Apprentice-style trucker training recently adopted in Alberta continues the practice of making allowances for the unique challenges faced by farm families.
Class 1 Learning Pathway, which came into effect April 1, provides a partial exemption and restricted licence like the one instituted last year under the old system, Transportation and Economic Corridors Minister Devin Dreeshen confirmed in an interview.
Learning Pathway replaces mandatory entry-level training, or MELT, which was adopted widely in Canada in the aftermath of the Humboldt Broncos tragedy on April 6, 2018. The crash killed 16 people and injured 13 when the junior hockey team’s bus was hit in Saskatchewan by a semi-trailer truck operated by an inexperienced driver from Calgary.
A Class 1 licence allows a person to drive almost any type of vehicle other than a motorcycle. Commercial truck drivers, haulers, delivery drivers and others need one. With the right endorsement, they can also drive taxis, ambulances and buses.
Members of farm families can challenge the Learning Pathway Class 1 test. If they want to operate equipment with air brakes, they’ll still have to get what’s called a Q endorsement.
“They still have to know everything,” Dreeshen explained. “They have to pass the test, but they don't have to go through the process of in-classroom or in-cab training, because they already have that institutional knowledge.”
Vision screening and a driver’s medical assessment are requirements for all Class 1 operators, including those with the restricted licence.
Farm family members start operating trucks and equipment at an early age. They tend to drive on or near their property, between fields and within their own regions. They don’t spend hours upon hours on major highways.
It’s economically tricky for farms to hire, retain and pay outside drivers, because of the seasonality of agricultural work and the cost of bringing drivers in.
Lorne Dach, the NDP transportation critic, said the farm-restricted licence is worth continuing. “I think it should be under the microscope and watched carefully, but I'm willing to give it a real chance and hope it’s successful,” he said.
“It addresses some major concerns as far as cost, time and practicality go for farm families, agriculture and industry,” continued Dach, the member for Edmonton-McClung.
The public will be “watching carefully” to ensure safety isn’t jeopardized, he said. “I'm sure that the agricultural industry and farm families in particular will be very careful to make sure that they abide by the rules and that safety is always paramount.”
Dreeshen, the member for Innisfail-Sylvan Lake, said farm children grow up with built-in mentoring in a safety-consciousness environment.
“As a kid, I'd be driving a truck with my grandfather, and he'd be telling me everything he knew,” he said. “I think it is just a different reality on a farm.”
Overall, the government found that MELT wasn’t having the hoped-for impact, like lowering insurance claims. So Alberta began consulting the industry to create a better system.
“We felt we could do better,” Dreeshen said.
The government calls Learning Pathway a “made-in-Alberta” solution. It includes up to 133 hours of instruction, including air-brake training, and it offers more hands-on skills and safety training than the 113-hour MELT does.
The government talked to representatives of trucking companies, driving schools, insurance companies and other groups. “It was quite a journey,” Dreeshen said.
“One of the biggest things we heard through those consultations was that it’s important to train drivers on a truck that they're actually going to be driving day to day in their job. And that's something that obviously MELT failed at.”
Learning Pathway has Dach’s early support.
“I don't have any issues with it,” the shadow minister said. “I think it’s philosophically a good pathway, so I'm looking forward to its implementation, marking progress and monitoring to see if there are any hiccups.”
It’s important that the government include performance measures that show whether Learning Pathway improves training, hiring and retention at an affordable cost, he said.
This year’s provincial budget earmarks $54-million over three years for two grants involving commercial trucking.
A share of $30-million over three years is allocated for the Employment Pathway Grant, which provides funding to employers to cover the costs of training and onboarding for new and future Class 1 drivers.
The Industry Advancement Grant will provide $24.1-million over three years to eligible projects aimed at increasing employment, attraction and retention. This funding also includes $1.5-million over three years for education grants to support Class 2 and Class 4 school bus driver competencies.
Dach thinks the government needs to get a better handle on how big Alberta’s shortage of commercial drivers is.
“It’s up in the air, depending on who you talk to,” he said. “There’s a discrepancy in different estimates.”
Using Statistics Canada data as of the third quarter of 2023, the government puts the shortage at 4,260 vacancies.
Alberta has 149,000 licensed Class 1 drivers, yet only 31 per cent are actually employed as truck drivers.
As of the end of January this year, Alberta had 19,431 commercial carriers. Of them, 6,782 operated federally and 12,649 only in Alberta.
Alberta is attempting to lead the country in new system that standardizes and improves trucker training and its outcomes, Dreeshen said. A goal is to join with at least four other jurisdictions to come up with a Red Seal system, like those used in trades.
“The outcome should be about traffic safety and saving lives and making sure people are safer out on the roads, not about my provincial stamp is worth more than your provincial stamp.”
Dach called a Red Seal in trucking “something I would support.” He said working together with other provinces could lead to things like better working conditions and improved rest stops for truckers.
