THUNDER BAY — A motion to bring the testing and licensing of commercial drivers under the authority of the Ministry of Transportation failed to find traction with a government committee Thursday.
The motion, raised by Lise Vaugeois, the MPP for Thunder Bay-Superior North, was defeated by the provincial Standing Committee on Heritage, Infrastructure and Cultural Policy, at a public hearing on an unrelated matter.
“We know here, where we live, that it’s not a small thing. And we know that new drivers need and deserve to have good training and the full training that they’re supposed to be getting,” Vaugeois said.
Some might say that even the required training might not be enough, she added, given the road conditions and the winter conditions, especially up north.
“Certainly, that minimal training… we need to be assured that they’re getting it and that when they are being tested that it’s a legitimate test and that people are allowed to fail,” Vaugeois said.
Liberal MPP Lucille Collard, who also attended the public meeting, agreed with Vaugeois that there should be stronger safeguards for people who drive big trucks, which can in turn cause “big damage.”
However, with little advance warning of the motion prior to the public meeting, the government’s committee members decided to vote it down and encouraged the conversation at a later time.
“Now they say that we can bring it to a subcommittee. So, if we do bring it to the subcommittee, I hope that then they vote yes that we do have this debate,” said Vaugeois.
The motion was raised very shortly after Premier Doug Ford made his own comments on Northern highway safety at an announcement across town at city hall, saying he's "all in" on highway twinning.
The motion was one of three things, Vaugeois said, they are trying to achieve before MPP Guy Bourgouin, who is the first vice-chair of the committee, will bring forward a private member’s bill in the fall, with her and other Northern MPPs’ support.
She said that there has been a huge increase in accidents involving drivers who were not adequately trained for the highways.
“We actually know that the government is not tendering the testing of drivers, so DriveTest is kind of getting a free ride,” said Vaugeois, who disagreed with MPP Hardeep Singh Grewal’s, the assistant to the minister of transportation, statement that DriveTest follows the highest degree of standards.
“They’re getting an automatic renewal and the auditor general has questioned that more than once and said that the record has not been good enough, not been consistent enough to allow an automatic rollover.”
That work needs to be tendered and they want to see it going to the MTO, Vaugeois concluded.