As reported yesterday, FMA has written to officials at Transport Canada requesting that trucking hours of service regulations be relaxed for truckers involved in delivering vital goods, particularly restocking in food stores.
The Prime Minister and several of his cabinet ministers, including Transport Minister, Marc Garneau, made announcements yesterday that will have impacts on supply chains. This includes closing the border to non-citizens, or non-residents, except U.S. citizens. Everyone arriving in Canada is being requested to self-isolate for 14 days. There is one exception to this requirement that will help facilitate freight transportation. Vehicle operators in all modes, air, marine, rail and truck, who cross the border as part of their normal activities are exempted from this requirement. The Transport Canada item on the announcements made yesterday can be found at
https://www.canada.ca/en/transport-canada/news/2020/03/new-measures-for-covid-19-response.html
With regard to FMA operations, as requested by the government, Cindy Hick and John Corey will be working from home for the next few weeks. I’m on vacation in Costa Rica and am scheduled to return home tomorrow, March 18. On the assumption that I am actually able to get home tomorrow, I will be in self-isolation for 14 days and will also be working from home.
There are many sources of health-related information on COVID-19 and FMA will not generally include these in our updates. Our focus will be on supply-chain impacts. In this connection, it would be appreciated if FMA members could keep us informed of impacts on your respective operations, particularly any supply chain disruptions. This will be helpful in our continuing outreach to members and our communications with the government and with the Chamber of Commerce. As always, all individual company information will be kept confidential.
