Trucker Support
One of the major trucking industry representatives has brought to our attention that truck drivers at some loading and unloading points are being denied access to basic facilities like washrooms. While it is necessary for all of us to follow the hygiene guidelines issued by the health authorities, including truck drivers, access to facilities at loading and unloading points is vital to keep drivers safe and engaged. In this connection, one of the FMA member companies with a large private fleet has reported a driver attrition of over 10% since the start of this crisis and the trucking industry representative that contacted FMA has reported that drivers are beginning to refuse to come to work until they can be assured of reasonable treatment on the job.
FMA recommends that shippers ensure that the supervision at loading and unloading points is provided the guidance and support to ensure that drivers are treated with courtesy and have access to washrooms and other facilities.
Duty Remittance Deferral
The Prime Minister in his daily briefing this morning, announced a number of new measures designed to assist Small and Medium Size Enterprises (SMEs). The details can be found on the government website and we will not repeat them here. One item in his announcement was that payments of import customs duties plus GST/HST will be deferred until June 30. FMA is pleased to see that the government has acted quickly on the customs duty remittance deferral issue that we included in yesterday’s update. While FMA will be attempting to obtain more details, the announcement states that the deferrals will include amounts owing for March, April, and May. The government announcement can be found at
https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/economic-response-plan/covid19-businesses.html#deferral_sales_tax_remittance_customs_duty_payments
Service Updates
FMA participated today in the Transport Canada Commodity Supply Chain Table (CSCT) call where there were briefings by government officials, the railways, port authorities, the association representing the international bridges, followed by a roundtable of shipper comments. The comments from the carriers, ports, and from the shipper organizations, including FMA, is that the transportation system has largely recovered from the blockades earlier this year and that is generally meeting the service requirements. As noted in the first item above, the driver situation could begin to impact trucking and will require the cooperation of all supply chain stakeholders to keep trucking service at the required level.
Our focus in the FMA updates continues be on supply-chain impacts. In this connection, it would be helpful if FMA members could keep us informed of impacts on your respective operations, particularly any supply chain disruptions. This will be useful in our continuing outreach to members and our communications with the government and with the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. As always, all individual company information will be kept confidential.
