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Jun 29, 2006 7:38 AM

The Canadian Council of Ministers responsible for transportation and highway safety should not back away from the slated January 1, 2007, implementation date for the new Canadian hours-of-service regulations, according to the Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA).

No formal acknowledgement has been made by any provincial government that the January 2007 coming-into-force date of the Canadian hours-of-service rules will be missed, but there is increasing concern among industry representatives that not all jurisdictions will be ready. CTA said.

“Slippage in the implementation date of the new rules would put motor carriers across the country in an untenable position, unless a significant amount of prior notice is given, and this seems unlikely given that we are only a little more than six months away from the deadline date and the federal regulation specifically states that the start-up date is January 1, 2007,” said David Bradley, CTA chief executive. There are real concerns in the industry that different jurisdictions might implement the regulations on different timetables. This would result in serious imbalances. We cannot have a situation where carriers operate under different sets of rules from one jurisdiction to the next.”

The new Canadian hours-of-service rules have been 14 years in the making. For the most part, the final rules have been known to all jurisdictions for at least a year, CTA said.