- - -, -~ ~ ~ ~ ..,~* PAGE A10, WHITBY FREF PMS , DURHAM MOVES, APR 6, 98 .Bil88 favors U.S., says trucking association The Ontario government's proposed Bill 88 is "one-sided free trade favoring the Americans," says the Ontario Trucking Association. The proposed legislation to deregulate intraprovincial truck- ing in Ontario would benefit large shippers and manufacturers but is "less likely" to benefit smaller shippers, says the association. The association argues that the Bill would make it easier for U.S. motor carriers to obtain Ontario intraprovincial operating rights, but since 43 of 50 U.S. states maintain regulatory control over access to their operating rights, Ontario carriers won't have equal opportunity. Higher paying jobs in the trucking industry could be exported. to the U.S. while Ontario trucking companies will disappear, it is added. Truckers represented by the association says deregulation is probably inevitable and they wouldn't oppose an amended Bill. They want a reciprocity clause so that only carriers from jurisdictions which provide similar ease df access to Ontario carriers can take advantage of Bill 88. There are about 100,000 people employed in the Ontario trucking industry. Bill 88, "An Act to Regulate Truck Transportation," was introduced by Tranportation Minister Ed Fulton in the legislature on Dec. 17, 1987. It would replace the current "Public Commercial Vehicles Act" and is supposed to enhance competition among trucking companies, leading to lower transportation costs and increased service. A MAT TER OF SUR VIVAL Association sees threat to medium-size trucking firms From the Ontario Trucking Association When Howard Frohlich was asked where his kids would likely get a job if the family's' Kitchener-based trucking business folded from the effects of intraprovincial deregulation in Ontario, he said ironically: "Probably working for the American carriers." That . concerns Frohlich, secretary-treasurer of Al's Cartage Ltd., whose own dad, Ernest, star- ted the company with a 1929 Model A Ford pickup bought with $150 in saving from his paper route and a loan from the folks. Today, the third generation family business started in 1936 has 152 full-time employees, including Frohlich's brother, Nor- man, who is the company president, Norman's 17-year-old son, Roger, Frohlich's daughter, Christy, 24, and son, Craig, 21. "We've been an Ontario carrier for 52 years and we hope we don't have to change just to survive. We want to serve the Ontario industry, not the American industry'," said Frohlich recently. "I even doubt that we could afford to make the necessary changes. It would mean buying a carrier in the States and we couldn't afford to do that." Frohlich says he could accept deregulation a lot better and his company would have a greater chance of surviving if Ontario trucking companies were given the opportunity to compete fairly with the Americans. That means, if American carriers get the right to operate in Ontario intraprovin- cially, Ontarians, in turn, should have the right to operate intrastate within the U.S. It also means we should have comparable tax breaks on diesel fuel and equipment. Other heads of Ontario family-run trucking companies agree. Without fair competition, they foresee that many small- and medium-sized On- tario trucking firms will merge with or sell-out to, large American conglomerates. Consequently, sharp declines in the level of service to smaller Ontario communities and an increase in tle number of priva te carriers seeking outside business will result. "It happened to the farming i- dustry," said John Van Dc Ilogen, president of Van De Hogen Cartage Ltd. in Windsor. "The small In- dependent farmer no longer exists. They were forced to sell their farms to big conglomerates." Conglomerates, Van De Hogen ex- plains, have the advantage of working in volume. Trucks, tires, parts and fuel can all be had more cheaply because these companies buy large quantities. The can also afford to sell for less, undercutting the smaller guy's prices. With the added plum of deregulation, which truckers call "one-sided free'trade favoring the Americans," the smaller family trucking business in Ontario will disappear. Van De Hogen knows, of course, because his family's trucking com- pany already felt the effects of deregulation back in 1980 when the U.S. deregulated its cross border market: "Immediately I lost 50 per cent of my extraprovincial business because of the fact that ' the Americans came in to Windsor and took that as a suburb of Detroit. Now, how many small companies can stand to lose 50 per cent of their business, 12 tractors and trailers and 12 drivers, by the stroke of a pen?" So, how does the prospect of selling out sit with Van De Hogen? "Not very good. I have a son John, 22, who's definitely planning to come into the business. He's taking commerce right now at the Univer-. sity of Windsor but he'll definitely have to go and work for someone else if Bill 88 becomes a reality." "Not only that, " Van De Hogen says, "I've always been service- oriented. A guy gives me a hundred loads a week, I look after him. But, I look after the guy who gives me one load a week too because he needs that one load worse than the guy with the hundred." Both the railroad and the large carriers, Van De Hogen believes, will pull out of a lot of little towns like Essex and Kingsville because it won't pay them to be there. They'll become ghost towns. Yes, says John McKevitt, president of McKevitt Trucking Limited based in Thunder Bay. "You won't see people like me around in a few years because we just aren't going to be able to sur- vive. The operating costs are much higher here due to a more severe climate, poorer roads and the hilly terrain." Like Frohlich's father, McKevitt started out with one truck. Now, af- ter forty years in business he has 106 trucks which haul anything from lumber and paper products to steel and general freight. But, says McKevitt, it's been a long struggle for hlim and is wife, Shirley, along wit h tlheir t'iv sons, John, Jr. and Jlamies, "I feel a lit t le biter about it. It took yeurs to get wlere we are so I havn't aind munh time to enjoy it. I don't tilnk th' Ontario government gives a danmn. "hey're going to change the law and keep the big shippers happy and to hell with us." Ilut, McKevitt warns, it's small businesses, because they can't af- ford ail the sophisticated equip- ment, that employ the largest amount of people. A good number of McKevitts em- ployees and customers come from Nothern Ontario and they, along with the small trucking firms, should be looking over more than one shoulder to see where the com- petition is coming from, he says. "Private fleets (companies that haul their own freight) never used to run to Northern Ontario because it wasn't viable. Instead, they would employ somebody like us that lives here," said McKevitt. "But, now you have Sears, for instance, run- ning their product up here through their company, Sears Linehaul. They're getting licences to haul paper back south. -Nobody really thought anything of it until recently when some private carriers went for licenses." The private carriers' primary business is not trucking, McKevitt explained further. Therefore, they operate under an entirely different cost structure. This gives them ad- vantages other carriers don't have, together with the fact that they are running their trucks as a service to their main business, not for profit. "I don't see how we will be able to compete with the rates they will be abletocharge.'" Quite apart from the concerns about unfair competition from U.S. and private carriers -and deterioration of service to remote areas, a strong bone of contention shared unanimously by Ontario truckers is the loss of value in operating authorities they face. "My father '-worked 42 years: building, acquiring authorities and playing by the rules," John Goy, general manager of Goy Cartage in. Acton, said recently. "All of a sud- den somebody says the rules aie no good anymore and all the money, time and work you've invested really amounts to nothing. You guys can go scramble." Traditionally, truck operating authorities were looked upon as a sort of pension plan. At one time, a trucking business was worth more as a business because these authorities were granted on a limited basis. With Ontario deregulation, however, because anybody could operate here, the authorities would no longer have value, Goy explained. "This fact really came home to roost after I returned home from an Ontario Trucking Association executive meeting last week," McKevitt.said. "No sooner did 'I get back here and my banker wants a meeting with me. He wants to know my game plan. They're reading all this information in the papers and now they're asking, 'How- are. you' going to secure us?' They aren't comfortable." Many of the owners of smaller On- tario trucking firms echo this sen- timent from Goy: "I can't figure out the provincial government. They scream blue murder about free trade and then they turn around and do what I consider to be even worse. If 43 states out of 50 won't allow a Canadian trucker in, why should we let them in? You don't just push this type of legislation through because it's trendy or because it's a good vote-getter. Somewhere in the back of my mind I get the idea that this is being used politically and not at all as a building block for the provincial economy. I think it's going to be bad in the long run but by that time it'll be too late." For more information, contact Terri Albrecht, Public Affairs Assistant, at the Ontario Trucking Association, (416) 249-7401. TALL GLASS FENDERS Suppliers of i I ~ -1ý e h" After Market Body Parts 65-66 Mustang Steel Fenders $175. ea. 67-68 Mustang Steel Fenders $215. ea 65-68 Mustang Qrt Panels $89. ea. 65-73 Mustang Floor Pans $129. per side 20 Litre Pails of Primer Thinner $29. 1750 Plummer St. No 6, Pickering 686-3441 420-1495