House Arrest - Ep. 32 - Gord Magill

00:00:00.000 Thank you.

00:00:30.000 We'll be right back.

00:01:00.000 hi everyone great clip of the week one of my most favorite things and i don't think we're

00:01:09.160 going to get a copyright slap for that hopefully not and good news everybody uh i did end up

00:01:15.560 getting a drone with jonathan and we are learning how to fly right now i crashed it twice jonathan

00:01:20.400 hasn't crashed yet so look forward to some really cool big red videos because of course i need two

00:01:25.160 people to run it if we're driving down the road but we're going to do a little bit more when it

00:01:28.440 comes to that. So excited. That is so cool. Just what you needed was another toy, Chris Barber.

00:01:34.800 I have too many toys, too many projects, but hey, I've been out trucking for, it feels like an

00:01:39.980 eternity. I've maxed my logbook out multiple times on the road, limped it home a few times,

00:01:44.360 did the transmission. That was my break. And then I got home today and I am probably wind up doing

00:01:51.460 something tomorrow, but I spent the afternoon in the office here trying to get caught up on the

00:01:54.680 stuff that I've lacked on the last while and I'm far behind it was good too and super busy I got

00:02:03.260 a bunch of projects on the go I'm really excited about and so it's my days have been really full

00:02:08.080 I really haven't stopped today yet so I so this so this will be a nice way to finish off my day

00:02:13.160 honestly got lots of updates today for everybody so I guess I'll start I did get some I did get

00:02:24.280 some news on my lawsuit against the ottawa police services and the attorney general of ontario i got

00:02:30.200 an email back from my lawyer from loopster nixon in toronto saying that uh the police defendants

00:02:39.660 which would be the ottawa police services the police services board detective benson and sergeant

00:02:45.700 hassan will be filing a statement of defense by the end of this month and the attorney general

00:02:52.400 of ontario is demanding that i drop my claim against them i think i hurt their feeling

00:02:58.080 and um yes they're demanding that i drop my claim against them i have something does this work

00:03:06.880 exactly they have maliciously prosecuted you for the last four bloody years would you like

00:03:12.320 a tissue the amount of you've been through come on oh no i'll drop mine when you drop yours

00:03:19.360 exactly right all right yeah so they're demanding that we drop it by the end of the

00:03:27.120 of this month which clearly i'm not going to so uh yeah they're just gonna have to

00:03:32.560 and get ready for a bumpy ride i hope um and obviously and my crowdfund is doing amazing

00:03:38.400 yeah the crowdfund is at 78 uh thousand dollars i've raised so far which is absolutely amazing

00:03:43.680 um and i haven't really been pushing it out that much but i'm really excited that veterans for

00:03:49.720 freedom has designated some of their clothing merch to go to some of the proceeds of that to

00:03:55.440 go to my legal fund they'll be sending that directly to my lawyer so i don't even have to

00:03:59.700 see that and if you'll notice yesterday alex and everyone at the resistance coffee company has also

00:04:05.960 come out with a promo to donate 100 of their proceeds when you use the code leech to order

00:04:12.460 your coffee. And they're going to donate all of those proceeds to my lawsuit also. So I feel

00:04:19.340 really grateful and I feel very supportive and I feel very loved. So if anybody out there doesn't

00:04:26.100 know Resistance Coffee Company, they reached out to me last year. They said, Chris, for your year

00:04:30.540 of house arrest, we'd like to offer you free coffee for the year. And of course, they weren't

00:04:34.540 asking for anything in return. And I got busy and I forgot about it. And so I did a video here a

00:04:40.100 little while ago and i tried to push some sales on them if you go to resistance coffee company

00:04:43.700 any one of their brands of flavors they have a description on the package and one of my favorites

00:04:49.920 is what mischief makers and i don't know but i think we had something to do with the title behind

00:04:54.760 that do you see it tomorrow yeah we sure did and we were the inspirate we were the inspiration

00:05:00.260 behind the mischief makers beans and it's so funny because we were just talking before the show

00:05:05.680 uh i was talking with chris and we were talking about the packaging like the packaging is so cool

00:05:10.300 that they're so nice to display you hate to break open the package to even drink the coffee

00:05:15.580 if anybody tasha our amazing producer tasha just put the link for uh resistance coffee company in

00:05:21.460 the in the chat groups there and to all the files so go check them out they're an amazing

00:05:26.440 freedom-based company in canada i believe they're based out of ontario right yes they are yep they

00:05:32.980 Yeah. And Alex, they've been a huge supporters of all of us. So, uh, yeah, it's amazing. Thank you, everyone. Uh, and what about, I've got some more updates, but let's hear about your week and how your house arrest is going. And before I, before we get into that though, uh, yesterday or the day before was our eight month anniversary. So we have less than four months of house arrest left before we move into our curfew. So it's going by fast.

00:05:58.300 It is going by fast and it has been so busy. And I, you know, I actually emailed my probation officer wanted to know my schedule because of course I hadn't updated her on where I was and what I was doing. And I said, I replied back and I said, can I go home and get some like literal house arrest in please? I'm tired. I've been going nonstop. I don't know how much to spend at home, but it hasn't been near as many as I've spent out on the road.

00:06:20.280 i've got loads in oklahoma right now florida my son jonathan is in phoenix arizona just picked up

00:06:27.160 a grader for a customer up in bigger saskatchewan and he's working his way that kid has never been

00:06:32.500 on basically the west coast he's not on the west coast but he's close enough to it but 23 years old

00:06:38.520 and uh working his way through the mountains and you know he stopped in vegas last night with his

00:06:43.300 his girlfriend cooper and they spent the night at the casino and cool this morning and he said

00:06:48.820 i think one night is good enough for me it was like a hundred dollars canadian for a meal at a

00:06:52.980 fast food restaurant it was ridiculous but he had a good good experience and and he lost some

00:06:59.380 travels coming up through the mountains and see some more amazing sights so and i still remember

00:07:04.980 him at 18 years old uh getting behind the wheel of big red when we were pulling up onto parliament

00:07:11.300 hill on january the 29th of 2022. you let him jump up to the front and drive up there that was uh

00:07:17.540 probably a very cool moment for him too yeah he was uh yeah he was what yeah 18 he just got his

00:07:23.380 license but you know i've been training him how to drive for for many many years a lot of years

00:07:28.260 before he was even capable of getting a license to drive so he knew how to you know i've always

00:07:32.260 give that kid credit he could back a truck and trailer in the shop and i would trust him with

00:07:36.500 bearings and brakes and drums and setting you know s cams and bushings and that he that kid

00:07:41.380 if he doesn't understand it he youtube videos it or he asks or you know he there's nothing he can't

00:07:46.100 fix he's a very talented kid so yeah well this is gonna segue nicely into our guest tonight who's

00:07:54.000 also been a lifelong trucker um so we'll talk about that in a minute uh how's you so everything's

00:07:59.840 been going good with you you've had no issues i've met i know you were saying that you yeah

00:08:03.040 you would like some house arrest please and thank you send send me home and make me stay there

00:08:07.220 yeah i've just i spent uh what was it i guess i unloaded and kill him last night alberta and then

00:08:13.540 and then made my way home i was tired so i just went to bed in castor alberta last night

00:08:17.940 but uh we were short of truck in the drill season we pulled drills with one truck 12 months of the

00:08:22.740 year so i could use him on trailers right now because drills are kind of caught up so i spent

00:08:27.460 the yesterday morning pulling the 16 000 pounds of concrete off the back of this 1998 peterbilt

00:08:32.580 owned by jay weedmark back in the day before he unfortunately passed away on us we bought that

00:08:36.900 truck from the estate and kept it growing in jay's honor but i spent the whole day the morning

00:08:41.780 yesterday getting that truck ready to pull trailers and that was quite the feat you know

00:08:45.220 payloader on one side on the other and we lifted the concrete off dad came down and gave me a hand

00:08:50.100 with it so i've got an extra truck on trailers right now and that's exactly what i need kind

00:08:54.020 of take the pressure off me a little bit so i'm excited about that yes we have our first super

00:09:00.260 chat tonight thank you glenn a little more to fight those people that want to fight medhattian

00:09:06.180 now living in calgary thank you so much glenn that's very nice um and we have a couple other

00:09:12.340 things to talk about now pardon me really great news um if some of you were watching this show a

00:09:19.300 few weeks ago i talked about my good friend ray lust who is a veteran who lives out in bc and he

00:09:27.140 was going in to meet with his doctor that particular the following day after our show um

00:09:32.660 anyways he texted me like a couple hours ago and said he saw his doctor today and he's cancer free

00:09:37.540 so that's really absolutely amazing awesome i know i know tasha had an opportunity to meet him too and

00:09:43.700 he's uh just that he's such a good man he's a true patriot he is a veteran that's really sick of uh

00:09:51.620 sickened by what he's seeing happen in canada literally true i guess we should bring this

00:09:57.780 segue into um there is a fake account on facebook right now that has been posturing tamara leach

00:10:04.180 um i would like we would like to put this out to everybody do you see that there's 43 000

00:10:09.700 followers out there that is not tamara's account and then there's ai videos being generated right

00:10:15.300 now if you google on facebook or search on facebook tamara leach a true warrior i would

00:10:20.740 ask everyone to go to that account and mass report it as a fraudulent account they have monetized

00:10:25.860 that account and they're literally making money right now off tamara's image if you look down that

00:10:30.500 account there's videos ai videos of both tamara and myself with voiceovers which is i believe

00:10:36.500 a crime so we ask everybody to just please go out there mass report the daylights out of that make

00:10:42.980 sure it's that account that one is the fake account and uh there's more people joining that

00:10:47.140 one every day so and of course there really is yeah they have uh they have you blocked on that

00:10:52.260 account but they don't have me blocked on that account right yes please if you could um obviously

00:10:58.820 this person is monetized this account and is making money off of it impersonating us and not

00:11:03.940 only that i mean i think um you know our lawyers and even the crown prosecutors and everyone

00:11:09.300 involved in our defense criminal case would know that this is but i mean if we're on if we're online

00:11:15.140 advocating to start a convoy start a protest uh disrupt anything period i mean those are grounds

00:11:21.380 for a breach of conditions and we'll go right straight back to jail now in this case i'm not

00:11:25.920 worried about it because i mean it's all well it's obvious to me i shouldn't say it's obvious

00:11:30.060 because i actually have friends that are following this that do think it's me i think looking at it

00:11:35.580 it's obvious that it isn't me but um but anyways please you guys if you could please report this

00:11:41.520 uh account i cannot as i have been blocked i can't even see it anymore as a matter of fact

00:11:46.440 Chris had to bring this to my attention again uh yet today yes it has been yeah you know and I

00:11:55.840 tried reporting it a few times too before like multiple times um and nothing ever happened so

00:12:01.400 I don't really know what you got to do to get uh mass mass report that's what that's what it takes

00:12:06.720 you mass reported as a fraud account um Facebook obviously when you look on TikTok or even Facebook

00:12:11.940 you see multiple accounts for bigger ed and anytime i report them as false even though

00:12:17.020 they're using my videos they basically save my videos and then repost them and and i it always

00:12:21.780 comes back with no violations found but yet you know if i call somebody stupid on tiktok i get a

00:12:27.520 violation for that within minutes so it's all in how you use your word you have to use the word

00:12:31.620 silly exactly exactly well i want to just go through and welcome everybody that's here tonight

00:12:39.240 and also remind you that we are live on youtube we are live on rumble we are also live on sub stack

00:12:45.800 if you want to support the channel you can like subscribe or share and we also have super chats

00:12:53.640 for uh for supporting and super thanks for afterwards so um all that is going to go into

00:13:00.760 supporting the show we are covering the costs to run the show on or on at the moment so that

00:13:05.640 would be awesome um okay and another thing i just wanted to quickly mention before we get into our

00:13:13.160 guest is a good friend of mine contacted me just before we came on she is going to be working uh

00:13:19.720 heavily involved in the allison inquiry so she's actually going to pop on next week to just talk

00:13:23.960 for like five minutes uh before we have dr trozian to talk about uh the allison inquiry and some of

00:13:30.600 the things that they're going to need to get make sure that the uh that the testifiers and the

00:13:36.440 vaccinated are going to be able to get to ottawa anyways we'll cover that a bit next week but um

00:13:40.760 i think the allison inquiry you know i think it's going to be sort of a lot like the nci

00:13:45.020 and that it's going to be a lot of testimony but um good testimony the nci testimony was excellent

00:13:50.700 and i think it's one step closer to getting it in front of the government honestly so i think

00:13:56.140 any time that we can have these conversations is good well i think the difference right is is the

00:14:01.440 national citizens inquiry was raised by citizens and this has actually been kind of pushed by

00:14:05.700 politicians which is where we needed to go so i'm hoping somebody something needs to break here and

00:14:11.880 we need to get some the word out and people need to start opening their eyes to what's going on in

00:14:15.500 this country right now yeah absolutely thank you colin gunn from duck bay a ten dollar super chat

00:14:22.200 thank you so much for joining us where is duck bay that sounds like it must be in ontario

00:14:27.160 duck base i see uh candace here candace zero is here thank you for joining us candace it's

00:14:33.480 always great to see you carla is back in the house carla nice to see you christy barry here

00:14:39.080 good to see you again this week uh we got the voice oh there we go that's there's a voice of

00:14:46.920 gourd uh glenn of course uh gave a super title a while ago he's from up in calgary

00:14:53.880 baba susie's here tonight three sweets angel sweet sweet three sweetest angel is here also

00:15:03.480 uh welcome everybody to house arrest we are going to bring on our guest tonight i'm gonna let you

00:15:11.400 go ahead and introduce I'm excited for this one Gord McGill we all know Gord McGill if you're on

00:15:18.240 Twitter Gord is a legendary figure Gord is a 25 year veteran of the trucking industry he's a third

00:15:24.980 generation trucker he has trucked in places that I've only dreamed of trucking from ice roads to

00:15:30.960 U.S. long haul to logs he's trucked in four different countries Australia United States

00:15:36.320 Canada and New Zealand and Gord has wrote a book called the end of the road and it's the the inside

00:15:43.940 war on the truckers so we're gonna bring Gord on here right now all right welcome to house arrest

00:15:53.600 again this is your second time yeah thanks for having me and uh good evening fellow thought

00:15:59.480 criminals Gordon you're literally on Tucker Carlson's show a week and a half ago and now

00:16:04.880 you're on house arrest with chris and tamara how do you feel about going from tucker carlson to

00:16:09.480 house arrest vast improvement vast improvement not because the tucker show was bad just because

00:16:16.780 this one's live i actually recorded that with him on uh march 17th on saint patrick's day and they

00:16:23.780 sat on it for like two and a half months because iran and demons and whatever and i guess i'm not

00:16:30.240 important which is fine because i'm not demons you got the aliens yeah you guys being live and

00:16:38.220 out front is uh much better we don't pre-record stuff around here we just do it live on the go

00:16:43.500 and most of the time we don't even know what we're doing but we have an audience that likes

00:16:46.300 to hear from us and that's what we fly by that's exactly right rarely we've been in the trucking

00:16:53.500 industry a long time i think i'm going on my 34th year this year you obviously 25 and you've got a

00:16:59.160 history of trucking and your family blood what made you decide to write a book on the end of the

00:17:05.340 road well good question um i uh i so i started writing on substack a few years ago i'm sure a

00:17:14.960 few of you folks have read it uh talked a lot about the coots guys and the freedom convoy and

00:17:19.340 other trucking stuff and started my own podcast and i was trying to figure out why the trucking

00:17:25.540 industry is so screwed up because not enough people talk about it or get into the deeper

00:17:30.340 sort of details and so I just started diving into it myself and after a couple of years of

00:17:37.420 publishing things on Substack and a few other places you know I've written for the American

00:17:42.100 Conservative and Newsweek and a bunch of places here in the states and this publisher approached

00:17:47.920 me near the end of 2024 and said you know we think you've got a book in you so if you were

00:17:53.780 going to write one what would it be about regards trucking and so the book is sort of a i guess it's

00:18:01.040 sort of a narrative arc investigation trying to connect all the dots between all the things i've

00:18:07.340 seen on the road and in my lifetime of experience and stuff that chris has seen and everybody else

00:18:12.660 on the road and then the things that we're told about the trucking industry and the media which

00:18:17.680 don't always line up with that and so i wanted to figure out what was going on and clear the air on

00:18:23.360 few things and and share with people who might not be in the trucking business uh sort of what's

00:18:29.120 going on and how we got here today good point and it's definitely something that needs to be spoke

00:18:34.560 about as most people are aware um the humble bus crash happened in saskatchewan around north of

00:18:39.040 uh yeah north of tisdale was that 2018 when that happened yes sir that was the most horrific wreck

00:18:46.080 in the world i knew uh the bus driver his name was glenn he was a long-haul trucker that i'd

00:18:51.200 trucked with off and on throughout the years um that was his retirement gig was driving the humble

00:18:55.620 bus to hockey games so uh glenn would have been unfortunately the first one killed out of that

00:19:00.860 ordeal and uh and it was senseless very senseless because there is one of the things that i remember

00:19:09.140 about that was i've hauled a lot down that highway and there's a stop sign on the side of the highway

00:19:14.660 there from when you're coming from the east and it has red flashing lights around the stop sign

00:19:19.940 and there's a farmyard on the south side of that intersection that is heavily treed so the

00:19:24.940 government's first thing to think about was hey we need to get rid of those trees so somebody can

00:19:29.680 see when they're running the stop sign that was the solution for the saskatchewan government or

00:19:35.140 highways administration uh i found it quite embarrassing and when you got dealing into

00:19:40.040 the inside realm of what that truck driver was up against he'd been on the road for i believe it was

00:19:45.120 two weeks um he was new to canada he was improperly trained you don't just send somebody i remember

00:19:52.320 when i got my license in 1992 i couldn't get a job even though i was born and raised on a farm

00:19:57.680 and i was raised around grain trucks and and hauled grain out of the fields and knew my

00:20:02.240 you know i couldn't get a job and the only way i could get a job was hauling gravel and i tell that

00:20:06.880 to all these new guys now that probably was the best thing that could have ever happened to me

00:20:11.280 It put me off on gravel roads with an old beat-up truck where I had to learn how to shift, you know, make corners, back up in intersections.

00:20:19.380 My life skills that I got in that job saved me 50,000 times over, I'm sure.

00:20:25.640 Yeah, definitely.

00:20:27.380 And one of the problems we have in North America today is that the training programs are back asswards.

00:20:36.600 They take people with almost no training, especially people that just got here yesterday, haven't acclimatized to our culture, haven't picked up the language, haven't picked up our driving culture, which is its own thing.

00:20:50.180 And then they get thrown out doing long haul over the road trucking without much in the way of practice at all.

00:20:56.340 And this is what happened with Mr. Sidhu.

00:20:58.660 And we've seen the results and we've seen many, many, many examples of this.

00:21:03.200 Unfortunately, that's not the only tragedy.

00:21:05.180 It's the most deadly one and the one everybody knows about, but it's repeated constantly.

00:21:10.900 And so what I was trying to do in the book is like lay out how we got here, where all the holes are in the system, why it's happening, who's responsible.

00:21:21.740 It's fairly detailed.

00:21:24.560 I didn't want to like try and bore everybody to death.

00:21:27.180 So every chapter starts with like a little anecdote or, you know, a story story for my own career that I use as a springboard to get to numerous different issues.

00:21:38.100 But, yeah, this didn't just happen overnight.

00:21:42.020 There's a lot of people who are annoyed about the presence of people from other countries on our highways and trucks.

00:21:47.580 Fair enough.

00:21:49.000 This didn't just happen yesterday and it didn't happen in a vacuum.

00:21:52.920 there's a lot of things that have taken place over the last 40 years which laid the groundwork

00:21:59.140 for the situation we are in now and a lot of that stuff needs to be corrected and of course the

00:22:04.640 government's slow to correct it if they're going to correct it at all and when we speak about

00:22:10.660 immigrants in the trucking industry we're not speaking about a specific group of people i've

00:22:14.640 witnessed over my 34 years of driving i've seen people come here from the uk australia germany

00:22:20.580 ukraine india china it doesn't matter where you come from and and i know this is it's almost a

00:22:28.500 scam that i've noticed and uh you can these these companies now headhunt people in other countries

00:22:33.840 you know basically give me twenty thousand dollars and i'll bring you to this country i'll give you

00:22:38.100 a license and send you off in a truck and one of the worst things i think the trucking industries

00:22:42.280 kind of went through was the introduction of automatic transmissions in commercial vehicles

00:22:46.840 because now anyone can drive a semi as long as they have that license um what are your experience

00:22:52.920 with that lately well that's a very interesting point chris um this is sort of part of a broader

00:23:00.740 issue of de-skilling and making it so much easier to get people into the industry and not train them

00:23:07.800 properly because for many years uh on both sides of the border we've been told that there's like

00:23:13.900 some shortage of truck drivers and that's not true there's tons of people with licenses and

00:23:18.620 tons of people who cycle in and out of the industry what they have is a retention problem

00:23:24.040 because they don't want to pay enough they don't want to train people properly they don't want to

00:23:27.960 fix the material conditions of the job now there are lots of good trucking jobs out there and good

00:23:34.100 companies to work for they're just in the minority they're guys like you the guys like i used to work

00:23:39.180 for in ontario the paddocks my buddy jim langelle over in rolling hills alberta not too far from

00:23:44.320 tamara they're around but they are in the minority and the main gateway that people used to get into

00:23:52.940 trucking for the most part uh was through in the united states what we call mega carriers

00:23:57.660 so you know companies with hundreds and thousands of trucks and their own truck driving schools

00:24:02.540 and what they did is they sort of discovered that by calling it a shortage they could get

00:24:09.160 money from the government to pay for their or subsidize uh to a certain point their training

00:24:14.320 schools which allowed them to keep cycling through people rather than incentivizing themselves to

00:24:20.280 keep the good ones they have around and that sort of amongst other programs to get people

00:24:26.360 in the business that that's been around for quite a while now and that sort of system ran into the

00:24:34.500 mass migration we've seen over the last few years and then that system which was already bad enough

00:24:40.840 and didn't teach people well enough was further degraded by further uh lessening of requirements

00:24:46.900 and you know self-certification of cdl schools self-certification of electronic logbook

00:24:53.360 software providers. There's just been so many holes opened up in the system in Canada and the

00:24:59.700 U.S. that the industries just have all these people from all over the world showing up just

00:25:05.880 like, hey, I'm just going to go trucking in America. Whether or not they know what they're

00:25:09.920 doing, know how to communicate, know anything at all, the government doesn't seem to care.

00:25:16.800 I've jumped out of the truck. I had an altercation with a driver in Moose,

00:25:20.400 just Saskatchewan at the Flying J truck stop and I jumped out of the truck I pulled into the parking

00:25:24.040 lot for fuel and the fuel islands were obviously a couple trucks at the island and I noticed the

00:25:29.220 truck off to my my right hand side against the fence and sometimes guys park there but this guy

00:25:35.240 was waiting for a fuel island op he was cherry picking the fuel island meanwhile you know there

00:25:39.160 was trucks backed out on the service road so I just drove right past him and found a spot and waited

00:25:43.520 patiently behind the next guy and he got out of the truck to give me trouble because I cut in front

00:25:48.680 of him essentially I couldn't understand him he had no English skills and and then my anger went

00:25:54.620 from I was trying to be say like sorry buddy I didn't know you were waiting for fuel pump you

00:25:58.160 need to get in a line to then how the hell are you driving down the highway reading English

00:26:04.100 through road signs an English log book um with with no English skills this is wrong

00:26:09.860 and of course he couldn't answer that and I this is where we are yeah and the the English

00:26:18.320 thing some people get upset and say well you don't need to know english to drive a truck necessarily

00:26:22.880 and that's true you don't however you do need it to communicate with others to read information

00:26:29.120 signs to read weather reports here in north america there's a whole bunch of communicating

00:26:33.840 you have to do and you can't do it if you can't read and there's numerous uh incidents of uh

00:26:40.480 drivers getting themselves and other people killed by failing to pay attention to signage right so

00:26:46.080 So, you know, you go down some big grade in Colorado or BC and you don't know what the runaway lane ramp says.

00:26:54.980 So you just scream on past it if your brakes fail again, because usually these guys aren't trained very well.

00:27:00.780 And they end up, you know, there's been numerous incidents of drivers getting themselves killed and crashing into folks, especially in places like Colorado.

00:27:09.360 you have uh the numerous guys with van trailers hitting overpasses because they can't read the

00:27:16.120 over height sign that says you know this bridge is only 12 feet high your trailer is 13 six

00:27:22.140 and they run into it and it's just a constant stream of that stuff um saskatoon saskatoon had

00:27:28.060 a bunch of bridge strikes a few months back a local am radio station had me come on their show

00:27:33.540 to talk about that and why it was happening a bunch of that's happened around vancouver and

00:27:38.880 lower mainland of bc and uh it's it's just like you have to be able to communicate so that you

00:27:46.080 know what you're doing and if the the this pipeline of bringing people here from the third world to go

00:27:52.800 trucking you're not helping anybody and you're setting them up for failure but if you as soon

00:27:59.200 as you say as soon as you criticize anybody from overseas that means you're anti-immigration and

00:28:04.640 probably an r word right so um and this gap between understanding of what actually goes on

00:28:11.760 out on the road and what you need to know versus people in the media and the government that

00:28:17.840 haven't got a clue uh in that gap is where we have this problem well first of all i'll say like the uh

00:28:24.080 the fm csa is an english handbook and most carriers i was just trying to find mine it's in the office

00:28:30.080 or somewhere but that is our guideline for trucking industry standards is and it's a green

00:28:34.240 book that you get everywhere. Every driver should have one in their truck. It gives you a list of

00:28:38.400 all the requirements of the mandates. It's normally primarily in English. And I want to mention too

00:28:44.540 that out of my 34 years out here, I started an old school trucker. I had a bunch of old timers

00:28:49.000 that got me under their wing and showed me how to drive in the States when I needed that. We stopped

00:28:54.100 for coffee way too many times in a day in every little diner. You know, and then we drove all

00:29:00.740 night long to make up for the time that you spent sitting in a coffee shop but you could do that

00:29:04.520 back in the day um when it comes to the driver especially to do the one that was involved with

00:29:09.920 the humble bus crash there there's been very limited accountability to the company that he

00:29:15.340 was working for or to the driving school that gave him his license and that's where i think the

00:29:20.380 government is failing i know they started to crack down on some of the driving schools in this country

00:29:24.480 their problems and there's a lot of good driving schools out there i know and i don't want to take

00:29:28.100 any heat from any of the good driving skills out there because my son five years four years ago

00:29:32.720 went through that exact program and was trained properly even though he knew so much more than

00:29:38.120 most of the people involved in that course from being a kid that was you know grew up underneath

00:29:42.400 a truck and learning how to drive a truck he said it was kind of stupid because he knew you know

00:29:46.580 they went over things that he'd already know like he spent the first day learning how to get into a

00:29:50.980 truck properly oh my gosh no i i'm glad you brought oh go ahead tamra yeah i just wanted to

00:29:59.380 jump in and say thank you to our good friend jim primo who gave us a 100 super chat thanks jim is

00:30:07.200 an absolute gem we've had the pleasure of meeting him a few times that he was at our hearing uh

00:30:13.040 that's the last time i think our son was at our hearing so uh thanks a lot to jim we really

00:30:16.940 appreciate that i'm sorry to interrupt you guys i just don't know like that no worries i'm glad

00:30:21.740 chris brought up uh his boy and how his son has been trained properly because i went through a

00:30:26.080 similar program like i started working for these guys in ontario uh earl paddock transport in

00:30:31.160 stony creek uh at night after school when i was 16 on the weekends washing trucks i worked in

00:30:37.040 their body shops sandblasted old steel trailers remember when trailers made out of steel instead

00:30:41.020 of aluminum help the mechanics go into stelco and defasco at night chain down coils tarp coils get

00:30:48.880 stuff ready for the long haul guys and learned from the ground up learned everything in a granular

00:30:53.360 way under supervision from people that knew what they were doing for an extended period of time

00:31:00.460 and then i worked local for a couple of years and they were like oh here go to detroit go to

00:31:05.080 montreal you know like six hours away and then do that for a while and then eventually the otr stuff

00:31:10.520 But again, the demands of the customers of very large trucking companies and because they don't want to keep their good guys around, they just want to throw bodies behind wheels and send them down the road.

00:31:23.600 And that's not how most guys get into the industry.

00:31:26.820 And I think that has to change.

00:31:29.300 I've definitely noticed the big deal.

00:31:30.820 I've watched, you know, like anytime there's snow or there's ice on the highway, the first thing you see is, you know, usually van bodies or whatever it may be in the ditch upside down.

00:31:40.520 have actually seen dry highways no wind and a guy hits the ditch one of my good buddies in swift

00:31:47.240 current is a heavy tow truck operator in the swift current area and i pray and i fear for his life

00:31:52.760 uh anytime there's a wreck on the side of the highway because he uh he puts some social media

00:31:59.400 videos out showing his experiences with the people that that are just about taking his life daily and

00:32:05.160 it's scary it's absolutely i you know if i see guys working on the side of the highway highway

00:32:09.800 crews or tow truck guys and and they're close to the that center lane where i need to worry about

00:32:14.520 that 60 kilometer hour rule is out the window i drop it to 40 i'll drop it to 30. give them a

00:32:19.960 little bit of space yeah but not everybody does that anymore these are the basic considerations

00:32:29.160 you pick up in a cooperative driving culture um america and canada uh have a driving culture it's

00:32:38.680 not perfect we still have lots of collisions and accidents and this has been happening since time

00:32:42.840 immemorial but a culture we do have you learn it by osmosis from riding around with your folks

00:32:49.400 being a teenager maybe you go to some car training program young drivers of canada something and you

00:32:57.560 sort of just pick this stuff up you have basic consideration for others um maybe not the same

00:33:04.280 in other parts of the world and not something that you learn immediately so the idea that you

00:33:09.480 just hand out licenses to folks that just got here is kind of stupid it's sort of naive and

00:33:14.920 thinks that the rest of the world thinks and acts what the way we do but um you know like i say in

00:33:20.840 the book i sort of lay out how we got here and i don't want to like beat up on new arrivals they're

00:33:25.480 just you know they're just following incentive they're just doing what they're going to do

00:33:29.080 but again my if there's a bad guy in my book it's this organization in the united states called the

00:33:35.800 american trucking associations oh no there's this they're this sort of corporate lobby group who

00:33:41.800 a lot of people just assume represent truckers because there's trucking in the name

00:33:46.200 but who they actually represent are these very large carriers um all the policies and advocacy

00:33:52.280 they do is to make things easier for people with thousands of trucks and they are the folks that

00:33:59.080 promulgated this narrative a long time ago that there's a shortage of truck drivers when in fact

00:34:03.800 it's just a retention problem and so they you know that idea has been in so many people's heads for

00:34:11.000 so long that there's you know there's entire ecosystems now of training schools ngos foundations

00:34:20.040 uh non-profits that just try and help people out by putting them in trucks because they believe

00:34:25.380 there's a shortage but there isn't right if there's a shortage of something the price for it

00:34:30.280 goes up basic supply and demand economics uh chris as you're and in your experience has your

00:34:38.420 salary ever really gone up uh because people said hey we you know we need more trucks where are you

00:34:45.940 Yeah, no, I don't really pay myself, to be honest with you, Gord.

00:34:49.920 Everything just kind of goes into the company.

00:34:51.400 But I can tell you, a lot of my customer base out there requires a good carrier that knows

00:34:55.980 what they're doing, and we generate our business.

00:34:59.780 We don't advertise because people out there know our social media presence and just our

00:35:04.500 quality of work out here.

00:35:06.240 We pull into it.

00:35:06.940 Last night, perfect example, Killam Alberta.

00:35:09.380 Farmer texted me, said, hey, I got rained out on the sprayer.

00:35:12.380 Are you able to run the forklift?

00:35:13.720 I ran to town for my kids' baseball game, and I said, absolutely.

00:35:17.960 I jumped in some little gale mini forklift that I've never ran before in my life,

00:35:22.240 and I've unloaded the tires safely and got out of the air, and the guy had family time.

00:35:26.500 That's exactly what my company's about.

00:35:28.600 But you don't see that out here as much anymore.

00:35:31.740 Right.

00:35:32.240 So one of the nuances with the shortage thing is that there is a shortage of guys like you

00:35:39.860 who really know what they're doing have a lifetime of experience provide that kind of service to your

00:35:44.960 customers can be counted on to get it done anytime anywhere any problem you'll figure it out you know

00:35:51.300 you've got the sauce you know you know what to do the problem is is that the shortage narrative

00:35:58.400 because it puts so many people through the cdl mill system the class one you go get your truck

00:36:05.400 license you get into the trucking industry you don't know anything about it you don't get paid

00:36:10.180 enough you get treated like crap you quit if you don't stick around with it long enough you never

00:36:15.820 obtain those skills or learn enough about it to become the high quality high skill professional

00:36:21.160 operator so the the wider shortage narrative is false but it does create a shortage of really

00:36:29.560 good operators. Well, one of the things I noticed during COVID, you know, as we came through the

00:36:35.640 this pandemic and then the government introduced the legislation for cross-border mandates for

00:36:40.620 commercial vehicle drivers, I noticed a lot of the guys that I'd trucked with for many years,

00:36:45.000 some of the older guys that were reaching the end of their careers, were pulling the plug.

00:36:49.080 They were just taking early retirement. They were taking local jobs. Were they home every night? They

00:36:53.320 were getting out of the trucking industry. And that was creating a situation where this is going

00:36:58.280 to get even worse down the road and that was part of the reasons why why i primarily stood up for

00:37:03.340 for you know in 2022 because i seen exactly what was happening and that contributed to me taking

00:37:09.020 part in it um since then a lot of guys because we're so heavily regulated in this industry right

00:37:14.680 now when it comes to electronic log books you know they introduced electronic log books years ago i

00:37:19.220 remember when that program started was 20 a month for my e-log i'm up over 70 a month for that now

00:37:24.840 you times that by five trucks 12 months into the year and then you put the iftomiles you know the

00:37:29.980 charge on that now we have the dash cam coming in where bc is legislating dash cams are are

00:37:36.660 mandatory in every commercial vehicle which if you're not running a dash cam in a commercial

00:37:41.380 vehicle you are already at fault as far as i'm concerned every truck should have a dash cam it

00:37:46.160 saves your ass it'll save everybody else's ass my looking out looking out looking out yeah right

00:37:52.280 exactly the government will use that in a negative light and it's another measure of control especially

00:37:57.720 when they're when they're legislating it like they're doing in british columbia right now

00:38:01.240 and then you brought up the the american trucking association a little while ago

00:38:04.920 the cta the canadian trucking association alliance the canadian trucking alliance alliance yes canadian

00:38:11.480 trucking alliance yes i noticed them in in uh you know convoy days too they yeah they went against

00:38:18.360 us right away because they're not interested in the small carriers i've seen the true colors of

00:38:23.080 that association right off the bat and it kind of opened my eyes to a new rule yeah you sure did

00:38:30.440 that was really shocking that they came out so quickly like that and like basically denounced us

00:38:35.880 uh it was pretty obvious that what their agenda was that's for sure yeah i i criticized those

00:38:41.000 guys in the book and also uh the leader of teamsters canada this guy named francois laporte

00:38:46.760 so we have you know the the convoy and you guys are in ottawa and you know the big boss in all

00:38:53.740 things is always the government right unions are always about you know fighting the boss

00:38:59.420 negotiating the boss making sure your guys are protected um jimmy hoffa the guy who ran the

00:39:08.000 teamsters in the 50s and 60s and early 70s he was not like some foaming at the mouth commie

00:39:15.000 socialist union guy he was actually a republican and supported richard nixon and was very patriotic

00:39:20.600 but he also understood that his main job was to stand up for his guys get good contracts and pay

00:39:28.120 them and if he got good contracts for his drivers and they were looked after they would stay with

00:39:33.720 his union and he wouldn't have to worry about the afl-cio or any of these other big unions like

00:39:38.520 hoffa understood um today a union leadership is not drawn from the shop floor you know jimmy hoffa

00:39:46.760 had a grade 9 education he never finished high school he was a tracker and then he got into the

00:39:51.320 union business i don't think francois laporte's ever driven a truck and most of the leadership

00:39:57.880 of most of the unions in canada is the same deal and they went with the government narrative they

00:40:03.720 threw aside their own members right to bodily autonomy they believed all the smears of justin

00:40:11.000 trudeau and the thing that really gets me so if you're francois laporte and you're looking at

00:40:17.720 you know truck drivers are only about only about five percent of them belong to the teamsters it's

00:40:23.800 a very sort of non-union occupation if you are trying to expand your membership and get more

00:40:31.560 truckers to sign up for the teamsters maybe you should stand up for them maybe you shouldn't just

00:40:37.280 believe the government so laporte had this opportunity to reach out to non-union truckers

00:40:43.780 and say hey man we've got like the same beefs here let's work together and instead he repeated

00:40:50.120 all the bullcrap from trudeau and threw us under the bus right so what do you do with like labor

00:40:56.700 leaders that are against their own workers like how what do you do with this i think that was

00:41:01.240 another huge disappointment through COVID through this pandemic was the fact that the unions whether

00:41:06.100 it be the trucking unions or the health unions or the labor unions any unions in this country

00:41:11.140 primarily backed the side of the government they were forcing government mandates on their union

00:41:17.400 members and where is the accountability on those unions to this day I lost a lot of respect for

00:41:22.840 unions at that time and I hope some of the members within the unions lost a lot of respect for their

00:41:28.680 leadership as well because they they definitely needed to be counted and the unions did nothing

00:41:33.000 to protect the people that wanted bodily autonomy for themselves they've basically just become uh

00:41:39.800 they've just basically basically just become an arm of socialist political parties um i mean i i

00:41:47.560 think i would be absolutely appalled if all of my dues were going to support somebody like fred

00:41:52.360 han i think he's since retired now but or been forced out but you know a lot of these union

00:41:59.760 dues are going to support uh socialist governments ndp style governments and socialist policies and

00:42:06.280 like you said even seeing that through the pandemic that they didn't actually stand up

00:42:10.660 for their workers um they they stood up for the government which you know is exactly the opposite

00:42:18.220 of what the unions were created for so the police unions the you know how many different was there

00:42:23.320 a union out there that actually stood behind you know and anybody watching the show right now please

00:42:28.120 comment on and tell me was there a union out there that stood behind the people and their choice to

00:42:32.940 choose over the government and the mandate that they were trying to push on the citizens this is

00:42:37.000 it opened my eyes up huge and i mean you know a lot of these big trucking associations out here

00:42:41.720 whether it be the sda the saskatchewan trucking association or manitoba they're all run their

00:42:47.060 board members are all run by those mega carriers. They're all, all the decisions are made that

00:42:51.840 benefit the mega carriers. They don't give a rat's ass about the, you know, the Chris Barbers and the

00:42:57.140 CB truckings with five measly trucks on the road. I don't feel represented at all there. And I know

00:43:01.700 I've had a lot of conversations with people that are involved with the SDA. I'm sorry, but I just

00:43:06.140 don't see it. And I will never support that with my financial dollars because I don't think you're

00:43:10.160 looking after the little guy. And that was the, that was the intent in these associations in the

00:43:14.960 first place i'm not 100 sure on if that was the intent or not i met this dude uh online his name

00:43:22.400 is steven ruey and he's writing a sort of book on the uh i shouldn't say he's not writing a book

00:43:26.960 he's he's got this like youtube online project about the history of the trucking industry in

00:43:31.400 the united states and he takes a real deep look into the founding of a lot of these people and

00:43:37.060 it's not always what we think it is but um you know i i again the the the the associations bear

00:43:46.000 some responsibility for the stuff that we're dealing with right like one of the things that

00:43:50.840 really drives me insane about everybody in canada knows we have a problem with the trucking business

00:43:55.580 we've got really bad drivers of all stripes and it's you know you go through northern ontario

00:44:02.420 every winter 25 30 people get killed in iraqs it's almost a daily occurrence the road's always

00:44:08.160 closed and they you know the the associations always try and say well that road's not good

00:44:15.740 enough it's only two lanes we need to widen it we need more passing lanes it's like i drove the

00:44:21.460 trans canada highway through northern ontario hundreds of times and never had a problem and

00:44:26.580 Probably back when the highway was narrower

00:44:28.700 because it's been widened a lot.

00:44:30.940 It's not the road.

00:44:32.620 It's not the road. It's the people

00:44:34.680 on it. And then they had

00:44:36.600 this, Parliament has had these

00:44:38.700 committees looking into this thing called

00:44:40.500 Driver Incorporated, which is a

00:44:42.520 sort of tax avoidance

00:44:44.720 scam that has been

00:44:46.660 labeled as such by our friends at the Canadian

00:44:48.780 Trucking Alliance. And fair enough, that's a problem.

00:44:51.720 The issue is

00:44:52.660 that they don't tell you where

00:44:54.700 it came from who's engaged in it what part of the trucking industry uses it the most and they don't

00:45:02.860 make the connection between the sort of exploitation and abuse of a lot of these guys that come here

00:45:09.500 right and so don't don't believe me i'm just a dude that happens to be a truck driver that wrote

00:45:14.380 a book you want to go with like full tilt boogie information go to the globe and mail in 2019

00:45:21.900 the globe and mail a lady who works their journalist a legitimate journalist not a yahoo

00:45:26.620 like me named kathy tomlinson did a deep dive into the abuse of the temporary ford worker program and

00:45:34.220 trucking and and found that an entire ecosystem of scamming had evolved through that and people

00:45:42.860 are being brought from wherever they come from and put into trucks with very little in the way

00:45:49.580 of training but they come here in debt so what happens is there's these agents especially in

00:45:54.780 india that recruit young guys and say hey go to canada we'll get you a job oftentimes they're not

00:46:00.780 told that it's trucking uh they show up here sometimes they've paid the agent and it's sort of

00:46:06.540 above board and legal sometimes they pay human traffickers to get them to mexico and they travel

00:46:11.340 over land and then they go work for their fellow indian guys because they don't speak english they

00:46:16.700 don't know anything they've just been told that they can come here to the promised land and go

00:46:21.260 trucking and make money or go do some other job and make money and they end up in trucking

00:46:26.860 oftentimes never drove anything back home in india and again they're in debt to agents and

00:46:33.340 human traffickers and then the people they work for when they get here and that's held over their

00:46:38.700 heads so like oh you don't want to drive over the rocky mountains with no training well we

00:46:43.260 we can just cancel your visa and send you back.

00:46:45.260 We can just withdraw our sponsorship of you.

00:46:47.320 We can do whatever.

00:46:48.320 So these folks are under a lot of exploitation.

00:46:51.160 And other than this Kathy Tomlinson lady who pointed it out in 2019,

00:46:56.980 seven years ago,

00:46:58.220 nothing has been done about it.

00:47:00.640 It's all still going on.

00:47:02.340 So like over and above the lack of training,

00:47:04.840 a lot of these people are under intense economic pressure to pay off all the

00:47:09.820 people that brought them here.

00:47:11.040 and that creates a whole bunch of perverse incentives and unfortunately nobody's talking

00:47:17.200 about this so a few weeks ago the globe and mail put out this like report on driver inc and all

00:47:24.120 the like tax scamming and problems and trucking they didn't mention any of the safety stuff

00:47:29.020 barely at all or they tried to downplay it they never even referenced their own newspaper nowhere

00:47:35.020 in that article did they talk about the one from 2019 from one of their very own journalists

00:47:39.760 outlining all of the scamming that's going on they just totally ignored it like what why are

00:47:46.600 we ignoring this exploitation program why is it that nobody can talk about that somebody tell me

00:47:53.480 i don't know you it's yeah you know and i want to point out the fact that i you know when i'm

00:47:59.000 trucking in big red i get attention wherever whatever parking lot i go into and there's been

00:48:03.220 so many i've met so many amazing drivers out there and not only from canada i've met you know

00:48:08.580 immigrant drivers out here from other seas overseas and i've met the good ones i've i've

00:48:13.320 met a ton of good ones there's so many guys out there you know the the punjabi truckers out there

00:48:18.380 that take pride in their rides they got nice big old long nose peterbilts and kenworths and they

00:48:22.460 they are that's what we want um but like i said i've also had the interactions with people that

00:48:27.800 didn't know how to speak english and you know when you're pulling oversized loads down the road

00:48:32.200 you're intimidating i understand that just last night going down the highway i was being passed

00:48:37.580 by somebody that kind of hung on my rear end you could tell he was inexperienced and he was he was

00:48:42.620 very nervous about coming around me because i'm large i'm sticking on my side of the road i got a

00:48:47.480 lot of space there and i try my best to give as much room as i can but you i could tell this guy

00:48:52.160 was inexperienced the minute he pulled up behind me because it took him about 10 15 miles to get

00:48:56.160 around me on a four-lane highway um that's a safety factor um i just wanted to point out this

00:49:01.580 question that i've seen here a little while ago that we missed we pointed it out but when in

00:49:05.900 regards to the automatic transmissions in these trucks and what did weed a few people owe

00:49:10.420 i i believe so so um getting back to the driver shortage narrative thing

00:49:17.340 uh the automatic transmission in big trucks it's been with us for 20 25 years now they've been

00:49:23.240 around for a while but the it was not developed to like make our you know our jobs easier if we

00:49:30.540 know what we're doing it was developed to put more people behind seats because it's easier to drive

00:49:34.620 the issue is this there's uh overlapping and correlated skills and ethics and effort that

00:49:43.300 are sort of part of the package of being a driver if you can learn how to correctly shift with a

00:49:49.880 manual transmission and become one with the machine understand your gear ratios understand

00:49:54.720 pulling hills understand torque bands understand all this stuff that means your brain is constantly

00:50:00.740 moving doing things and you're also more likely to be considerate of having to pass wide loads

00:50:06.820 and communicating with people and like there's just other things that correlate with that skill

00:50:12.820 by removing the requirement for that skill you're taking out an entire package that makes you a more

00:50:20.340 complete and whole and professional driver right unfortunately this this doesn't want to be admitted

00:50:27.140 oh you're just you're just old school you're just a crotchety old man with your stick no no no no

00:50:33.220 no maybe that's true but it's also true it's also true that these skills correlate with each other

00:50:40.740 and we've basically abandoned the idea of having skill and competency and the automatic transmission

00:50:46.900 made that more possible you you driving i've driven a couple automatics over the years but

00:50:53.300 nothing long haul and I don't really plan on ever owning an automatic anytime in my life but they've

00:50:58.840 actually the systems now have made automatic or manual transmissions are more expensive and

00:51:04.020 they're harder to find now when you're ordering a brand new truck that's coming in because they're

00:51:08.160 pushing for this narrative of the automatic transmission when I'm in big red and I have 18

00:51:12.560 gears on my on my hand that I can pull through you feel your truck you feel your rtms you feel

00:51:19.280 the hill that you're climbing you also feel the hill when you're going down it too you need to

00:51:24.000 downshift you need to feel those the rpms underneath your torque bound like you said one of my biggest

00:51:29.360 hesitations when i just sent jonathan down to uh i sent him out to british columbia actually and

00:51:34.500 down into washington first and then i sent him down through oregon and utah and down to vegas

00:51:39.980 through that way and i was nervous with jonathan because i'm like you have no no mountain experience

00:51:44.540 and i'm a little nervous sending you down there with this and he reminded me he's like dad i've

00:51:49.120 been pulling 120 000 pound air seeders up hills like the fort quipel hill in saskatchewan up the

00:51:55.860 landing hill some steep grades you know got the frenchman the frenchman river valley yeah frenchman

00:52:01.920 yeah that's a big one reminded me of that that he's done these big hills they haven't been as

00:52:06.400 steep as grades is what he's probably doing but then his weights are going to be a lot less

00:52:09.800 i kind of felt embarrassed because i'm like holy crap this kid actually does know what he's doing

00:52:14.100 in these mountains and it's just a matter of slowing down to thinking out a hill and you know

00:52:18.060 he did the big pass what was a big pass when you come into oregon from south of spokane there and

00:52:22.540 you climb up over the big bugger into uh into idaho i don't remember the name is that is that

00:52:28.920 on 90 or on 95 going north south is it 85 well there's there's the interstates and then there's

00:52:34.980 the u.s routes yeah there's a there's a big hill coming down into moscow idaho on route 95 for sure

00:52:42.580 i've been down there a few times and it's been it's been a few yeah no on 84. cabbage is on 84.

00:52:51.860 that would have been cabbage pendleton when you're coming from uh from pendleton over to boise

00:52:58.500 over to boise yeah he pulled out when he said dad my ears were plugged at the top and then

00:53:02.500 they popped at the bottom yeah but you know what i just didn't want to put him into a situation

00:53:10.420 that he wasn't, you know, trained for

00:53:12.420 or prepared for, and then he had to remind

00:53:14.580 me that I think

00:53:16.420 I can handle it, and he's handled it. I mean, the

00:53:18.420 kid's driving through Phoenix, Arizona this afternoon

00:53:20.580 with a road grader

00:53:22.420 on, so. He's probably

00:53:24.660 sweating, not from not knowing what

00:53:26.420 he's doing, but from the heat.

00:53:28.620 45 degrees Celsius in Phoenix

00:53:30.560 this afternoon.

00:53:32.260 Holy cow.

00:53:34.300 I haven't been that hot since I was in

00:53:36.520 Australia, but on the automatics

00:53:38.740 the manuals i want to say one more thing there's a lot of people who comments on it want to explain

00:53:44.980 why this is happening if you talk to like uh dealerships and trucking company owners oh that's

00:53:50.580 just the way it's going that's just the way it is no no no no no no this was done on purpose

00:53:56.180 and originally it was about getting more bums in seats and now the automatic transmission

00:54:01.620 is about interoperability with other systems uh front brake avoidance uh front collision avoidance

00:54:09.220 uh lane control all of these electronic systems that are now being mandated on big trucks in the

00:54:15.340 united states do not work and cannot be counted on if there's a clutch and a stick in the way

00:54:21.180 oh no we have to trust the human we can't do that we can't have that so basically the automatic

00:54:28.980 stuff is that and climate change nonsense where basically all of these uh manufacturers are

00:54:36.100 expected to hit theoretical mile per gallon uh fuel efficiencies which is fine the problem is

00:54:43.780 this is that um maybe an automatic paired with a downspend engine like some of the stuff you get

00:54:50.660 from mac and volvo today okay you're gonna get better fuel mileage with that truck that's fine

00:54:55.460 but like the claim is it rests again on the fact that nobody knows what they're doing anymore

00:55:03.140 they're not basic the baseline for that fuel consumption or you know the the miles per gallon

00:55:11.060 is based on a driver that's not you or me right right so all of this stuff is basically insulting

00:55:17.140 to you if you know what you're doing and it's you know again we're worshiping the sky oh no no you're

00:55:22.060 not allowed to have a manual transmission you don't know what you're doing we have to save the

00:55:25.440 environment so here's your automatic enjoy it's been a downturn in the industry it's like it's

00:55:30.940 like a racetrack and a truck stop you'll watch guys come through the parking lots at the big

00:55:34.620 truck stops in the states and they're literally hitting gear after gear after gear in that

00:55:38.040 automatic transmission whereas you you know and guys can do that in a manual too of course but

00:55:43.620 it seems like when you're in control of your own truck with that sticking between your your two

00:55:47.540 seats it feels different and the culture's changed and the industry has gone through a spiral

00:55:54.080 and that's why we're seeing so many uh horrible accidents out here you know as bad as the humble

00:56:00.060 bus crash was because of the way the industry is right now that crash should have happened 25 times

00:56:05.600 over in the last year yeah i've witnessed it i witness it daily um thankful it hasn't i want

00:56:12.240 to make sure i point that out yeah i'm very thankful it's it's a man it's the the the stuff

00:56:22.900 that's going on out there and all the near misses and all the stuff you see every day and everybody

00:56:29.180 out on the road sees every day is just it shouldn't be that way this was done on purpose

00:56:34.600 this was a series of decisions this was a series of policies economic forces and again this is why

00:56:40.860 i wrote this book i want people to understand where all this came from so in the chat i'm going

00:56:46.200 to put this yeah i i have a there's a gentleman i'm sort of a colleague with here in the united

00:56:51.800 states and he writes occasionally for this website called freight waves uh he works for another

00:56:57.520 company called truck safe he's been a driver he's a safety consultant he like does things with like

00:57:03.480 litigation with cases with insurance people he's all over the place like total pro knows everything

00:57:08.760 and he wrote this article about the imposition of automatic transmissions and how it tracks

00:57:14.760 with an increase in all of these problems in the industry and like he just lays it all out

00:57:19.880 you know here's the trans automatic transmissions start being this percentage of the industry

00:57:25.480 this is what starts happening it increases this increases he lays it all out and i'm

00:57:29.720 going to drop it in the chat here for everybody go read that excellent thank you but uh yeah it's

00:57:35.560 again it's it's part of this like wider thing of uh de-skilling the comment has failed to post

00:57:41.560 to house arrest i was watching the video uh most people know smart trekking in ontario dave smart

00:57:49.960 he's been uh he's unfortunately passed since then god rest his soul i was talking about the the

00:57:54.840 urgence and this is he did a lot of videos back in the day and a lot of the stuff that dave ever

00:57:58.680 talked about was complete sense um the ev mandate when it comes to the new electronic semis and just

00:58:05.000 how fast tesla and all the different companies right now are pushing to get these trucks these

00:58:09.640 electric trucks from zero to 60 in four seconds or whatever it may be there's a lot of bad you know

00:58:16.280 factors that weigh into that right now especially when it comes to your freight stability stability

00:58:21.080 um when you're putting your your gas pedal in there you know what will happen when you slam

00:58:25.000 on your brakes too fast with a load it'll usually come through the back of the cab if it's not tied

00:58:29.400 tied down properly a lot of drivers die each year because of that the focus right now on electric

00:58:35.000 semis in the in the future of that industry are about speed um it just goes to show you there's

00:58:40.920 another factor there and automated trucks are eventually coming we know that we're seeing them

00:58:44.440 already right wow i think this is a great comment by rob here is i think chris a lot of these

00:58:51.640 drivers get conditioned to think their truck is more like a minivan and can stop way shorter

00:58:57.000 100 you were just saying collision avoidance is only as good as the driver 100 percent

00:59:04.760 so we keep being told that we have these technological fixes right front collision

00:59:09.720 avoidance systems lane control cameras on the driver electronic logging devices and

00:59:17.480 every single time one of these technologies gets implemented it causes the opposite right so there

00:59:23.080 So there was a study done, quote it in the book, by Overdrive Magazine, like a big trucking magazine here in the States, in 2022, five years after the electronic logging device mandate was implemented.

00:59:35.740 And so they went and looked at all of the statistics, collisions, crashes, fatal collisions, aggressive driving citations, speeding, hours of service violations.

00:59:47.680 Everything went up after the ELD mandate.

00:59:50.980 It didn't get better.

00:59:52.140 It got worse.

00:59:53.080 right oh wow and these guys from uh oida who run their own podcast landline uh it's part of the

01:00:01.440 sort of the oida media thing they asked a former uh administrator of the fmcsa this lady robin

01:00:08.700 hutcheson hey we have all the data in now the eld mandate did not increase safety it actually

01:00:15.640 made it worse uh are we going to reconsider this mandate and she's like no no oh because

01:00:23.800 again this goes back to union leadership government leadership bureaucrats they don't know

01:00:28.200 anything about life on the road all they have is spreadsheets and numbers and meetings and screens

01:00:34.040 and they have no idea what it's like out there they have no idea what it's like to drive a truck

01:00:37.880 they are trying to substitute technology for competence and skill built up over time

01:00:46.820 transmitted from experienced guys like us to younger guys like your son that costs money

01:00:52.640 and therefore they don't want to do it and they've memed themselves into believing

01:00:57.800 that the technology is going to fix all that and it's been proven not to but they keep pushing it

01:01:03.900 anyway barry says 50 years in a dump truck and i am not a fan of the auto trucks i have an e-log

01:01:12.680 here somewhere in my office i'm just we've got a few comments from truckers that have been in

01:01:17.120 the industry for more than 50 years that's a heck of a long career well done well driving's fun i

01:01:22.880 like trucking um imagine but imagine when i want i witnessed this before i used to be able to leave

01:01:29.280 home and I would make it to Aberdeen, South Dakota on a paper logbook for the first time.

01:01:35.640 Now I have to shut down at nine and a half hours because Aberdeen is an extra hour and a half and

01:01:41.180 you would usually, you know, obviously with your speeds and all that sort of stuff, I lose an hour,

01:01:46.720 a little over an hour in my first day of driving when I'm going south because I can only legally

01:01:50.600 make Jamestown, North Dakota with my electronic logbook. Imagine having a stopwatch on your dash.

01:01:56.340 when you start driving in the morning the stopwatch starts and you have to make as many miles as

01:02:00.900 possible in that stopwatch allotted time which in the united states is 14 hour rule canada is a 16

01:02:07.380 hour rule we used to stop for lunches we used to stop for just different amenities stop and check

01:02:12.580 your tires on the side of the highway i find right now you're so busy racing that clock in a day

01:02:17.780 you don't get those chances to stop for the tires you drive for four or five hours straight without

01:02:22.020 it before yeah name a trucker out there i said this in a social media post and i got a little

01:02:26.420 bit of reaction about their name a trucker out there that doesn't play in the gray area

01:02:30.340 i've done it my entire career well the thing with the gray area is it allows you some agency right

01:02:36.420 so uh an example i give in the book is i used to work for these guys in syracuse and one of

01:02:41.300 my little runs was to go to trailer manufacturers in wisconsin and minnesota and pick up a brand

01:02:46.820 new trailer so i'd bob tail out there pick up a new trailer bring it back all right no problem easy

01:02:50.980 job the problem is you have to drive through chicago to get there yes so i i would get to

01:02:56.500 chicago and my hours would hit 11 hours of driving and it's like okay why would i want to be stuck on

01:03:02.260 one side of chicago that when i get up in the morning i'm now fighting traffic to get to the

01:03:07.220 other so i would just keep going for another hour because it makes perfect sense i'm not hurting

01:03:11.700 anybody by driving one extra hour or 45 minutes or whatever it is to get to the other side of chicago

01:03:17.780 find a truck stop go to bed no problem that's something you should be able to do as a professional

01:03:24.820 as somebody that realizes the conditions on the road maybe you know there's a storm coming

01:03:30.500 you're out west you're out north in the snow maybe there's whatever reason you have to have

01:03:35.940 the agency to be able to make these decisions as a professional and the eld has removed all of that

01:03:44.500 all right go ahead sorry oh and and the thing that really uh really shits me is i don't know

01:03:53.460 if this is going on in canada i know it's definitely happening in the united states

01:03:59.060 um is that these eld systems are self-certified right so you can be some software outfit you

01:04:08.500 self-certify that your

01:04:10.540 ELD meets all of the requirements

01:04:12.840 of the FMCSA regulators

01:04:15.060 and the regulations.

01:04:16.700 Not supposed to have a back door.

01:04:18.620 Not supposed to be edited.

01:04:20.440 Well, because it's self-certified,

01:04:22.900 there's a whole network of

01:04:24.420 ELD providers that have back doors

01:04:26.540 into them. So what happens?

01:04:28.980 All of these gangsters

01:04:30.420 operating in the United States with

01:04:32.580 headquarters in Serbia or

01:04:34.340 Pakistan or India or

01:04:36.540 Guatemala or wherever they're running their

01:04:38.320 trucking companies from, employing their co-ethnics who will be told what to do because

01:04:43.700 they don't know any better. Their ELDs all get backdoored. This is a known thing. It's

01:04:48.300 happening constantly. There's guys now who are quitting, working for safe, regular trucking

01:04:54.800 companies saying, oh, I'm going to work for these Russians in Chicago. They backdoor my ELDs. I can

01:04:59.700 do 4,500, 5,000 miles a week. I'll make more money, right? But you're working 18, 20 hours a

01:05:06.300 and you're not getting any sleep so this device that has basically incinerated your and my

01:05:14.380 professionalism our agency to make necessary decisions about the conditions of our day

01:05:21.900 is now being abused by gangsters who got into the trucking industry because of all the stuff

01:05:27.980 i talked about before to further push and exploit in-source labor migrant drivers and make them

01:05:34.780 work way more hours than they're supposed to this whole thing is just upside down and backwards and

01:05:39.500 we have to tolerate it but yet you know out here i'm an honest carrier and i can go into my on my

01:05:44.380 other computer screen in the office here i can go into my electronic logbook

01:05:49.740 company profile such a thing and i can check out the speeds of all my drivers but i can't edit

01:05:54.780 anything on that when it comes to that truck actually moving uh when it's under eld so

01:05:59.740 everything I have, and then it gives me a safety report. One time, I was four minutes over my

01:06:06.260 allotted driving hours in a day, pulling into a parking lot, the entire day went completely red

01:06:12.260 on my logbook. And then of course, what you do as a professional driver is you take, if you're

01:06:17.240 allotted 10-hour mandatory off every night, you take 10 hours and four minutes, so you make that

01:06:22.340 logbook, you know, you're at least doing your best, your due diligence to try and make yourself

01:06:26.480 legal again. I did get caught at a scale a little while after that and the officer looked back at

01:06:32.160 that logbook and said, you went four minutes over your hours. That's illegal, you know. I could write

01:06:37.040 you up for that. Four minutes. Really? This is where we are now in this industry? I also spoke

01:06:43.220 with a local trucking company out of Saskatchewan here and I wanted to bring this up too. He is

01:06:47.740 going through a facility audit right now. He had a lady pull out in front of one of his trucks in

01:06:51.940 the city of Calgary that lady was obviously killed in the crash it was not his driver's fault but

01:06:58.280 when there's a fatality on the highways involving a motor carrier the insurance agency will

01:07:03.480 automatically come in for his facility audit and so he was telling me this is a little bit of the

01:07:08.060 scary part DOT you know your insurance agency whoever does a facility audit on you can go back

01:07:13.240 on your logbook six months that's what they normally book in I need to provide six months

01:07:18.520 of log books for a facility audit what he was telling me was the uh the sgi i guess it was

01:07:25.080 my own saskatchewan government insurance organization they got the back door to his

01:07:29.960 e-log um company so they could go backwards of six years and they were doing that and in one

01:07:36.460 instance then what the scary part was this guy was telling me was he had a driver in a parking

01:07:41.480 lot once it was parked in a wrong spot he was in a bad position in the parking lot and you know

01:07:45.820 potentially face the the front end of the truck be taken off in a corner or a crash that sort of

01:07:50.400 thing so what he did was he put he did the e-log crawl across the parking lot and most people that

01:07:55.180 don't know this your electronic log book will go out off will start logging driving activity at

01:08:01.100 five kilometers an hour mine is set to that so he did four kilometers an hour and he found a better

01:08:06.460 part in the spot in the parking lot he didn't leave the parking lot he didn't go on service

01:08:10.000 he basically moved positions in the parking lot for a safety event and that officer that person

01:08:15.480 within the insurance company was writing him up for a out of service because of that, because

01:08:20.980 the driver was doing his due diligence to get a better parking spot. So with all this control

01:08:26.020 measures and everything that are coming into the trucking industry right now, it's involving

01:08:29.320 law enforcement or ticket writers to go a little bit too far the other way. Now it's just,

01:08:34.740 you know, who is he hurting? Yeah, exactly. And why punish people exercising due diligence

01:08:44.580 and agency when there's a whole bunch of scammy truck driving schools putting people out there

01:08:50.900 with not enough training don't know what they're doing uh why not work to uh reform

01:08:58.340 the licensing system so that this doesn't happen why are we out here just punishing guys working

01:09:03.540 like where are you to deal with the sort of larger bigger problem underneath it um it's it's all very

01:09:12.820 upsetting to me i do i do want to shout out um the alberta transport minister this guy named

01:09:17.940 devon dreeshan they're trying to make uh trucking red seal in alberta then you know enforce more

01:09:25.940 training more hours more learning what you're supposed to know and good for him unfortunately

01:09:31.940 that doesn't do anything about ontario or bc where the biggest centers of the problem are but

01:09:36.820 um it's a start we lost tamara for a little bit there so we'll have to bring her back up

01:09:42.900 i am sorry she's back my computer i think actually literally just died and i couldn't even get my

01:09:49.380 earbuds to disconnect from the bluetooth there to get my earbuds on sorry guys just two truckers

01:09:56.420 just away here and then i made tamara lich an honorary trucker so she's part of the group here

01:10:04.020 now in case anybody wants to complain about that i mean hats off tour for riding a shotgun all the

01:10:12.020 way from medicine hat to ottawa i i've always i always get bored out of my mind being a passenger

01:10:17.940 and i fall asleep and it's actually harder than actually driving the truck right good point i

01:10:23.060 never thought of that you know you're always so busy in the cab of the truck um there's always so

01:10:27.620 many things to do and that's how i feel bad for people with automatic transmissions i mean for

01:10:31.060 some it's it's good and if you have the experience to go along with it and and you're comfortable

01:10:35.380 with it and you know how to do your cornering and you're dumb um that's all the better but

01:10:39.460 the gear shift is something that takes a lot of time out of your day learning to shift and

01:10:43.940 it could be constituted as distracted driving could it not gourd some people tried to make

01:10:49.620 that argument uh there's a very there's a sort of semi-famous uh fuel efficiency guru here in

01:10:57.620 the united states um who tried to argue with me on twitter that automatic transmissions make it

01:11:03.940 even easier to train guys and get them out on the road faster and i'm like that's not what we want

01:11:09.700 we want them to slow down and learn things well no the the thing with with driving is you have to be

01:11:15.220 constant you have to be constantly paying attention anything could happen a deer could run across the

01:11:20.660 road there could be a blown tire uh another motorist pulled over on the shoulder someone

01:11:25.860 passing you that's like weaving in and out like there's always something that you have to pay

01:11:30.400 attention to there's no such thing as just like being on autopilot um what again you know if you're

01:11:36.740 in the passenger seat it gets boring in a hurry but like if you're actually driving the truck and

01:11:40.720 doing it correctly you are constantly looking constantly checking constantly in tune with the

01:11:45.820 truck constantly listening for problems you know like uh maybe the u-joints are starting to get

01:11:51.060 loose and you hear a little growl coming up through the driveline maybe something doesn't

01:11:55.500 quite sound right with the air compressor system maybe something you're always constantly like

01:12:00.360 what's the word for people who are you know they think they're sick all the time hypochondriacs

01:12:08.280 yeah yeah I'm a I'm a hypo truck deac or something like I'm always worried about the truck no cuz

01:12:17.100 like that's how you make money like even if you're a company driver and you don't own the truck you

01:12:21.120 want that truck to like be maintained and you want it to keep going because that's that's your job

01:12:26.720 right like maybe there's some people that are tuned out whatever but that ain't me there's a

01:12:32.980 sequence of events that you go through as a commercial vehicle driver on the highways of

01:12:36.140 the day and it constantly revolves around you watching this mirror that mirror the dash clusters

01:12:42.040 you check your temperatures on your differential your transmission it's a sequence you go through

01:12:46.120 you look through the mirror when i got when i got guys to go by me on the highway and they have a

01:12:50.000 foot on the dash and a cell phone on the dash and they're watching a movie driving a commercial

01:12:55.320 vehicle and i've i've seen it happen how many times it's it's definitely out there um my big

01:13:01.420 thing i can put my headset on when i'm driving and a phone call comes in and it's got auto answer on

01:13:05.400 it so it says call coming from and you say answer and it automatically answers it for you and you

01:13:10.700 can actually reply to text messages if you can hear them on your phone um that is one way to do

01:13:16.020 things i've been back in the distracted driving days gord do you remember the days when the bag

01:13:20.820 phones came in oh that was a little bit before me that was it yeah i got a few years on you i guess

01:13:29.620 but i remember having a bag phone in the truck and it was actually clicked into the the side of

01:13:34.640 the dash and you talked on it and it had a cord on it yeah we had a i had a landline i i grew up

01:13:41.960 landlines in the house i'm not that young but i was sort of you know the bag phone thing was

01:13:47.400 just dying off in favor of like cell phones in the late 1990s true i never thought about that

01:13:53.960 i guess i'm dating myself a little bit there but tamara do you have any questions you've been so

01:14:03.880 uh you've been so patient listening to the two of us chew the fat here uh you gotta know it's been

01:14:10.440 great i don't really i honestly don't i think you guys are doing awesome and i was i've been reading

01:14:16.760 a lot of the comments there's a lot of great comments in there and a lot of really great

01:14:19.800 questions um and then i was just trying to figure out what's going on with my computer but i do have

01:14:25.960 good news it did start stop now it started again so we may be okay do we have any questions in the

01:14:33.080 in the audience i mean there's like five or so 100 people in here right now that are watching

01:14:37.160 and conversations in the in the box here any questions in the box for uh for gordon or tamara

01:14:43.320 myself throw them out there we'll do our best to watch them yeah i see the industry going through

01:14:49.400 a continuous downturn until government acknowledges the fact that wrongs have been done and they have

01:14:54.200 let us down in certain ways uh we go back to the humble bus crash i mean that company that

01:14:59.800 that driver was driving for in calgary alberta would have simply re-licensed his trucks under

01:15:05.160 a different company name and continued along the way and now the government's tried to do a few

01:15:10.640 things to try and stop that a lot of carriers would lose their safety rating in one province

01:15:14.820 and then just move to another province and restart another safety rating and they've uh they've tried

01:15:19.520 different ways to to alleviate that right now and i believe they've been successful in certain facts

01:15:23.560 but i've seen guys with cardboard drawing company names and dot numbers on their trucks that are

01:15:29.620 literally duct taped on the side of their trucks um wow yeah that's called the the name for that

01:15:35.660 here in the states is uh chameleon carriers yeah uh when they run up their points and they get

01:15:41.020 shut down either by the feds or insurance or their customers who don't want to deal with them anymore

01:15:45.380 um because of you know too many bad inspections driver out of service trucks are junk um they

01:15:53.920 just take all the trucks and all the drivers and move them to another corporate entity with another

01:15:58.280 motor carrier number and they keep on going and this is a major major problem here in the united

01:16:03.500 states and which especially the guys that like haul for amazon and the united states postal

01:16:08.660 service the postal service here in the states is government entity and they're supposed to

01:16:13.660 not they're not there's some rule and i can't remember what it's called but it's it's something

01:16:19.040 like only americans may haul the mail right you have to be an american citizen that's this old

01:16:25.320 regulation and they're ignoring it. Uh, they use these freight brokers that hire whatever guys

01:16:30.580 off load boards, who knows who they are. And, and that's happening. Amazon relay functions the same

01:16:37.360 way. Uh, cheapest bottom dollar, uh, uh, no consideration for anything else. There's a good

01:16:45.900 question here. Uh, I've, I've seen this a lot too, but I don't actually know. Uh, no, it's this one

01:16:50.620 here i guess what are the black point of the tassels that some drivers they'll commonly hang

01:16:55.300 them from their mirrors or the the mirrors on the front of the bumper that it's a it's a it's some

01:16:59.880 sort of a thing with the the punjabi community i believe um the rags or the towels that are hung

01:17:05.500 from the mirrors on the front of the i've noticed that a lot out there but i don't know i don't know

01:17:09.240 the logic behind it i i'm not 100 sure either but i mean you know trucking culture manifests itself

01:17:17.080 in different ways you go to europe and guys have like a whole row of lights above their cab over

01:17:22.040 they have these like little flag things on the suction cups on their windshield you know uh

01:17:27.240 scania famously gives out these little things to decorate your windshield that says king of the road

01:17:32.680 scania is kind of like the peterbilt of europe um you know you go to japan they have this thing

01:17:39.880 called uh dakotara so they have this uh truck decoration culture and they just have all these

01:17:45.800 crazy lights and stuff hanging off their trucks it's like going to a disco or something and just

01:17:51.160 like all these flashy lights it's like sci-fi future stuff but it's just on these like little

01:17:56.080 japanese trucks um you know in in thailand in in parts of southeast asia they do these like complex

01:18:03.840 painting arrangements and tassels and stuff hanging off them we're actually kind of like you

01:18:09.300 our our truck decoration and trucking culture here is a little bit more utilitarian a little

01:18:18.180 bit more like stripped down you don't see these crazy designs on stuff we got some echo um we'll

01:18:26.420 bring her on there she is your mutes mike here makes me we had a question up here i seen here

01:18:36.080 a little bit ago why are so many truckers doing u-turns on the highway

01:18:43.600 first indication of that is usually they're lost and they think the best thing they can do is just

01:18:48.160 flip around an emergency well most people know on interstates in the us the center lane is for uh

01:18:53.360 emergency not for just turning around we've got some feedback coming in where is that

01:19:02.240 uh-oh did we freeze up or did i freeze up

01:19:06.080 uh-oh everybody's frozen uh-oh yeah the u-turn thing is hilarious and it's typically again uh

01:19:15.720 folks who didn't grow up here were not trained properly and you know they just do crazy stuff

01:19:22.960 like that um i i hate to pick on our friends from india again but you know 180 000 people are killed

01:19:31.480 on the road in india every year as of late um you might say well there's a 1.4 billion people

01:19:38.020 but you also have to factor in that only something like 18 percent of people in india have access to

01:19:43.340 a vehicle and their government's way more corrupt than ours there's like no licensing you just go

01:19:48.800 on youtube and like type in traffic india and just watch how they drive um the canadian government

01:19:54.920 has if you go traveling to another country right the canadian government has all these bulletins

01:20:01.060 for travelers leaving the country about things that are that you should watch out for when you

01:20:06.340 are in other nations okay cool uh you look on the one for india and it says be very careful when

01:20:12.500 you're driving because they have like the highest amount of highway deaths there there's just no

01:20:18.260 the cops don't do anything everybody drives like a maniac uh scooters trucks cars there's just no

01:20:24.420 rhyme nor reason to anything there's no system it's just there's just no rules and it's just

01:20:30.660 chaos and it results in a lot of people being killed so the government the canadian government

01:20:35.700 will tell you be careful when you're driving in india but on the other hand invite all of those

01:20:41.620 folks over here and allow them to get truck licenses immediately uh come on folks let's put

01:20:47.300 two and two together here i have definitely seen a downturn in the industry especially when it comes

01:20:51.860 to that one of the other peaks maybe i'm just gonna vent here for a second there you go there's

01:20:58.100 parking lots all over this country there's pull outs road pull outs i find it and this is it's

01:21:04.020 gotten worse since the introduction of the electronic log book thing is where people

01:21:07.620 in commercial vehicles will just pull over on the side of a highway and do their log book reset

01:21:12.500 because most people know that you have to take breaks mandatory breaks with a log book on there

01:21:15.940 it'll count your day down um in the us it is a half hour break in the first eight hours of driving

01:21:21.140 you're allowed to drive 11 hours so what some truckers will do now is they just pull over on

01:21:25.380 on the side of the highway at any given intersection or not even an intersection right on the highway

01:21:29.600 I've you know as a guy that pulls oversized loads on the highway I find it very maddening that this

01:21:35.680 is happening right now especially when you go another mile up the road and there's a safe place

01:21:39.320 to pull over on the side of the road you're putting people's lives at risk and uh oh Tamara's

01:21:44.640 Tamara's phone just crapped out on her or the laptop so that's happening again lack of training

01:21:51.640 a lack of knowing where you are lack of trip planning a part of trucking is planning your

01:21:56.760 trips so you know this you haul oversized loads you have to follow permit routes you have to

01:22:02.040 figure out where you're going to stop you have to have a backup plan if the place you're going to

01:22:06.200 stop is full or you can't get in or there's something going on you have to do an awful

01:22:11.060 lot of trip planning that's standard operating procedure you should know how to plan your trip

01:22:15.960 so that you're not like oh my eld is beeping at me i have to stop right now so i'm just going to

01:22:21.720 park on the shoulder that's just pure stupidity which shows that these folks are not being

01:22:28.440 trained correctly pass whatever corrupt test go to whatever corrupt truck driving school

01:22:34.200 get in the truck and go the whole thing's screwed up i believe it's actually illegal to stop on the

01:22:39.240 side of the interstate in the states is it not it is yeah you're not supposed to be there at all

01:22:43.320 So I left Morris, Illinois last week, I think that was already out.

01:22:48.520 I left the, and I was traveling down, was it 90 or 80?

01:22:51.900 I don't remember which one it was, 80.

01:22:53.880 And I lost a strap.

01:22:55.100 I had a strap come loose on me on the trailer.

01:22:57.300 And just a technical error.

01:22:58.620 It wasn't anything that I really did wrong.

01:23:00.180 It was just a strap that came loose, and the load shifted a little bit.

01:23:03.160 I knew I had four straps on that one piece of equipment that I was hauling.

01:23:06.600 It was adequate for, probably over-adequate for what I needed for safely tying that piece down.

01:23:12.340 but one of the stops broke and it started dangling in the breeze but i knew that i could have stopped

01:23:17.180 on the side of the interstate there to fix it quickly um i took the executive decision to wait

01:23:21.900 until i got to an overpass where i could pull off the off ramp and stop at the stop sign and then

01:23:26.500 cross highway and then pull over safely on the side of the road where i didn't have to worry

01:23:30.220 about getting killed by being hit by somebody on that interstate and it was bad that one strap was

01:23:35.360 loose on that trailer for a matter of probably three miles or four miles before i got to a safe

01:23:39.760 place but it felt good enough that i knew that piece of equipment wasn't moving on the trailer

01:23:44.080 before i got there but a lot of these drivers out here nowadays they won't do that they'll just slam

01:23:48.160 on the brakes right on the middle of the interstate and put everybody else's lives at risk it's common

01:23:52.500 sense it's thinking safety the public out there right now deserves it so many people are being

01:23:57.680 killed you had the wreck in colorado how many years ago where the improperly trained driver

01:24:03.720 came down the mountain pass and right into a traffic remember that one yeah the one in florida

01:24:08.700 where he did the U-turn right in the middle of the interstate

01:24:10.740 and killed a young family in a minivan.

01:24:12.920 You have the Humble Bus crash.

01:24:14.580 This happens daily out here, and I would just like to know

01:24:17.020 when government is going to wake up to this fact

01:24:18.960 and start rectifying it.

01:24:21.700 They're answering to people that profit handsomely

01:24:27.580 from the status quo.

01:24:29.740 You know, there's a lot of very large companies

01:24:32.500 who spend a lot of money on trucking every year.

01:24:36.720 You know, they've got a very large freight buy.

01:24:38.700 And as you know, trucking is expensive.

01:24:40.980 If you actually want to do things properly, maintain equipment, pay for fuel, pay for insurance, pay for all your stuff, that ain't cheap.

01:24:49.000 They want it done cheap.

01:24:50.440 They want to force that rate down however possible.

01:24:53.620 And there's this economic pressure coming from the likes of Amazon who move a lot of loads through their system.

01:25:00.260 It's called Amazon Relay, FedEx, all the big shippers in the United States, all your Fortune 500 carriers,

01:25:06.580 everybody on down to whoever needs something moved everybody wants it done cheap the problem is if you

01:25:13.540 want it done correctly if you want it done safely if you want it done with any modicum of professionalism

01:25:19.540 and competency you can't just keep doing things cheap and expect this to work um you know and

01:25:25.780 again if you want to go another layer beyond all this we have private equity and wall street and

01:25:30.580 value scrapers who only think about lines on spreadsheets and don't think about the externalities

01:25:37.380 they cause by using cheap freight you know all these brokers who don't care they just take their

01:25:43.940 rep off the load and sell it to whatever crap company that's a whole problem in the industry

01:25:49.220 do you want to talk about that oh man well very briefly so uh for for people back home in canada

01:25:57.780 there was an earthquake in the American trucking industry a couple of weeks

01:26:00.860 ago. There was a Supreme court case,

01:26:03.920 um, Montgomery versus Caribe. And so what happened is, uh,

01:26:09.060 quite a few years ago,

01:26:10.420 this truck driver named Sean Montgomery was pulled over for some reason on

01:26:14.720 the side of the interstate somewhere in Illinois.

01:26:16.860 He got hit by another truck truck driver, another trucking company.

01:26:21.660 And, uh, due to the injuries he sustained from that collision,

01:26:26.460 He lost part of one of his legs had to be amputated.

01:26:30.660 And they sued the trucking company and they sued the broker.

01:26:34.160 And eventually that case made it to the Supreme Court because of a lower court decision that said brokers were not liable for the actions of the carriers they hired based on an interpretation of a particular regulation through this thing called F4A.

01:26:52.000 I can't get into the technical details and arcana of that. All I can tell you is that this Supreme

01:26:58.640 Court decision said no more of this. Brokers have to do their due diligence and not hire retards to

01:27:06.700 haul freight. And so that's caused this sort of earthquake in the U.S. system. It's still playing

01:27:13.920 out it still remains to be seen how much it affects things but um there's been a growth

01:27:22.080 in this sort of like ecosystem of freight brokers these intermediaries between shippers and truckers

01:27:28.000 especially after covet a lot of them are overseas they're in serbia they're moldova they're wherever

01:27:34.320 they don't have any skin in the game they're just like making phone calls and trying to hustle

01:27:38.640 trucks they take their percentage cut their families aren't on the roads over here they

01:27:43.960 don't have to pay for trucks they don't give a shit they're just like we're just hustling loads

01:27:47.280 we're we're middlemen and the supreme court in the united states has finally tried to do something

01:27:52.880 about this i can tell you successfully that i've been in i started cb trucking um june i think i

01:28:00.620 played in my first truck june 30th 2006 so this year is we should actually be probably doing a

01:28:06.940 little bit more in celebration of that. 20 years on the road for CB trucking. Congratulations.

01:28:11.860 Thanks. I started CB trucking on a shoestring budget. I was a lease operator with a bunch

01:28:16.460 of companies before that, a few companies. And one of the companies had some financial issues

01:28:21.140 and I ended up, the big customer base that I was working for at that time approached me and said,

01:28:25.580 we need a carrier that is the same alignment as what you've been doing the last number of years.

01:28:30.580 Can you start your own company? And that's basically how my job was started. I had a good

01:28:34.600 customer base going south with my own freight but I was reliant on the brokers coming coming north

01:28:39.100 trying to find my freight and I found most of those brokers companies out there would basically

01:28:43.320 cut the rates from the carriers that had it before and then sub it out to other carriers for the

01:28:47.080 cheaper rate meanwhile putting 10 to 15 to 20 percent probably in their pocket profit that was

01:28:52.720 you know 20 percent that wasn't going in my pocket and so over the last 20 years I've based my

01:28:57.580 business on moving away from the brokers I haven't I don't work for any brokers at this point it

01:29:02.000 actually winds up to be an interesting conversation when I do get a call from a broker and they offer

01:29:06.800 me a load and I say, sorry, I don't work for brokers. Imagine the beautiful conversations

01:29:14.060 I've had with brokers over the years. I will work with the odd broker if the rate is right and I

01:29:18.980 rely and trust that company. And it works for me. That is the only stipulations I'll ever do.

01:29:24.480 But primarily my customer base is all I haul for the customer direct or I don't haul for it.

01:29:30.040 been successful at that for many years. I mean, I've got five trucks on the road right now,

01:29:34.500 two independent operators, three of my own trucks on the road. I have a good group of guys that are

01:29:38.100 really centralized around looking after customers and hauling your stuff professionally. So 20 years

01:29:42.660 in business, June 30th, I did my plate renewal here the other day because every year we have

01:29:47.160 to do a renewal on it. And I'm pretty proud of myself there. That's, you know, and starting off

01:29:51.460 a shoestring budget. I can tell you a story about that, Gord. Back in the day, CB trucking was

01:29:57.340 started i didn't have any money i found my first load down to illinois i found a reload from a

01:30:01.540 broker uh and it went to atchison alberta and i was running on my children were young jonathan was

01:30:07.520 jonathan would have been three i believe sierra would have been one um new family gone on the

01:30:14.900 road i got to atchison late that night and i found a spot in the parking lot atchison alberta the

01:30:19.920 husky truck stop i went there many times yeah i went to bed that parking lot will always remain

01:30:25.580 in my head for some reason because of this story

01:30:27.520 I'm going to tell you. At 2 o'clock in the morning, another

01:30:29.340 semi takes a corner in front of me and takes

01:30:31.420 the hood off of Big Red.

01:30:33.440 I woke up at 2 o'clock in the morning

01:30:35.340 to antifreeze pouring out of the truck.

01:30:37.420 Oh no! Fuck!

01:30:39.360 My first trip under my own authorities

01:30:41.500 and thinking I was doing things properly

01:30:43.260 and here are $17,000, $18,000

01:30:45.340 of damage to the front of Red. I had to get a tow truck

01:30:47.540 in the hall at home. I was, you know,

01:30:49.180 I tell this story on my social media.

01:30:51.180 I had my little dog buddy with me back in the day.

01:30:53.680 You know, rest his soul.

01:30:55.580 um I couldn't get a ride home I couldn't jump on a greyhound we had greyhounds back that day and I

01:31:00.380 couldn't get on a greyhound because I had a pet and I had to rent a car eventually and it only

01:31:03.940 went as far as Saskatoon my wife at the time drove up to Saskatoon and picked me up and I was just

01:31:08.120 done I thought can I you know you're already in the hole starting this company and you're trying

01:31:12.980 to go but you know what thankfully 20 years later a lot of hard work and dedication I'm passing my

01:31:18.380 business off to my son right now and I think it's in fairly capable hands so that's pretty cool

01:31:23.380 yeah that's a hell of an origin story your very first trip wow wow i'm sorry that happened to you

01:31:31.100 man but um you climbed over it and you got her done and then you know life handed you some more

01:31:37.680 adversity with covid and now yeah being an enemy of the state well i've always taught my son that

01:31:46.960 you know there's always a way and you make sure you fight until you find that way regardless of

01:31:52.220 what what it takes you just there's always a way to do something whether it's a rusty bolt in the

01:31:56.600 shop or you know something there's always a way to get done what you have to do and sometimes you

01:32:01.280 need to take a break from and come back and work at it again and uh you know jonathan right now i

01:32:05.900 work hand in hand with him side by side all day that kid never comes to me and says i can't do

01:32:10.700 something dad he did years ago but that me installing that in his head you know like

01:32:14.480 find a way find a way we'll figure it out if we got to work together or call help in or whatever

01:32:19.420 we've got to do you work at it until you get it because there's no you just don't you refuse to

01:32:23.820 lose the old jeff gordon slogan from back in the day yeah well this is you know i um i was talking

01:32:31.760 to a guy on this uh podcast in australia here a week or two ago a buddy of mine his name is mike

01:32:38.200 he does this thing called the uh on the road aussie trucking podcast and we're talking about

01:32:42.040 my book we're having a very same conversation as this and he says to me he's like how do you

01:32:46.760 canadians do it how do you deal with the the the extreme temperatures and the cold and the you know

01:32:53.580 all the things you have to do and i was sort of telling him about the technical stuff you do you

01:32:57.480 have a bra on the rad you can put a tarp on the oil pan air sniffers or alcohol sniffers for the

01:33:03.820 air system you do all this stuff and he's like no no i mean like how do you do it personally

01:33:08.460 like he's like it's a hard enough job as it is never mind having to get out of the truck when

01:33:13.600 30 or 40 below and i didn't have much of an adequate answer except to say you just have to

01:33:20.160 get her done right like that's just it like you there's no other choice there's no there's no

01:33:26.640 fail there's no not do it do it or die or just get out of the way right and uh i i i finished

01:33:34.640 that thought with him and said you know like there's a lot of people at the convoy who work

01:33:40.000 seasonally in the winter you know they work very hard hauling logs doing oil field stuff in the

01:33:46.640 bush running the ice doing whatever winter's a very busy season because everything's frozen and

01:33:51.000 you can get out in the woods yep and i said to him like ottawa was i don't want to say it was a

01:33:58.220 cakewalk but like if you're just parked on the side of the road drinking coffee giving people

01:34:03.400 hugs talking that's not putting tire chains on to get through the bush what is 40 below that's not

01:34:11.320 pulling the coke in a snowstorm that's not all of the myriad number of things that can happen to you

01:34:16.840 out on the road that's just like hanging out in ottawa you know the the although politically it

01:34:22.440 was not uh easy and there was a bunch of other things that made it difficult the actual physical

01:34:30.040 trucking aspect of our lives like Ottawa was just like yeah I remember those days too and we had

01:34:37.920 so many you know well-trained red sealed or even mechanics remember the mechanics if somebody had

01:34:42.820 a problem with their truck you know an airline freezing up or the truck gelling up like that we

01:34:47.460 had a group of amazing mechanics from across the country that were there to get that truck back on

01:34:52.160 the road or run and not get it on the road but get it running at a minute's notice at no matter

01:34:57.020 what time of the day so it was just community that came together then and hats off to all the

01:35:01.780 people that took part so while gordon i'm going we usually run for an hour and a half we're just

01:35:06.100 over that now i want to make sure people get out there and get this book end of the road gordon

01:35:09.600 gill um there's a lot in here and i've been listening to it on the on the i have it on the

01:35:14.700 audible on my audible so when i i watch my listen to my books going when i'm driving down the highway

01:35:19.520 in the truck and i i think i made it about halfway through in the last few days here but i've the

01:35:24.860 phone has been ringing nuts i thought the spring rush was over and i was gonna start getting

01:35:28.620 but i got uh fair play to you for listening to this voice for 12 hours because that's me i

01:35:36.420 narrate the audiobook um you do you do if you are in canada and you want to buy a hardcover

01:35:42.380 get it at indigo or amazon or whatever it's too the buying it from the states is ridiculous if

01:35:48.240 you're an american listener to this show go directly to my uh my publishers creedandculture.com

01:35:55.040 you can get a hardcover an e-reader or the audiobook version right there

01:35:59.200 i'm on twitter i cord mcgill i write a substack occasionally autonomous truckers.substack.com

01:36:05.880 i do a little podcast chris has been on once and i talk all things trucking and and more so

01:36:11.960 yeah thanks for having me it was a pleasure having you sorry tamara had troubles with

01:36:15.900 computer tonight but obviously she was here for the most part of it so can't win all the time

01:36:20.060 appreciate everybody hearing here tonight i'm gonna go uh man i got some stuff to do out in

01:36:24.820 the yard i spent the afternoon in the office here doing paperwork and then this show obviously and

01:36:28.320 i'm gonna go get some stuff out in the yard until dark and i'm gonna go to bed and do it all again

01:36:31.420 tomorrow so appreciate it gord thanks everybody we'll keep in touch with you see you guys

01:36:37.100 everyone thanks for joining in i hate to do this alone because obviously tamara's gone so

01:36:43.740 have a great night. We will see you next week.

House Arrest - June 12, 2026

Ep. 32 - Gord Magill

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