The problem with Canada in my opinion is that its a really nice place to live on the most part, there’s loads of room, only the cities are congested, most places are very safe etc. Canada is all that you expect it to be…until you come to the job. Working in Canada as a truck driver is a thankless task unless you’re exceptionally lucky. Most of it is based on mileage pay which is where the problem is. Getting paid by the mile is no good when in some cases you will wait by the hour, or even by the day, all of time while you’re cost of living remains the same. Your rent or mortgage doesn’t stop because your wheels stop turning, your food costs the same, your car payments and everything else so you either have to run bent to make up time (an option that’s on borrowed time due to the mass take up of electronic log books) or you just don’t go home when you want to, but instead turn around and head down the road again, hoping for better luck this trip. After a few months of this you’ll get entirely fed up of working that way and either jack in and return to the UK or stick it out until you get PR.
Once you’ve got PR your options will entirely depend on where you live. Myself for example, I’m in New Brunswick, which is the most yee-haw province in Canada for running bent, poor wages and a generally atrocious working conditions and even though I’ve had my PR since 2011, my options in the province for earning money and having a life are extremely limited. I was doing a local Maritimes only job in late 2011, which I really enjoyed and the company were actually good to work for in themselves, but they just didn’t have the work/miles to make it pay so I had to move on, back to long haul work again. This is why places such as AB and MB are generally better. There seems to be a better set of working conditions there and there is also a bigger pool of local jobs for when you do have PR, that unlike NB, pay more than the minimum wage. I’m only still here because I’m engaged to a local girl and I do really like living in the area outside of the job. Though moving away in the future is definitely a strong possibility, I just don’t want to drag her to another part of Canada, only for me to disappear down the road for weeks at a time again while she’s left home alone in a new and strange place but if that’s what we’ve got to do to have a decent standard of living then we’ll do it in due course.
As for taking companies to court here, nothing will ever come of it. It happened a lot here in NB that a cowboy company would bring in a load of Brits, Irish, Dutch or Germans, who they’d shaft. I remember on numerous occasions the Germans getting very upset about it and taking the company to the labour board…it always got threw out because as truck drivers we have remarkably few rights, if any. Canada is a civilised country, but not for truck drivers. Its odd because by the public at large we get treat better, we have wonderful facilities compared to the UK and Europe but legally we don’t have a leg to stand on and that’s where working in the UK wins every time. I love living in Canada, I love living in New Brunswick but despite all the bad bits about driving in the UK, I do miss the predictability of my working hours and wages. I knew that when I went to work on a Sunday afternoon or Monday morning, I’d be home by Friday or Saturday morning at the latest and I’d earn a set wage. Here you could be away for a week on two different occasions, one time you’d get 5500km and another time you may only get 3000km. You’re away from your loved ones for the same amount of time, yet you could possibly earn 50% less one week through no fault of your own.
All of this can of course be minimised by carefully choosing your company, the type of work they engage in and indeed where they are located so just because you move to Canada it doesn’t mean its all doom and gloom being a truck driver, but if you do end up in a bad firm in Canada, in my opinion its far worse than being in a bad firm in the UK where if they don’t abide by the law, which in itself is far more geared towards the worker, you really can stand up for yourself.
Like I say, choose your province wisely, especially if coming with a family. Then choose your job just as wisely so that the time spent waiting for PR isn’t spent in misery and then once you have PR you’ll have the option of other work if you chose the right location and you’ll be alright. But, absolutely never believe what a company says on its recruitment page, in job adverts or emails. The only way you can really get an idea of what a company is like to work for is to talk to drivers who are actually there or have worked there and if you cant do that then choose somewhere where there are plenty of other companies around so that if things dont work out, you’re not stuck in a one horse town in the middle of nowhere.
