs and speed limiters set at 90 kmh and changing from mileage to hourly based pay,will make much difference as the breakdowns and waiting time will still be there and the resulting lost mileage will still need to be accounted for which,just like here,is how the operator actually gets paid for the job in most cases.

As for idling trucks 365 days a year it’s always going to be the best way to keep the thing warm enough to live in and to keep the engine turning during a North American winter.Which just leaves the issue finding a better way to run the air con during a North American summer especially considering the heat and humidity on the Eastern side of the continent, while it’s parked up somewhere waiting for a load. :smiling_imp: :laughing: :laughing:

16

Just a pointer what the Dot are like …ive been pulled a good few times on logbook checks ,never a prob,a couple of #2s on Saturday mornings coming back into Canada at the scale at Emerson no prob…fast forward a couple o yrs to hauling aggregate a #2 inspection on my old girl at Lowe farm…what did i get …soft tyre (10 new fitted the night before DUh blew it up with my hose ,valve needed tightned),now the biggie…on my 2nd trailer rear axle , two wheel studs did not show 2threads above the wheelnut lol
Gave our mechanic the Dot ticket lol hehe …they had to find something on a 12yrs old truck curses curse ,
action taken to resolve the thread problem■■? Answer is take out the spacer between the wheels ,took our fitter more time to fill out/return paperwork to DOT than sort the so called problem.
NB.notice no mention of my half ton overweight ticket ,but was 2ton under weight… mutter .mutter.
jimmy

17

The problem is not so much the actual ticket you get but the damm CSA points you now get that stay on your record for 3 years. I got fuel at a Pilot near Albany NY one day about 2 years back and did the usual walk round as I filled up, everything was fine, then I got pulled in to Clifton Park DOT check 20 minutes later, my inside, lead drive tyre was going down and you could hear the hiss of air. I got a ticket for under inflated tyre even though it had obviously just picked up a bolt seconds before the check. I appealed to Clifton Park court and explained the situation, they threw the ticket out much to my relief but the 9 CSA points stay on my licence regardless of what happened in the court, so even though you passed the ticket to your mechanics it’s you that gets the CSA points matey.
One of our drivers was struck by a Swift truck in a truck stop during Christmas week, he had parked and was inside the building then came out to find the front ripped off his truck, the other driver was charged with reckless driving and our driver was not charged, last month he found out he was given 12 CSA collision points even though it was not his fault, the appeal proccess is terrible and it takes months to even get a response.

18

DOT toughness can vary fron state to state. Vermont used to be great if you wanted to run bent but now is one of the toughest. PA is renowned for having very strict DOT. MA is about the softest I have met.

19

Ahh im not sure on this but we do not have a US DOT number and do not run interstate ,only Canadian provincial (manitoba)only.
Someone told me that CSA score only affects cross border(interstate) companies .but as i am waiting on my drivers abstract for this yrs licence check i will see what it says.and ask about csa scores :wink:
jimmy.

20

The CSA points don’t show on your licence record, just the DOT records. I am not sure how it exactly works but I know that on my company for instance when you reach over 25 points you are in big trouble.