MR. CHAIRMAN: Honourable members, we will begin our Economic Development Committee meeting this afternoon. I would like to introduce, on behalf of the Truckers Association of Nova Scotia, to my right, the President, Earle Germaine, and he is accompanied by the former Executive Director and now Office Manager, Dave Roberts. Dave lives in Truro and Earle, I believe, in the New Glasgow area. So if we could perhaps go around the table, so to speak, introducing ourselves and our constituency, then we will begin.
[The committee members introduced themselves.]
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, committee members. I understand that the President, Mr. Germaine, will be making a presentation on behalf of the Truckers Association of Nova Scotia and then we will open it up, as per protocol, to questions and answers. So, Earle, if you would like to begin.
MR. EARLE GERMAINE: Should I begin before the other boys arrive?
MR. CHAIRMAN: How many more do you have, Mr. Germaine?
MR. GERMAINE: One of our directors, Brian Smith, and Brady Hennigar, but if you want to go, we can go without . . .
MR. CHAIRMAN: What is the committee's wish, do you want to wait? Were you talking to them recently, Earle?
MR. GERMAINE: They were supposed to be here before us. Anyway, we can go with it; they can interrupt us.
I guess the reason for this presentation is that the Truckers Association of Nova Scotia got listed in the Auditor General's Report and it didn't look too favorable. The report states, "The hiring of trucks for road construction and maintenance does not comply with the spirit of the Government's Procurement Policy and results in higher costs to the Department.". The fact is there is no formal value on what we have done. It is all up in the air. There is nothing there that the figures add up here, there is no proof to back it up.
"The rates paid to the members of the Truckers Association of Nova Scotia are above market rates and, in our view, represent a subsidy from government to truckers.". What is the definition of the market, or where do they define the rates?
It is our privilege to supply information about our association, on the benefits and the professionalism it maintains and any misconceptions that have arisen in the report and through the media.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Germaine, just before you continue, I want to advise you and committee members that Darlene has been kind enough to advise us that we will be subjected to some noise here and even the smell of burning rubber may be present from time to time, so it is not the tires burning. I don't want anybody to be alarmed, but I should inform all committee members and the presenter. So, Mr. Germaine, hopefully there will be no more interruptions.
MR. GERMAINE: The Truckers Association of Nova Scotia has a database of approximately 900 members in 21 separate associations, including the vast majority living in the rural communities. Our goal is to provide a fair and equitable system of dispatching trucks on tendered construction roadwork in compliance with Manual 23 of the Department of Transportation's fair hiring policy. This policy contains a clause known as the 80/20 rule which stipulates that any contractor awarded a tender must employ 80 per cent of the local association trucks in their contract. In doing so, our association removes any form of patronage which has been prevalent in the past. Each county has a log available to every member, so we provide a fair dispatch to them.
The policy that was in effect way back, it dated back to the early 1920's, when the government changed, everybody worked their horses and their scoop trams and everything like that. If they were on the right side of politics and somebody had two horses more than the other fellow, and it took 50 years to change it and we did change it. We took the politics out of the trucking back in the county that I am from, Pictou County, back in the late 1970's and we formed our own dispatch system which is mirrored much over the whole association now. We have adopted rules that are democratic, the majority votes and we ensure fairness in all parts.
The Auditor General explains that the conception of the 80/20 rule and the costs have escalated due to the agreement. No formal studies to provide any proof and we question the validity once we see the Auditor General's Report. He states, ice and snow removal, $29 million in the budget. Hey, nice figure, but if we go back into the Legislature, last year we see Mr. Huskilson stating $33.3 million. Well, there is $4 million there. Now he is tabling one thing and the Auditor General is saying something else.
This study does not include the fact that our industry also includes major trucking companies that are able to undercut the existing and already low rates by using construction vehicles to offset their own trucking industry. They might be in the food business or the oil business, et cetera.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Do you want to take a break, Mr. Germaine, and let your colleagues perhaps take their places there? Mr. Germaine, if you want to introduce them or they can introduce themselves.
MR. BRIAN SMITH: I am an executive with the Truckers Association of Nova Scotia.
MR. BRADY HENNIGAR: I am part of the executive of TANS and President of the Lunenburg County association.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Good afternoon and welcome, gentlemen. I guess the freezing rain probably played a part in your late arrival.
MR. GERMAINE: The study by the Department of Transportation, which we have seen, says that they pay a higher market rate for trucking than other provinces. Well, that is fiction to begin with. We look at the department and we see a budget of $239 million. What about the excessive wages? Of that $239 million budget, $75.8 million are in salaries and $3.2 million in travel expenses. This reflects 33.3 per cent of the budget. Our members currently receive $39 an hour for a dump truck that costs $100,000, yet we are sitting around here, and the very fellow that is writing this receives 31.5 cents per kilometre for his car. If he drives 110 kilometres, he has $34.65 an hour for his car and he is telling us that we are paid too much. I guess we are left with $5.35 for wages for ourselves but we are not talking about his $100,000 salary and one-fifth the cost; one-fifth the cost would be the $20,000 car versus the $100,000 truck; the $100 tire versus the $500 tire; and we are too much? There is a whole scenario here. I guess sometimes you feel like the little guy is getting picked on here.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Germaine, and members of the Truckers Association of Nova Scotia, we are now being joined by MLA Kerry Morash from Queens County - good afternoon, Kerry - and David Hendsbee from the constituency of Preston.
Mr. Germaine, could I just ask you one question regarding your presentation? We are trying to follow along a little bit with the presentation that you handed out and you also have some other information there you are ad libbing and winging; but you are going to stick to the text for the presentation, not that you have to, but I mean we were just trying to follow along as best we can.
MR. GERMAINE: I am hard to follow by times.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, I am just wondering where you are with this one. When you happen to get back to it, we would appreciate if you would let us know what page you are on. Thanks a lot.
MR. GERMAINE: We are on Page 4 now I guess. Okay, we can keep the text and do it afterwards.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, thank you.
MR. GERMAINE: In our opinion, it is our general membership who set the market rate, not the large contractor or the fleet owner. Our membership is mainly single owner-operators of small family businesses trying to make a living in this province. Since many of them are self-employed, you do not find them sucking the social programs dry. They are not allowed to draw EI funds and they must use their own talents to maintain an income over the winter season. Some drive school buses or sit in major line-ups waiting for a load of winter road salt. We have asked for a cost comparison of our members to the true costs of the department vehicles, but have not yet received one. Once again, it is our opinion that it is far more beneficial to use TANS vehicles over all the department vehicles.
There are municipalities receiving lower rates for winter salt. Once again, TANS has requested that each ton of salt be monitored to find the discrepancy in tonnage hauled to tonnage received, per municipality. There are individuals who will be allowed to leave this mine over their legal weight limits while our members hauling department road salt carry legal loads only. In doing so, anyone hauling over weight can provide a lower cost to the municipality and maintain a smaller profit margin; ask the former owner of the Lady Wentworth garage, or the church in Wallace where they used to dump the extra weight off before heading to the provincial scale to alleviate the expense of a fine.
Our members are required to maintain complete compliance with provincial rules and regulations in order to haul on government tender work. It is through our association's goal of being proactive in the trucking industry that maintains the high standards within the province. Each member must be certified through the Nova Scotia Construction Safety Association or the new Nova Scotia Trucking Safety Association. Each member is forced to be in good standing with the Workers' Compensation Board.
In keeping with the current issues, our association has gained a voice to table the concerns of the independent truckers to the government and contractors. This has led to the monthly meetings granted the association, as the concerns were, and still are, many. It was through these meetings that the local truckers association representatives were invited to pre-job meetings, which they should have attended since their beginning. The report suggests that our association brings the level playing field to the industry, especially in the rural areas of the province. It not only benefits the truckers but also the small contractors, who could not compete with larger, more predominant ones within the province.
Another major concern in this report is the significant amount of administration required by the department to address the 80/20 rule. The department has allowed monthly meetings to assist in maintaining the fairness of the 80/20 ruling. Nowhere does it say the meetings are being held because the contractors constantly try to undermine the independent trucker and that TANS was not allowed to intercede directly to the contractor. We would like nothing better than to fight our own battles but, unfortunately, other people bring the department into the mix.
The Auditor General believes that the 80/20 rule is a subsidy to TANS members. This rule has been in effect for many years and represents the fairness in the industry, not a subsidy. He also states, "We do not offer an opinion on it.". This strikes us as very curious as we have felt his concerns over two pages of no opinion in his report. After careful consideration in regard to the report, we have assessed many of the budgets presented to the Auditor General's Department and were included in his report. Our findings do not correspond to the numbers forwarded to the Auditor General and it seems to be inconsistent with his results. We have to question the validity of these overestimated figures which reflect on our credibility as a professional entity.
The audit criteria is one that can be adopted to conform with our association and should not be altered. The Auditor General states there should be a clear understanding and agreement of rules of the program. There should be a full understanding of the benefits and costs of this program. There should be an appropriate compliance with the procurement policy of government. If these rules, costs and benefits of this program are clear, inconsistency and conflicts would be greatly reduced. If the conflicts are reduced, the media plays a lesser role and we believe that bad, poorly researched press and internal problems have contributed to this report.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Does Mr. Smith or Mr. Hennigar have some comments they wish to make before we ask a few questions?
MR. BRIAN SMITH: No, we will follow, Mr. Chairman, when the comments . . .
MR. CHAIRMAN: Have you concluded, Mr. Germaine?
MR. GERMAINE: I have concluded that, but if you want to put some questions to me, I am free to go with them and I will give you some answers.
MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Colchester North.
MR. WILLIAM LANGILLE: Mr. Germaine, on Page 4 of your presentation you state that the Department of Transportation did a study, which you have never seen, that determines that the pay is higher than the other provinces. Have you ever requested a copy of that report?
MR. GERMAINE: We have requested a copy of that report. We have requested a copy of contracts that have been done that we cannot find the contracts for. We have requested the cost on trucks and the cost of their trucks versus ours. We can never seem to get that.
MR. LANGILLE: When was the report completed?
MR. GERMAINE: Which report?
MR. LANGILLE: The report that I am referring to.
MR. GERMAINE: It is the Auditor General's report that we are speaking of.
MR. LANGILLE: I understood it was the report from the Department of Transportation. It is on Page 4 of your presentation, "A Study by the Department of Transportation, which we have never seen, determines that they pay higher market trucking rates than other provinces.".
MR. GERMAINE: We have never seen it.
MR. LANGILLE: But that report comes from the Department of Transportation?
MR. GERMAINE: Yes.
MR. LANGILLE: But you know that a report exists?
MR. GERMAINE: Yes.
MR. LANGILLE: Do you know when it was completed? Are we talking a year or two years ago?
MR. GERMAINE: We have no idea when it was. We haven't got a copy of it.
MR. LANGILLE: Do you know if the Auditor General has a copy of it?
MR. GERMAINE: We presume he has.
MR. LANGILLE: By the statements he made?
MR. GERMAINE: That's correct.
MR. LANGILLE: What is the going rate for a truck? I think you said $30-some?
MR. GERMAINE: It is $39.
MR. LANGILLE: Now is that single axle or . . .
MR. GERMAINE: That is a tandem axle dump truck and $13 an axle after that if you are going into trailers.
MR. LANGILLE: Have you ever checked to see what the rates are in the other nine provinces?
MR. GERMAINE: I certainly have.
MR. LANGILLE: What are they?
MR. GERMAINE: Substantially higher than here.
MR. LANGILLE: So what you are saying is that what is in the Auditor General's Report is wrong.
MR. GERMAINE: That is why I am here.
MR. LANGILLE: On the scale of the truckers.
MR. GERMAINE: That is correct.
MR. LANGILLE: Wages per hour?
MR. GERMAINE: It is consistently inconsistent when you pick it apart.
MR. BRIAN SMITH: Our rate on the pipeline for the summer was $55 an hour. In the end, it ended up being $63. There were no questions asked, $55 was the rate and they paid it and at the end we got a bonus of $8.00 an hour.
MR. LANGILLE: Do you have the pay scale of the other provinces?
MR. GERMAINE: I haven't got it right here, no.
MR. LANGILLE: Can you give us the fluctuation of what they consist of? Do you have any idea?
MR. GERMAINE: It ranged between $40 and $55 an hour in the eastern provinces.
MR. LANGILLE: In the eastern provinces?
MR. GERMAINE: That is in the eastern provinces.
MR. LANGILLE: Okay. That's all for now. Thank you.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Just before we recognize the honourable member for Cape Breton West, the Auditor General does refer to that study in his report, the department study; it was carried out. Just for greater clarification for members, the Auditor General says, "The Department has conducted studies over the years and has determined that Nova Scotia generally pays higher trucking rates . . .". However, he cautions that, "First, there has been no quantitative analysis of the benefits and costs of the program. Without such analysis, it would be difficult to make knowledgable decisions about the continued operation of the program . . .". I just wanted to point that out for clarification, that there appears to be a study but the Auditor General points out that he has some concerns with the study, too.
The honourable member for Cape Breton West.
MR. RUSSELL MACKINNON: I would like to follow up on that particular point as well, because on Wednesday, January 19th, in response to a question by yourself, Mr. Chairman, as a member of the Public Accounts Committee, Mr. Alan Horgan, a representative from the Auditor General's Office, responded on this very issue. When challenged or questioned, I suppose would be a better term, by you on the validity of that particular study, comparing the various rates and wanting to have a better sense of what that study entailed, Mr. Horgan responded, "To my understanding of the study, I think to some extent you are right, it was not an overly thorough study, it was perhaps done in a summary level to some extent and that is why the department indicates that it is very much an imprecise figure . . .". So, I guess the point I am making is that I agree with the Truckers Association, that there is concern about the Auditor General's Report, the validity of making such a statement, because obviously when somebody would look at an Auditor General's Report, who would question the thoroughness because that is the responsibility of the Auditor General's Office.
[1:30 p.m.]
You made reference to the $34 million that was tabled in the House of Assembly by the Honourable Clifford Huskilson when he was Minister of Transportation. The fact of the matter is, in the Auditor General's Report quoting the $29 million it actually shows if you get into the analysis of it that by using the Truckers Association of Nova Scotia the province is saving money - by using a lot of these small mom-and-pop family-type businesses - because there is quite a difference between the operational maintenance rate and the capital construction rate, to the effect of almost 100 per cent if my information is correct.
What I am saying, Mr. Chairman, is that they are asking the private Truckers Association of Nova Scotia to operate for a fee of approximately $40 or $45 an hour when, in fact, their own department charges up against their own operations to the tune of $80 per hour. So, in effect, they are getting a better bargain by going with the private Truckers Association of Nova Scotia. Am I correct in that analysis?
MR. GERMAINE: You are quite correct; you are very correct.
MR. HENNIGAR: Mr. Chairman, Earle was with Dave Roberts, me and a couple of representatives with DOT, we had some concerns in Shelburne County last spring, and some of them went back to the year before about the Barrington By-pass and we actually gathered some information, and Earle did a bit of a study on it. I haven't got it with me, but we have all information relative to all of this either at our office in Truro on computer, or paper records at home. At that time, when we analyzed the number of tons of gravel that the department hauled in Shelburne County alone and worked it back, the number of hours they took, it worked out that it cost them $72 an hour to do it with their own trucks, compared to our $39.
MR. MACKINNON: My next question is with regard to this so-called departmental report that alleges that the cost is higher by applying the 80/20 rule, but yet no one has been able to see this particular report. I am quite concerned and I know that there is a working relationship between the Truckers Association of Nova Scotia and senior staff within the Department of Transportation and Public Works, the Engineering Division in particular. Has this issue ever been raised at your joint committee?
MR. GERMAINE: It has been raised many times, for costs and we were never able to ascertain anything. They were told, they are our trucks and we will do what we want with them.
MR. BRIAN SMITH: Mr. Chairman, what we have been told by senior staff at DOT is that they are emergency vehicles and they are kept for emergencies, and what has happened is they have turned to utilizing them year-round. That is why there are no proper figures on determining the cost, because the trucks are charged out at one rate and the labour is charged
out to something else. We can't pin a number down. The fact that they don't pay any tax on fuel, they don't pay any tax on anything, lowers their cost of the vehicle plus the operating costs. I think DOT wages right now are about $13.50 an hour for an operator, $13.92 plus the benefits, so you are looking at $16 or $17 an hour.
MR. MACKINNON: Mr. Chairman, I want to be clear on exactly what is being advised here today. Are you indicating that the Department of Transportation and Public Works officials have advised that they are not able to determine what their costs are?
MR. GERMAINE: Exactly, and it is right in the Auditor General's Report that they are not able to determine. They have 430 vehicles that they put out for plowing snow. It costs them $29 million for the ice, snow and salt control, yet they have four private vehicles in the Halifax area here - two sand trucks and two graders - and they haven't got a cost. They can't give us a direct cost on them in the report, yet they are looking after 430 vehicles. Where is the math, gentlemen? They can't look after four and yet they are telling us they have 430 to look after and they can't give us the cost of that and it is right in the Auditor General's Report at . . .
MR. MACKINNON: Page 166.
MR. GERMAINE: Yes.
MR. MACKINNON: Mr. Chairman, for the benefit of all members of the committee and you, in particular, and Mr. Langille who is also a member of the Public Accounts Committee, I believe with the Public Accounts Committee coming in tomorrow, we could take a few moments to request the Auditor General's office to provide us with a copy of that report, failing the fact that the Department of Transportation and Public Works have not been forthcoming with it. I think we all know the rules of the House and requirements for providing such pertinent information.
If I could, I have two more short snappers.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, go ahead, honourable member.
MR. MACKINNON: I don't want to hog it but it is so valuable. Would you be kind enough, Mr. Germaine, or any member of your organization, to indicate in some quantitative substance or term, or in evidence form, how the 80/20 rule has been a benefit across this province. I understand the importance of buying local and supporting local truckers associations and so on and not having the big ones like Nova and Dexter Construction, or someone like that, coming in and just swamping, taking a major contract, a multimillion dollar contract, bringing in all their men and their equipment and the local truckers and their operators sitting idly by at home while everything is happening in front of them. Could you give us something really substantive that we could understand?
MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, Mr. Hennigar. Mr. Hennigar did have his hand up there; go ahead.
MR. HENNIGAR: In the past, before the 80/20 rule was in place, before we had truckers associations in the province, we had a unique system which probably wasn't unique to Nova Scotia, probably unique to Canada - maybe not even unique to Canada - but you had a situation where, depending on which Party was in power, they picked the companies they wanted to construct the work. The company then, in turn, picked the people they wanted to haul the material.
I have had a truck since I was old enough to have a driver's license which is 20-some years now and when I was younger and I had my first truck, I got called once before the election to go to work, the day before the election, just so that they could say that they had called everybody in the district. That no longer happens. You now have a fair and equal rotation, as best as it can be done, for all the independent truckers who pay taxes to the province and the federal government. Before that, you had people paying tax who never got a bit of a chance back to earn any money from it. It was strictly a system - and I don't like to be political, but if you had a Conservative Government, the Conservative affiliates worked; if you had a Liberal Government, the Liberal affiliates worked; and we don't know what would have happened if we had an NDP Government, because we didn't. (Interruptions) That is my point. Now with the 80/20 rule, you have an equal sharing of the work and everybody for the most part is happy with it. We, like any organization, have our dissidents who wouldn't be happy if God himself came down and dispatched the trucks.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Germaine, a further comment on that?
MR. GERMAINE: The 80/20 rule also gives the contractor who is going to build a stretch of road a leg-up that he doesn't have to have. If he wants 60 trucks or if he wants 200, he can come in here, bid on the job and do it. He can make one call and he can get his 40 or 60 trucks he needs for the morning. A lot of times, by 2:00 p.m., I don't want him, go on home - it doesn't cost anything. He doesn't have to feed them, that is it, end of day. A lot of times we are treated very poorly and in that respect, it is a downfall to us.
When we were with the union this year, if they called us out to work, we got a minimum call-out if we didn't turn a wheel, of $60 an hour, $240. That is not so here. It is an upside for the contractor, it is a downside for us, in some aspects. We are just like a large parking lot for any contractor. We are available and we can supply. It is like the salt today, and we all know the weather we have had. If that was a private contractor, where is he going to find 240 trucks today? Is he going to make 240 calls? Where is he going to get them? That's the benefit to it. Thank you.
MR. CHAIRMAN: I believe Mr. Smith had a comment or two.
MR. BRIAN SMITH: What I see the 80/20 rule does, is put all the contractors on a level playing field in the province. They know when they go to an area that they must deal with the Truckers Association and that the Truckers Association is going to supply them with trucks. What it has also done, it has made us more business people. We have been able to forecast our work. We can pick out of the budget of the province and know that there is going to be x number of tons of gravel placed next year. We have 900 members; maybe 900 members is too many and yet it will right itself. But we are in 21 different geographical locations around the province and we are the bread and butter. The salt and the trucks that are hired out in the summertime to the different contractors, those guys are putting bread and butter on the table of their families. In the wintertime, what happens is, a load of salt or two loads of salt or three loads of salt is next week's payday.
MR. MACKINNON: One final question, Mr. Chairman. With regard to the weigh scales, is there any evidence or any suggestion that would support the fact that the 80/20 rule in fact has reduced, I wouldn't say that it has eliminated because we are dealing with human nature here, but has it in any way controlled or reduced the cheating of truckers who haul in excess of their allowable tonnage on the highways? I know it has been of great concern when Devco was in full flight in Cape Breton, hauling between Victoria Junction and Point Aconi, that many of the truckers felt they had to overload their trucks by as much as 20 per cent because they were being paid, essentially, on what one would refer to as on a commission basis. They just couldn't do it with the rates that they were being paid. So without a scale on the highway between those two destinations, the concern was raised, even after a number of accidents. Has the 80/20 rule been of benefit in that particular regard?
MR. DAVE ROBERTS : The honourable member must have been a trucker in a past life. He hit that one right on the nose.
MR. MACKINNON: No.
MR. GERMAINE: It has been of benefit when it comes to new construction of a highway or the hauling of salt for the Department of Transportation. There is a benefit there. But then you take this one step further, and this is a big can of worms you have opened here. You have the so-called blend sand that comes into the asphalt plants and at one time they used to set the asphalt plant where the source of the gravel was, but 80/20 not applying to the aggregates for the asphalt, it has now moved the plant onto the job and we don't have the jurisdiction of hauling the gravel in there. So the rate is cut anywhere from 20 per cent to 40 per cent, depending on the availability of the trucks at that time.
But the trucks that load that, 90 per cent of the time run excessively over weight. We have repeatedly - and it is in our minutes - asked, even if it is not given to us, that we can afford a weigher to weigh it and haul legal. Any given day, unless there are times where we had some blind weighers, you can catch them. The weigher comes, oops, stop, radio, weigh her, off the road, dump a little here, away you go. The same with the salt. At the Lady
Wentworth Restaurant, the Irving station there, there was a major sign up there: Anybody caught dumping salt will be fined; you have already ruined two wells. There was a church out the road, that is where they dumped it off. Human nature, you go in, you load your 20 per cent more and you dump it off.
MR. MACKINNON: So you got your full rate?
MR. GERMAINE: So you got your full rate.
MR. MACKINNON: But the owner did not get . . .
MR. GERMAINE: The owner did not get it, but he thought he saved money. The other day, the unfortunate accident down there with the pile of salt in the road, I scratched my head for a day or two until it came out on the highway because I figured there is somebody hauling to a town somewhere. Then I found out the geographical location of it and I was out of town when I heard about it. It turned out it wasn't one of our people or one of the trucks dumping a pile of salt to get from over weight. Any time you leave that salt mine you can find little piles of salt here, there, in driveways, that don't fall under the 80/20 rule; therefore, we will dump it off. Then the driver ends up with the same thing. Then we come back and say, oh, to private industry, look at the municipalities and they are paying cheaper. They are paying cheaper all right, but weigh it in the other end.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Germaine, just before we move on to the next question, I know the Auditor General's Report indicated that municipalities pay less for trucking than the province does. Now, you are indicating that part of the reason municipalities pay less is because the trucking companies are hauling more because they don't have to adhere to their registered weight or vehicle permit?
MR. GERMAINE: That is correct.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Just to go one step further, is it not true that some municipalities, in fact, are paying more than . . .
MR. GERMAINE: There are some that are paying more. Some of the reason they are paying more is they got across scales that are open all the time or they are open and closed for dumping the salt at the areas there. You are forced to go within the confines of when the department scales are open. We asked the mine manager, he was at one of these DOT meetings we have, we asked them not to let the trucks go out overweight and I believe his answer was - and some people will back me up on this - we are in the business of selling salt. That was the answer, we are in the business of selling salt. They don't care whether they are overweight or not.
MR. CHAIRMAN: With that maybe we will move along to the honourable member for Annapolis.
MR. FRANK CHIPMAN: Mr. Chairman, I have several questions I would like to ask here. You refer to a study. I am just looking at Section 9.6 of the Report from the Auditor General. It said the. ". . . study was conducted in 1994-95 to determine the cost of providing winter and summer road maintenance services, and the rate charged to municipalities was based on this study.". Is this a study you are referring to in your written report here to deal with the municipalities? Is there any confusion? Are there two reports, or two studies I should say? There is a so-called . . .
MR. GERMAINE: How can you tell when you cannot see them?
MR. CHIPMAN: Right, I realize that.
MR. GERMAINE: There could be 10.
MR. BRIAN SMITH: I believe that is probably the report where we lost our 20 per cent.
MR. CHIPMAN: Right. Anyway, this is the report which refers to the subsidy of the truckers. It says in Paragraph 9.8, "However, we were cautioned that the Department cannot be precise in these estimates, and that cost reductions might take a number of years to materialize if the hiring of trucks was open to competition.".
So the Auditor General in one sense is regarding it as a subsidy, but yet there are also cautioning that they cannot be precise in these estimates which, to me, is not a legitimate report. Anyway, they go on to refer to, "We expressed concern about the lack of formal analysis of the benefits and costs of paying above-market rates, and the lack of proper reporting of the subsidy in the Department's financial records.". Anyway, I find those reports, or the studies, the honourable member opposite me made a good point when he said that maybe something like this report, should be coming out at the Public Accounts Committee.
Anyway, when I first got elected, we were briefed by the Department of Transportation on road building. I was informed - I won't mention the individual's name - at least in my area that it cost $30,000 to ditch one kilometre of highway. Just on some quick arithmetic I said, well, you are looking at a backhoe is $40 an hour and a single axle truck is $30; that is $70 an hour. So you are looking at 400 hours of work, which is 10 weeks, for a backhoe and a truck. To me, that seemed excessive and he made the statement, well, that is with government rates. So there definitely must be a differential there between the two.
I can certainly assure you that if I was offered 400 hours, or 10 weeks, to ditch a kilometre of road, I think if I was in that business, it would be fairly lucrative, wouldn't it?
MR. BRIAN SMITH: You would probably want to look for the second one.
MR. CHIPMAN: Right. Anyway, I was talking to a trucker over the weekend and he was stating what you were stating, that at one time you were paid $46 and now you are down to $39 an hour. I spoke to a gentleman at the Department of Transportation some time ago in my area because I had a complaint about a road that needed work done. He said, well, I cannot send a truck out there because we don't have the money, and if I did, I would have to charge you $56 an hour plus $13 per driver. Would that be an accurate statement? Is that what they bill their own department?
MR. GERMAINE: We cannot get that. We don't know.
MR. HENNIGAR: They won't tell us.
MR. CHIPMAN: Right. Well, anyway, that was a statement made to me, so that would be $69 for a tandem truck with an operator. If they are billing that for their own department and then you are getting $39, there seems to be a great discrepancy here.
The other question I had is, if I had a truck tomorrow and I comply with all the regulations, requirements, Workers' Compensation, and various whatever, how much of a job is it to join the Truckers Association? Is there a waiting list? Do you accept new members?
MR. GERMAINE: Give us your cheque.
MR. CHIPMAN: Is that right? So there is no waiting period?
MR. BRIAN SMITH: The window of opportunity is January and February and depending on which county you join.
MR. CHIPMAN: Right.
MR. BRIAN SMITH: And some counties have that you have to pay the back year to join and the dues will run anywhere from $250 to $1,000. In parts of Cape Breton, I believe, Cape Breton Centre is $2,500, for a first year member.
MR. GERMAINE: It saves the people coming in when there is a major contract. It keeps our industry - rather than everybody jumping in for two months and back out, it keeps it stable. That is the reasoning for that. If you are bona fide let's get with it, is the thing.
MR. CHIPMAN: Right. One other thing I noted in the Auditor General's Report, and I read the full report, was the amount of savings that had incurred over the past few years and the impression I got from the report was that it was due to efficiencies within the department.
Then I have to question, is it because there was no snow removal the last two or three years. Anyway, those are all the questions I have.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, go ahead, Mr. Hennigar.
MR. HENNIGAR: Mr. Chairman, we took this report over the past number of weeks and we went through it line by line. We used some of the DOT's own statistics from other documents that we obtained and this report is very scary because there are no two lines of this you can read, one will contradict the other, and then if you happen to take a number that is on the written page and you try to calculate using another number somewhere on that page, you cannot come up with the same answer. We mentioned the difference between what was stated by the former Minister of Transportation, Clifford Huskilson, that it was $33 million or $34 million in the budget for snow removal and ice control. The Auditor General came up with the figure of $29 million. So there are clear discrepancies throughout this report that they don't know what actual figures are.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Hennigar, what is the name of that report?
MR. HENNIGAR: This is called Transportation and Public Works, Snow and Ice Control. This is the report by the Auditor General.
MR. CHAIRMAN: For what fiscal year is that dated? (Interruption)
MR. CHAIRMAN: Is it for 1999?
MR. HENNIGAR: Yes, it said in the fall of 1999. So it must be for 1999.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, that is the same one we have.
MR. MACKINNON: I believe that is an excerpt out of his annual report, Mr. Chairman.
MR. HENDSBEE: Would that be a difference between a budget and an actual?
MR. MACKINNON: Yes.
MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Timberlea-Prospect.
MR. WILLIAM ESTABROOKS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and gentlemen I apologize for coming and going in the middle of your report although I have taken the opportunity to read it over. Mr. Germaine, you really give some insight into the hocus-pocus, excuse me for using the term, of the administration within the Department of Transportation and if you could, could you just expound a little bit where you say that, "No where does it say
that the meetings are being held because the contractors constantly try to undermine the independent trucker and that TANS was not allowed to intercede directly to the contractor.". These are monthly meetings, I assume?
MR. GERMAINE: Yes. They were monthly meetings, but I think we had six meetings last year. The question that you want is . . .
MR. ESTABROOKS: Well, it seems to me that this is open warfare. I have been the Transportation Critic for the NDP and when it involves the Truckers Association and it involves government funding, people just say, I don't want to touch that. So when the critics were assigned after the last election, I must admit I said to myself, I am going to expand here and go to Labour. I know the member for Cape Breton West will understand that. But, excuse the expression, it is such a rat's nest and there seems to be so much infighting going on and a lack of openness and truthfulness on behalf of the department with the very people that they should be working with, out of a position of trust and confidence, you guys.
MR. GERMAINE: I like that statement.
MR. HENNIGAR: I was just going to say, he sees it our way.
MR. ESTABROOKS: Well, I don't know whose way I see it because . . .
MR. GERMAINE: Well, let me give you a for instance.
MR. ESTABROOKS: Yes, please.
MR. GERMAINE: Okay. We had a certain contractor come into Pictou County, x amount of roads to do. The boys went out and went to work. It was over about a three week period. I looked at the first paycheques and said, that's not right. The kilometres on these slips aren't right. They are not getting paid the fair amount, there is something the matter here. They checked it out, measured it, recovered around $40,000 for these guys, averaged anywhere from $900 to $4,300 or $4,400 for about 40 members. It was the twinning of Highway No. 104. I said, there is something the matter here, something sticking out and I don't know what it is.
So I added it up. My figures may be a little bit off right now because I am going from memory. We had 11 kilometres of road, if you put it all in one ribbon and the gravel was pretty consistent until we came to that 3.3 kilometres which was at the far end of the job. There are 3.3 kilometres of road surface to gravel. If you step back from there, you have two bridges, one over a highway, one over a river, on each side of the road. So in that kilometre of haul distance, you only have 1.25 kilometres of road surface to gravel. On that piece of road surface, taking the contractor's own figures, that 1.25 kilometres now, they laid 45,000
tons of gravel. On the 3.3 kilometres of road surface, we had 5,600 tons. So we had 12 feet here and two inches here.
Now we are still fighting with these engineers because they are trying to say the world is expanding or getting smaller or something, because they keep measuring it, but every time it comes up the same way. We are still waiting for some more money on that, not a lot.
This year, we are going to put the topcoat on it. So we went to a pre-job meeting. Good. One thing that we must have on here marked as they dump these loads of gravel is the kilometres on the slips, the distance hauled. Okay. Done. Same thing in the Lunenburg area, same type of job down there. We didn't quite catch all up on it yet, we've been asking for that contract, never got it. That's another story.
[2:00 p.m.]
We went for 28 days on this job and all of a sudden a ruling came down from the department, no longer going to permit kilometres on the slips. Why? Because the fellow in the upper echelon said no. The first fellow went up and shut the job down. Dumped his load, where are the kilometres on the slips? I am not marking it. Okay, why? Because the department said so; Martin Delaney, he said so. That was the only reason we had, he said so. So they came out with the Mounties and they came out with this, they came out with everything. To make a long story short, we offered them at 6:00 a.m. to mark the kilometres on the slips ourselves. They wouldn't let us do that. Put their own man to do with the construction company. Oh, we can't do that. We fought until 3:00 p.m. and now we are getting sued, the Truckers Association of Nova Scotia is getting sued. We held them up, $30,000. We are getting sued.
I don't know if they are buddies with the people before that we just collected $30,000 or $40,000 from and they want to get it back, I don't know, maybe that is it, or get it back for their buddies but one thing or another, it led to we are getting sued for $30,000 because someone in the department said, no, no, tick them off. Very dangerous precedent because then the guys would know what was coming to them, know what they were getting paid, know they were getting paid fairly but everybody disappeared. You couldn't find anybody. I am away from my desk; push this button to get this person, I am away. Everybody hid. It seems to be on a Friday afternoon stuff like that always happens. Now that is just a little bit of an enlightenment of what happens with the department.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Germaine, just before you take the honourable member's other question there, are you saying on that particular project, Highway No. 104, in theory you had 12 feet of gravel at one end, the short-haul end of the project, and you had two inches, or whatever, but in practice, actually, you had the same amount of gravel on the road and that the truckers were paid based on the weigh slips without having the distance actually denoted on the weigh slips?
MR. GERMAINE: Absolutely.
MR. CHAIRMAN: They used to mark the distance hauled a long time ago, 25 years ago.
MR. GERMAINE: They marked it in other provinces, too. They have 1.25 kilometres of road surface and if you take the way that they paid these 40 truckers, they got 45,000 tons of gravel on it and they got 3.3 kilometres of road surface with the interchanges within the next kilometre of hauling, with the rates, they get 5,600 tons, if you took the way that they paid the truckers. This is why they wanted the kilometres on the slips.
MR. CHAIRMAN: So were you able to straighten that out subsequently?
MR. GERMAINE: No, I have been still getting the run-around on it and I have been getting this fellow here and that fellow there and they wait until the road washes out so we just can't go the right way to prove it.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, Bill, I am sorry. I just wanted to get clarification on that. Go ahead.
MR. ESTABROOKS: That is no problem, Mr. Chairman. I defer to you in some things, others, I don't.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Hockey?
MR. ESTABROOKS: Let's not do hockey. I want to go back to this, if I may, sir, because from my experience (a) as a critic but (b) as an MLA who has concerns, my local road, the guys in my garage, my Beechville base, are great guys. They are on site, they help you the best they can and then they get into a situation where they literally clam up. No, Bill, we are not going to deal with that. That is when I, and other members present here perhaps, politics aside, run into this huge mass of officials over here and telephone tag. I know that we have offices ourselves where we have to have voice mail and so on but I know, as sure as God makes little green apples, that they see that Bill Estabrooks, MLA, come up on their phone and uh-uh, they ain't answering. It seems to me (Interruption) Well, I don't know, maybe they do the same thing with the honourable member for Cape Breton West but we won't go there.
I am more interested though, Mr. Germaine, when you said that because of the frustrations that you deal with on something such as the example from Pictou County, you went to a meeting, it was agreed that it was going to be on the slips . . .
MR. GERMAINE: Got it in writing.
MR. ESTABROOKS: Got it in writing from that particular person who at that stage was the decision maker.
MR. GERMAINE: I was told, if you have a problem, take it to the local engineering level at your pre-job meeting, this is what it is for, and this is what we did.
MR. ESTABROOKS: But when it actually came . . .
MR. GERMAINE: We worked for 28 days with it.
MR. ESTABROOKS: But then the rug was pulled out from underneath that official by the particular gentleman you mentioned.
MR. GERMAINE: Absolutely, and then he goes and hides.
MR. HENNIGAR: Mr. Chairman, not only did we have it in writing for Earle's County of Pictou, I had it writing for my county at a pre-job meeting with McPhee's Construction in Lunenburg County. We had it in writing, too, that the kilometres would go on the slips. So then, when we took it back to the next joint committee meeting, one of the panel members for the DOT - there is no record in the minutes of this decision being overturned. He told us it was overturned by our representatives the year before. I said, well, where is it in the minutes? His exact words were - and Earle and Brian and Dave were all there with me - this fellow said, and his name was Aubrey Martell, he was Chairman of the committee, he said, not everything gets written down. I said, it better start getting written down.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Estabrooks, I am just wondering, as a committee, if it is the agreement of the committee, if we could make a recommendation or possibly support a motion requesting that the Department of Transportation and Public Works put the distance hauled - as we have talked about here - on the slips. I thought it was standard practice. How would the trucker, the businessman or woman, figure up their wages, how far they are going ahead or back at the end of the evening if it is not denoted on the slip? Would the committee agree to such a motion?
MR. MACKINNON: Mr. Chairman, I have no problem supporting such a motion but given the comments of both the gentlemen with regard to having such an undertaking provided by the Department of Transportation official in writing, would the honourable individuals be prepared to table both of those letters . . .
MR. GERMAINE: I think I may have it here.
MR. MACKINNON: . . . so that we would have them for the public record? I think that would go a long way in . . .
MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, Mr. Hennigar.
MR. HENNIGAR: The other thing, out of interest, after Earle finds that, maybe he can read the amounts that Dexter Construction is charging us for their equipment that was sitting, particularly the rates for their trucks.
MR. GERMAINE: No, I don't have them here.
MR. MACKINNON: All information is graciously accepted.
MR. HENNIGAR: Earle, just read the rates that Dexter Construction is charging us for their equipment that they said we held up.
MR. CHAIRMAN: I was just going to again suggest that each project that the department undertakes with the contractor has a weigher and has a checker. The checker always used to put the miles or the kilometres on the slip and your pay, of course, unless you are working by the hour or the yard or metre, is based on the distance hauled. I can't understand why they would deviate from that practice. It certainly would solve some of the concerns you have regarding 12 feet on one end of the project and 2 inches on the other when, in fact, the whole whatever distance is, was supposed to be somewhat similar.
MR. MACKINNON: The thin end of the wedge.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, it would be the thin end of the wedge.
MR. ESTABROOKS: Were you going to finish something, there, sir?
MR. GERMAINE: Dexter Construction that is presently suing the construction company, they have a labourer here they charge $25 an hour for him, $45 for a superintendent, $25 for a string man - that must be a guy who plays the yo-yo. Then they have the survey helper, he is $25; another string man, another $25, maybe he has the other end of the string, I guess. So that is $50 to hold the string across the road per hour. Then we go into their tandem trucks, tandem truck and trailer. Now we have a rate of $65 per hour. Their rate, when they are suing us is $84.83.
MR. HENNIGAR: And they pay us $39.
MR. GERMAINE: And they pay us $39 by the hour. (Interruption) No, they pay us $65 for that, they are talking truck and trailer. Then they have a water truck. It is really expensive because it has water in it, it is $100 an hour.
MR. CHAIRMAN: What is the amount put on the suit?
MR. GERMAINE: Well, it was $1,900 in labour, there was $22,000 in equipment, $2,020 in legal fees, and with the HST and everything, it is $30,496.39. We countersued the Department of Transportation and then we didn't hear anything more about it the last while. I don't know what happened; they clammed up I guess and hid from the phone maybe.
MR. BRIAN SMITH: And it is all because the kilometres were taken off the slips.
MR. GERMAINE: And there were three days left in the job.
MR. CHAIRMAN: We will go to honourable member for Preston, he has a question or two.
MR. DAVID HENDSBEE: Mr. Chairman, with this discussion, especially about the tracking, or having statistics, or information, or data on the slips, I think it is relevant, especially with the Auditor General's Report, the comments of paragraphs 10.53 and 10.54. I have 10.54 in the last couple of sentences. "First, there has been no quantitative analysis of the benefits and costs of the program. Without such analysis it would be difficult to make knowledgeable decisions about the continued operation of the program and the possible use of alternative means of providing assistance . . .".
That is one aspect, and the other thing they talk about is the department's cost of their involvement in administering the 80/20 rule, that it has continued to absorb a significant amount of time. I personally believe that that information is pertinent and especially for the hauling of salt. I would have thought and I am not a trucker, but I would have thought that the tonnage going out of the plant is one thing and then the tonnage received by the receiver at the other end is another and, hopefully, there should be no loss, or a minimal loss, between the two.
If I was receiving salt, I would only pay for what I received and not what I was being billed; I think that would just be the normal practice. So I am surprised that that is not the case, that there should be some kind of validation of what is being received on site, you know, what you are supposed to be buying for, scales at both ends. There would have to be a balance here somewhere.
The second thing about the kilometres, marking the kilometres on a slip, to me that is just common sense in regard to you know how much you are hauling in gravel, or material, whatever the case may be, to the work site and it is easier for the trucker to determine or calculate their costs, their time and perhaps what their cost of business is, but who wants to have the information hidden? That is what I find ridiculous. Is it the contractor? Are they providing the amount of material in the roadbed that is required? Why does that information need to be hidden? I am really concerned.
Personally, I think the department should be asking for that information and not trying to bury it. I personally think that it is a quantitative venture to validate and clarify what is being delivered, what is being dumped, what is being put into the roadbed construction. It seems perfectly logical and reasonable to ask for it and I think it should be continued.
MR. GERMAINE: There is one thing I would like, as a general rule the salt the department receives, what they buy, it is the hospitals, municipalities and little places that cannot afford scales that want it cut below a decent rate, like say 20 per cent off the rate that we are accustomed to, or 30 per cent off it, you just load 30 per cent more and dump it off, so really they are losing money.
We had asked the government officials, when they go under these MUSH agreements, which are municipalities, universities and everything like that, to incorporate our rate structure in it, but oh no. Well they incorporate the price of the salt, but yet they cannot incorporate the rate. They seem to be continuously beating us over the head with this, but yet one only has to go to the areas to see where it is dumped off or we couldn't sell that. We said to the salt plant, okay, you are selling us salt, send it out legal. We are in the business of selling salt was the answer.
MR. BRIAN SMITH: Not only that, it is the damage it is doing to the highways. We are trying to protect our highways, and not to say that none of us have hauled overweight, but it is not intentional. We go up to get a load of salt. It is weighed in. It is weighed out. You see other guys, you go on the scales, you ask for anywhere from 27 ton, depending on the type of trailer you have, to 34 ton. You will see the same trailer go on, I hauled 27 ton in, leaving with 36 ton and he is not going to DOT, he is going to a MUSH.
MR. HENNIGAR: Mr. Chairman and committee members, there is one statement in the Auditor General's Report which made me very proud as a member of TANS on the Joint Committee. The Auditor General stated that we were taking too much of the department's time and that we occupied one man pretty well the whole year. Now, we calculated that this past year, in 1999, we took roughly 32 hours of their time with the actual meeting, so in 32 hours we kept one man busy all year. So we did a pretty good job of bringing questions and issues before them. I mean, just think how much we could have cleared up if they had let us meet the other few months. Like we haven't met with them since September because they said they had too many issues to clear up and they didn't want to meet with us until they cleared those up.
MR. HENDSBEE: Mr. Chairman, if I could ask a question. If we are going to have departmental officials here in the future to discuss certain things, I would like to have a verification about this cost of administration or involvement in administration of the 80/20 rule. If they are supposed to have transferred the financial responsibility to the association in 1994, I assume that their Truckers Association would - I don't know how it worked, perhaps you guys could explain it to me.
If a job is being done locally and the trucks are called out, you know, whatever the case may be, be it hauling material or being asked to facilitate in a ditching project and they are having the trucks just line up to haul the material out, how are those things clocked or monitored, or whatever the case may be, that we know that we had 10 trucks being serviced in the area and we are not being billed for 20, or whatever the case may be, how are those things monitored and how is it validated that, yes, this is what got called out versus what the department had used?
MR. GERMAINE: We don't get a lot from the department, but we get called out to contractors and I am addressing the question of the time that they spent addressing the 80/20. I will give you a for instance. Here is a problem that a contractor would put to us right quick and it is not abnormal now. I am driving from Truro back to New Glasgow and I am meeting an asphalt plant coming up the road. I come into the New Glasgow area with the cell phone and I call the dispatcher. I said what is happening here today? Well, he said, busy. I said, oh, yes, what is happening? He said I just sent 25 trucks to Antigonish. I say, Antigonish, why, are they busy down there? Yes, they got a paving job down there. I said, oh, yes, what are they doing? And he said they went down for Dexter. I said, oh, good.
They took the 25 trucks down at 6:00 a.m. They loaded them. They tore the asphalt plant down that I am meeting and kept some of them there until 9:00 p.m. and they paid them the ton mile rate, this exorbitant rate we get. They paid them the ton mile rate for hauling maybe 10 or 15 kilometres. They might have got $25 or $30 for travelling 70 miles. That is what takes the department's time on something like that. We got nothing for it. We didn't bother suing them or anything like that. But that is the type of stuff that is portrayed upon the trucker.
A lot of times the contractors will order in excess of what they want. Ten trucks will do the job. Let's have 30. They are not costing us any extra. They are good storage bins and if our plant happens to break down, well, if somebody wants a coffee, we can shut the plant down for an hour, but we still have lots of people to do it. They don't cost us anything, but we are used in that respect many times.
MR. HENNIGAR: Mr. Chairman and committee members, to clarify this gentleman's comment, the one with the pretty coloured sweater there (Interruptions) To clarify your question about how the pay is kept track of, at the pre-job meeting one of the questions we asked is how will the trucks be paid and when? It is standard that it is a two week pay period. Every two weeks they will receive money. Part of these slips that the load checker writes up, he keeps one copy for himself, for the department; he gives one copy to the trucker and another copy goes back to the contractor and they pay according to those slips. When we work directly for the department - say we are called out, like last spring for example in my county, they get extra winter works money left over so they gravelled a few roads that had basically disintegrated, they had to put some gravel on them because there was nothing left. They took the winter works money to do that. Our trucks got paid according to our rate
schedule and were paid directly by the DOT people based on those rates, except they made a mistake in the rate, they were supposed to pay $39 and they only paid our fellows $33.41, so I got that corrected.
MR. HENDSBEE: Can I ask a quick question in response to that? You are telling me that there are two different accounting procedures, one by the contractor using the truckers and one by the province using the truckers?
MR. HENNIGAR: The rate schedule is the same, it is a standard rate . . .
MR. HENDSBEE: But for accounting practices, for the tracking procedures though.
MR. HENNIGAR: The contractors would pay every two weeks and usually the DOT is pretty well every two weeks too. It is a standard thing.
MR. HENDSBEE: I am talking about, regardless of the tracking of the data on the sheets, the haul slips, whatever the case may be, it seems the contractors have more of a control over the truckers versus the province.
MR. HENNIGAR: The contractor will call our dispatchers, each county has one or more dispatchers, and the contractor will call the dispatcher and request two, three, four, five, six trucks, whatever it is, then the dispatcher will in turn go down his list and call until he gets the number of trucks required by the contractor. The same thing will work with the DOT, they will call our dispatcher for their own work.
MR. ROBERTS: There is no invoicing. There is no invoicing from the truckers to the department.
MR. HENNIGAR: No. The money paid comes from the department. We don't bill them, they pay us based on the rate sheet, which we have mutually agreed upon, that the Auditor General says is too high.
MR. GERMAINE: If we don't know what the distance is, we don't know what the cheque is going to be.
MR. HENDSBEE: That is what I am trying to get at, the contractor is going to monitor, in my opinion, those costs or those measurements more, you know what his cost of the job is going to be, but the province doesn't seem to be tracking that data.
MR. BRIAN SMITH: Mr. Hendsbee, the way it works, a contractor takes a contract from DOT&PW, say it is contract 001. He may bid all different prices for gravel, Class A, B, C, whatever, so he gets to put his two inch on, and what he bid to the department may not
be what he is paying, he may only have bid one cent to the department but he pays us the rate that the Truckers Association has with the province. We have an agreed set rate.
On the slips, they have what they call stations and they are all done in metric. They are very easy to follow if you are used to using metric and you know where the dead haul is and you come out. There is not a problem to do that. A lot of our members can't (Interruption) Depending on the pit. This is where they go from pit A, pit B, pit C. We don't know where we are coming from.
When the kilometres are on the slips we know exactly where we are, because if you had 25 loads today at five kilometres and the rate was $5.00 a load, you figure it out and you have the day's pay, with the stations on the slip. That is all done internally by the contractor.
MR. GERMAINE: I have gone so far as to put a stake up to measure the mileage. Say it was a five kilometre call, to put my own stake up there to tell the boys what it is, the next one at six, and they disappear. I don't want dwell on it, Brady did the same thing down in his area and they all disappeared just this year. Right or wrong, Brady?
MR. HENNIGAR: That is correct.
MR. GERMAINE: End of story there.
MR. ESTABROOKS: This is intriguing stuff. You should write a novel. I am not being sarcastic, seriously. All the details and statistics. My question is, how do you contend with a media report such as the one that I have here, Truck Policy Under Review? You are portrayed as the bad guys, you are portrayed as this rebel, if I may, and I have looked and worked with some of the people in my area and am aware of some of the complexities of this.
I am not saying you have to go out and hire a PR staff to clean up your image, but the point is that the Truckers Association is coming off in the midst of all of this - the Department of Transportation, the Auditor General and so on - as troublemakers. How do you contend with that?
MR. GERMAINE: I am not scared of the media but I was kind of stifled there with regard to it because the last time that I said anything to the media, I embarrassed too many politicians and I wasn't allowed to meet with them.
MR. ESTABROOKS: The politicians?
MR. GERMAINE: Yes. I was kicked right out of meetings and they wouldn't have anything to do with me. I made kind of a pledge to behave myself for one year.
MR. ESTABROOKS: Is that year up?
MR. GERMAINE: Just about.
MR. ESTABROOKS: The darling of the media - and I am going to bring it up because I told the member for Cape Breton Centre it was coming up - is Leon Thompson. If he could run my PR campaign in Timberlea-Prospect, no one else would vote against me. I saw it week after week, day after day, whether it was Parker Barss Donham or Harry Flemming, they never agree on anything but they agreed on this. Anyway, you are going to speak because you know what I am going to say, so go ahead.
MR. GERMAINE: Do you suppose that his brother-in-law, one of the major contractors and one of the major construction companies that is supposed to own part of that construction company that he used to work for, the same company that is suing us, that would love to see us out of here, do you suppose that maybe Leon is not that smart but he has some good people behind him?
MR. ESTABROOKS: I would rather not get into that. In return though I think that the concern that I have is - and I am glad that we agreed as a committee earlier, when we chose our priority of people to appear in front of Economic Development, that the Chairman and members of all three caucuses agreed this is a good group to have in here - but as a committee, now that we have heard some of this what can we do for you? You are airing a number of grievances here that you have, from my perspective, some solid background on. What can we do for you?
MR. HENNIGAR: Mr. Chairman, in response to Mr. Estabrooks, I have sent document after document after document to DOT officials. Last winter I was chastised heavily because I made one comment and I didn't have it in writing. Ever since then, when I meet with anyone relating to a joint committee or want to get any issues studied, I send it in writing. When the government changed, we were working on getting a meeting with the Minister of Transportation at the time, Clifford Huskilson. Since that time, I have sent off 20-some documents to the former Minister of Transportation, Gordon Balser, relating and showing how we have been ignored, bypassed, whatever word you want to use, by the DOT.
I have volumes of papers showing just what has happened or not happened, what we have tried to have done. Earle referred to this earlier, we had a contract just before the election in my county, a tender, a maintenance contract to which there is still no paperwork. We have requested it over and over and over and over. We got one of the tenders that happened in Shelburne, we did get that one, but we never got the contract for Lunenburg County, a contract which is like that Energizer battery, it just kept going and going and going. It started out with 300,000 tons and it went to heavens knows how much. These are the things we deal with.
MR. GERMAINE: It was 300 tons.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Just in the interests of permitting all members to have an opportunity for questioning, I wonder if we could move on to the honourable member for Victoria.
MR. KENNETH MACASKILL: Mr. Chairman, I want to follow up on what Mr. Estabrooks said when he made the comment about what we can do for TANS. I think you have a motion on the floor that has not been dealt with.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Actually, I didn't make that motion, I did suggest that maybe this committee would consider asking the Department of Transportation and Public Works to place the distance on each and every department weigh slip that members of TANS are issued when working on a department job. I don't know if I have to leave the Chair, honourable member, to make that motion, but if I don't I would trust that somebody else would.
MR. HENDSBEE: Mr. Chairman, to facilitate that, if Mr. MacAskill would want to move or second, I will be supportive of it, to second it, whatever. I would also go further and even ask for those departmental reports that make comment on the Auditor General's Report. I think that information should be brought forward to this committee.
[2:30 p.m.]
MR. CHAIRMAN: Let's deal with the motion first. The motion is that the Department of Transportation and Public Works are requested by the Standing Committee on Economic Development to place the distance on each and every department weigh slip that members of TANS receive when working on a departmental project.
MR. GERMAINE: Contracts.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Department contracts.
MR. MACKINNON: I so move.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.
The motion is carried.
MR. HENDSBEE: Just on a clerical matter, I assume those slips would also have tonnage when necessary.
MR. GERMAINE: They have tonnage, yes.
MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Victoria, carry on.
MR. MACASKILL: Your 80/20 rule, does that apply to DOT on the work they do, summer construction and . . .
MR. GERMAINE: No, anything that is maintenance they use their own trucks where possible. That is the one we are trying to get a cost on. That is another real bone of contention. (Interruption)
Well, that is one cost, but we don't know where we got it. Their trucks are the same type of thing. They are too heavy for the job they are doing and I have talked to many of them and they say, oh, well, they don't bother us. They are not allowed to bother us, or they never see us. Yet, if our guys come out and we are so much as 900 kilograms over on a trailer, the law today is we have to unload it. Yet, you will see the Transportation fellows going with their own trucks, maybe five tons over, but that's all right, we are not allowed to touch them. This is what makes us so mad.
MR. MACASKILL: The department recently built larger silos in different locations. They still have the smaller ones scattered around the province.
MR. GERMAINE: That's correct.
MR. MACASKILL: Now, they will move salt from the big silo down to the little silos with their own trucks?
MR. GERMAINE: Right.
MR. MACASKILL: Now, surely to goodness, when these plows - and they also use them for plows, when they have a load of salt on them, they must be way overweight on their front axle, are they not?
MR. GERMAINE: They are overweight on every bit, and a lot of times including the driver. (Laughter)
MR. HENNIGAR: For this gentleman's information, on the joint committee, I directed to the chairman and the committee members that I wanted to see the 80/20 rule cover the maintenance contract so that the same rates paid on the other parts of DOT work would qualify under the maintenance.
This work that was done in my county this summer, we had men that got three loads of asphalt a day for patching and they were paid by the ton mile to patch. They might have dumped their load in four different places. Now, how do you calculate that by the ton mile? It can't be done accurately. So they got about $150 for a day's work and then the Auditor General says we are getting too much.
MR. MACKINNON: Mr. Chairman, I want to be clear on what I seem to be hearing here, which is that the problem is not so much at the political level as it is at the bureaucratic level.
MR. HENNIGAR: That is correct.
MR. MACKINNON: I raise that because 9 times out of 10 it is always the politician that gets blamed for a lot of these frustrations I have heard here today and, yet, you will see many a good minister come into this department, they are only there for a short period of time and - in fairness, irrespective of what political stripe - before they get an opportunity to understand the entire process, they are either transferred or defeated. (Laughter)
MR. GERMAINE: Well, they should get a broom and sweep a little cleaner.
MR. MACKINNON: But on the other side of the equation, bear in mind, we have a bureaucracy of expertise there to advise the respective political bodies of what is the best policy to adopt, what is the most cost-effective initiative to undertake, what would appear to be the priorities, in terms of road construction, paving, re-paving and so on.
I know, myself, I have seen areas where I would certainly take issue with some of the expert advice that has been passed on from the Department of Transportation and Public Works, bearing in mind, as well, a tremendous amount of top quality expert advice that has come that has resulted in good public policy and good safe highways.
MR. GERMAINE: Can I answer a little something there on that?
MR. MACKINNON: Sure.
MR. GERMAINE: Talking about safe highways, we had the four lane highway - and I am relating to somewhere that I travel all the time in Pictou County. At the bottom of Mount Thom, you hit a light there. I told them that they should do something. Put the light back a little further because cars coming up are going to hit it. Eight times that light was knocked down until, finally, somebody went up the other road. They didn't do anything about it. Brought it up at the meeting. I have lots of documentation to prove it. Brought it up at one of these joint meetings, should do something about this.
The other area was noticed when they built this road, the new highway, that they have too much gravel under one overpass. Before anybody hit it, we saw they were going to hit it. So far, a new cement overpass has been hit twice now. Nobody has put a sign up or said a thing about it.
The other place was up on the toll highway where I said there should be some lights with regard to the fog coming in there. I was crazy when I said that. There were four generators up there after somebody finally ran into the toll booth and now we have four lights warning of the thing coming. We tried to go after safety with the department and it gets very frustrating sometimes to try and get something through someone's head.
MR. MACKINNON: But that's not at the political level.
MR. GERMAINE: No, that is at the bureaucratic level.
MR. MACKINNON: Because in terms of public perceptions - as my colleague has made reference to a particular media article - it is the politician. The buck has to stop somewhere and it stops with the minister. If the minister is taking advice from within and you folks are suggesting that is the source of the problem, then that is an issue, obviously, that is something the committee could make an observation on and pass along to the respective powers that be.
I will give you one classic example where I ended up having a meeting, when I was Minister of Labour, with one of my federal counterparts, the Honourable Sheila Copps. It was with regard to the Fleur-de-lis Trail. After several letters of correspondence, wondering why they were not going along the scenic route which would have, in my view with my limited experience - I still maintain it would have been more cost-effective, saving millions of dollars - been more scenic and more palatable for the tourists and the community at large, which the community supported. But the expertise within the Department of Transportation and Public Works said, no, we are going to build this super-highway further in, a 60 metre corridor and so on. There was no cost differential.
When I asked for the details on that, I received a letter back from one individual who says, well, we did not do a detailed cost analysis. So I said, well, okay, that's fine. We will move on to the next stage. So I ended up meeting with my federal counterpart to explain to her the importance of going along the scenic route because it was good for tourism, it was good for the Fortress of Louisbourg and the economy of Cape Breton; bearing in mind, the concern about this issue that came up on a previous day, robbing Peter to pay Paul, that that became a political issue, trying to save money and, at the same time, do something good.
I arrived in Ottawa, only to find out that my federal counterpart advised me that the bureaucratic level within her purview had advised that it was of no value to meet with me because it was not an issue. I had a problem at the bureaucratic level, provincially, and I had a problem at the bureaucratic level, federally, where they are advising one minister not to meet with another minister. It is not always the politicians. I make that point because it is a very important point.
Then, after the election came and went, I get a letter back from that same departmental official saying that the cost analysis was done and that his original position was supported. Now, that, I guess, is just the luck of the Irish.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Honourable member, it seems as if different Parties have problems when they go to Ottawa, trying to attain money for roads and things of that nature.
MR. MACKINNON: No, it is very important what TANS is raising here, it is a very major issue.
MR. CHAIRMAN: I understand.
MR. MACKINNON: I am not here just to beat up on the Civil Service because as I have indicated, there is a tremendous amount of top-quality expertise and we are very fortunate to have them.
MR. CHAIRMAN: I wonder if I might, honourable member, just before we move along in the interest of time, just throw out a short snapper to the executive members of the Truckers Association of Nova Scotia. We are receiving, as a caucus and individually, communication from some villages, communities, towns, police forces, et cetera, concern about truckers, some truckers, a small percentage using the engine brakes/jake brakes in communities, and some people are commenting that it doesn't show much respect for the citizenry.
I am speaking primarily about the 50 kilometre zones throughout our communities. My experience has been, and you folks can correct me if I am wrong, that your conventional or traditional brakes, where you have a brake on each wheel, if you have an 18-wheeler, then you would have 10 brakes, two on each axle. What do you think TANS' position would be if the government decided to consider legislation that would frankly prohibit the use of these noise polluters in 50 kilometre speed zones throughout Nova Scotia?
MR. GERMAINE: Not a problem that I could ever see with that. It is only a noise-maker when you get down below 50 kilometres anyway. If you need it, if there is some emergency situation that you need it, use it.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Just to follow up a little bit, and I will be brief, we have received feedback from pedestrians and seniors, people of all ages alike, that they find besides it being quite a racket it is most frightening. I am just wondering why . . .
MR. GERMAINE: That is childishness on the driver's part.
MR. ROBERTS: I live in the Town of Pictou and right on the outskirts of town they do have a sign, through the by-laws, and it states right on it not to use your engine brakes in the Town of Pictou. It is enforced. In my position as Office Manager, I have received calls from the public, from the RCMP, stating that they would also like to see legislation or some kind of a ruling on these jake brakes. As far as the association is concerned, yes. Especially under that 50 kilometre zone, you really don't need them. Like Mr. Germaine said in the case of an emergency, so be it. My advice, with the Town of Oxford that called, was, put the sign up and have it enforced at the local level until it can go through.
MR. GERMAINE: The Town of Stellarton has the same thing now.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, that is fine gentlemen. We have a couple of other members here who have questions. I did want to throw that out before. On the same point?
MR. LANGILLE: Yes, on the same point. I would make a request to TANS to maybe write a letter to the Chairman of this committee supporting that legislation.
MR. GERMAINE: Not a problem. Done.
MR. ROBERTS: The letter would also have to go through the Atlantic Provinces Trucking Association. As the members might be aware in here, it is an outside organization looking after trucks in the Atlantic Provinces. So in order to write this letter, it would have to be forwarded to Ralph Boyd, the President of the APTL also.
MR. GERMAINE: We can write it on our behalf, he can write his own.
MR. ROBERTS: Just let him know we are doing it because we know we get pretty mad at him when he does something without letting us know.
MR. CHAIRMAN: That leads to another question.
MR. HENDSBEE: Further to Mr. Germaine's comments about common sense suggestions, I find that far too often these common sense suggestions about road safety or matters relating to improving road maintenance or road repair or drainage problems, if you don't have a diploma of engineering designation behind your name, your suggestions are commonly frowned upon or ignored until time passes or accidents occur, that the common sense suggestions would come back. I find that far too often. Even as a politician discussing highway matters, why don't you just do this and this, it seems a simple enough problem to fix, but the engineers make mountains out of molehills. I just find it frustrating at times.
MR. GERMAINE: The engineer can draw you a picture of that cup and make it nice and pretty and paint it, but damn it he can't drink out of it. That is what happens so many times.
MR. HENDSBEE: Could I ask what TANS' experience has been in dealing with HRM? In regard to my experience at the regional council, I know that we were doing the program service analysis about whether the municipality should buy more equipment or using the contractors. There are plenty of trucks out there, the municipality doesn't need to be buying trucks, be it for hauling stuff around, plowing, or other routine maintenance work. Can you tell me what experiences you have had with HRM? I would like to have it as a comparison because they are the largest municipality in the province, when it comes to contracting work, I would assume number two in the province, behind the province with regard to . . .
MR. GERMAINE: I am going to let Brian answer that.
MR. BRIAN SMITH: Mr. Hendsbee, on the equipment trucking side?
MR. HENDSBEE: On any matters.
MR. BRIAN SMITH: I personally have garbage contracts with HRM, and they work very well. It was open bid, we bid against the big boys and I mean the big boys. They would be your BFIs, your waste resources, Philip Environmental, Miller Waste, all of those. The local contractors came out very well against the larger contractors. I believe we are providing a constant and stable level of service, and you could check with the Chairman on that.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, the other day one of the compost bins was half-frozen.
MR. HENDSBEE: Mr. Chairman, I was hoping that if they could draw an analogy or a comparison of some of their experiences, perhaps with HRM versus the province in regard to anything the TANS have worked on with HRM in dealing successfully with, whereas they haven't been able to do it with the province.
MR. BRIAN SMITH: I will use this analogy, you never know there is a recession when you go to Ottawa because when there is a recession they just build another government building. The same thing happens with HRM. There is so much work in HRM that the local truckers and the members of the Truckers Association who have equipment, are working probably 10 to 12 months of the year, they are working year round.
When you get into the rural areas, the work is sporadic. HRM - if you are working a truck, if you will give me a truck to work, on a regular basis with a regular income, you can budget, forecast, you can negotiate a rate with the bank, you can go borrow x amount of money and you know what your costs are. With what we are doing through TANS and
through the province where you get an x amount of work a year, and in my particular case, from TANS, I draw about $16,000-$18,000 a year in trucking. It is pretty hard to buy a new truck and run equipment on that kind of money. But the guys who are working in the city here, they work for TANS, they work for the city, they work for Dexter, they work for other contractors in here. They are either at Gateway Pit or they are out at Rocky Lake Quarry, they are going year round. There is much more work in the city to compare to what we have out in the local areas.
MR. HENDSBEE: I was hoping for any comparison between the HRM administration and . . .
MR. BRIAN SMITH: It is very bureaucratic.
MR. HENDSBEE: . . . dealing with city hall versus the province in regards to any contract arrangements, or using the same truck rates or whatever the case may be. You made comments that the municipalities are getting salt and stuff cheaper than the province.
MR. BRIAN SMITH: No, they go under the MUSH agreement, they fall under (Interruption) They are getting it hauled cheaper but they are buying the salt at the same rate as the province does. That is my understanding.
MR. HENDSBEE: Why is the hauling cheaper?
MR. GERMAINE: Because they will open the salt plant when they get behind, on Saturday and Sunday, and then there is no waiting.
MR. BRIAN SMITH: They work on the weekends.
MR. GERMAINE: There is lots of it that was dumped in the different yards, it is not weighed on the way in. How many scenarios do you want?
MR. HENDSBEE: When you say dumping, how does that become cheaper for the municipality?
MR. GERMAINE: It doesn't. (Interruptions) It is more expensive.
MR. HENDSBEE: There are comments in here that says the municipality gets its stuff done cheaper.
MR. GERMAINE: It gets done cheaper but their first cost is not your least cost. You are buying 10 tons of salt but you might be getting eight. (Interruptions)
MR. CHAIRMAN: Just on that point, and again I hate to be a party pooper but in the interest of time I am wondering if we have dealt with all the questions, if the members or witnesses would like to make some closing comments?
MR. ROBERTS: In my capacity, over the past five years as the office manager with TANS, I have seen great strides in this industry. We have taken a lot of flak, we have been in the newspapers, we have been before bureaucracy, we have been before ministers, and we always come out with our heads held proud. The trucking industry in the province is going places it has never been before. We have a report that we would like to share with you and give to the committee - right now it is only available in one copy; it will be coming out through the HRCC offices - where TANS is being very proactive.
When it came to safety and the issue of the safety courses and certificates that were coming through, TANS was the leader in making sure that any member of the province is going to get it and it going to get it at a fair rate and be able to go out and do government work. Everybody who joins TANS has to be in compliance with the certificate of recognition through safety associations; they have to be covered by workers compensation; and they have to have all the safety features before ending up on the highways. So it is the members of TANS and the safety aspects alone that well outweigh anything that you are being taught about cost factors, and therefore the Truckers Association in my eyes is well deserving of your help and appreciation.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much. Anything Mr. Smith?
MR. BRIAN SMITH: Yes, in closing I would like to thank the committee for having us here. One of the greatest satisfactions that brought tears to my eyes was about three years ago when one of our member's son needed a special bike. We got together, we raised the $2,300 - was it? - we had the bike specially flown in from B.C., got it here and then we presented it to him at one of our annual meetings. You just couldn't believe what the state of this young kid was and the satisfaction he got. We have since made him an honorary member of the Truckers Association and he has nothing but good to say about the trucking industry.
Gentlemen, we provide a service. We want to do it in a businesslike manner. We give respect where respect is due and we expect respect where respect is due us. In saying that, we want to partner with the Department of Transportation in leading this province into better roads, not tearing our roads to pieces, a common-sense approach, and basically every dollar you save as a government is a dollar that we can put back on the roads. Believe me, our roads are in bad shape and we are going to need lots of money to be spent on them, we want to be there as a partner. Thank you.
MR. HENNIGAR: Mr. Chairman, committee members, I would like to thank you for the opportunity of speaking here today on behalf of TANS. I would like to say quickly that this Auditor General's Report is a very dangerous document as I see it, and we have all kinds
of facts and figures and numbers that you can get through our office manager that will show why we are concerned with this. In closing, if I was to operate my Truckers Association of Lunenburg County with the proficiency of the Hebbville Shed, which just drove a front end loader through the side of the building, I would have to leave Lunenburg County. That is all I want to say. Thank you.
MR. GERMAINE: I would like to thank you for having us here. I would like to be listened to a little more at the bureaucratic level when you make a suggestion, as the three that I have thrown out here; there are many more there that we could help with. We see things that are going to happen after 5 million kilometres or 6 million kilometres around North America. You see a lot of things that are going to happen and you can foresee them happening, but somebody is in their little fish bowl there and they are the big fish in the little bowl and they want to put the blinders on and not listen to you. So it is very frustrating.
The only other thing, the millennium project that I would like to give the Department of Transportation, would be to build just one bridge without a bump in it, at least fix the holes that are in the other ones.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much, Mr. Germaine. On behalf of all committee members of the Standing Committee on Economic Development and Transportation and Public Works, I would like to thank each and every member of the executive of the Truckers Association of Nova Scotia for coming in today. We really appreciated the presentation that you have made and enjoyed our somewhat informal question-and-answer session. I think it has been helpful to all members. I guess all I can say at this point is keep on trucking.
Committee members, we have to deal with our future agenda. So just before everybody breaks, we are scheduled to see the Tourism Industry Association of Nova Scotia on February 8th and Ms. Sonia Wood on February 22nd.
MR. ESTABROOKS: Mr. Chairman, it says here that Ms. Wood could be available on either/or. Are we expressing preference there, Darlene?
MRS. DARLENE HENRY (Legislative Committee Clerk): Yes, I want to know if you want to go morning or afternoon with that meeting.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Is that the February 22nd one?
MRS. HENRY: Yes. I don't know what your schedules are so I told her that I would let her know.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Did she have a preference herself?
MRS. HENRY: No. At that time I wasn't sure if the House was going to be in session or not, and then around everybody's schedule.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, I think we are okay for the afternoon.
MR. ESTABROOKS: On behalf of the NDP caucus, we would prefer the afternoon, particularly because of my good friend - I am his only friend on the mainland, incidentally.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, I used to like him. (Laughter) Our next meeting will be on February 8th from 1:00 p.m to 3:00 p.m. and we will be meeting with TIANS, and the next meeting after that will be February 22nd, with Ms. Sonia Wood, again the same time, 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Is it agreed?
It is agreed.
Thank you very much. A motion to adjourn?
MR. MACKINNON: I so move.
MR. CHAIRMAN: The meeting is adjourned.
[The committee adjourned at 2:57 p.m.]
