Vaccination mandate for cross-border truckers takes effect on Saturday, hampering industry with driver shortage

PRESCOTT, ONT. -

Commercial cross-border truck drivers entering Canada will have to provide their vaccination status staring on Saturday, and with an industry that is already seeing a shortage of workers, this new policy could make it even worse.

"I thought it was a good thing. We've got to get (COVID-19) under control," says cross-border driver Sean Walsh, referring to the mandate.

"I think there is way too many guys who are not truthful when they say they are vaccinated," he said from the cab of his truck at a rest stop in Pennsylvania. "It's a pain in the butt, but it's going to make us safer, I believe."

But he also says the new mandate will put pressure on an industry already short on drivers.

"We're running around the clock right now and we can barely keep up with what we've got," Walsh said.

Walsh drives for Kriska Holdings out of Prescott, Ont., which employs 300 drivers. Approximately 70 per cent of those drivers cross the U.S.-Canada border regularly.

General Manager Tammy Cryderman says they've had to downsize their fleet the past two years due to the pandemic.

"Every day we are oversold by 10 to 15 per cent at least," Cryderman said. "As of the new year, we have so many people having to quarantine, there are days that we are oversold by 20 per cent. This mandate will probably put us in about the 25 per cent range of being oversold. That means we have 25 per cent more loads than we can move with the capacity that we have."

Drivers have also been leaving the industry since the start of the pandemic, Cryderman said.

"Many of them, the older generation, have just taken this as the opportunity to hang up their keys and move on and enjoy retirement life," she explained.

While Kriska did not have a vaccination policy in place, the recent mandate for cross-border truckers changed that.

"Certainly, we feel strongly that drivers should be vaccinated, but it's not something that we made as requirement for employment until now," Cryderman said.

"When we knew that this would be rolled out, we started ensuring that any new drivers that we hired were fully vaccinated. But for drivers that we had on staff, we did not make it mandatory until obviously now," she added.

"We started asking drivers a couple months ago what their vaccination status was so we could gather that information, so that we knew what position we would be in once this rolled out this Saturday," Cryderman said.

Greg Cook has driven for Kriska for 23 years and trains new hires. He thinks the driver shortage trend will continue.

"Once they are out of the industry, they're probably not coming back," Cook said, "so the driver shortage just gets worse and worse.

"The supply chain is already choking, we've already got a driver shortage and then you get people, whatever their opinion is of the vaccine, who are just not going to do it, so we lose them as a driver out of the industry," Cook added.

Drivers say the new policy will also add more time to cross the border, with wait times at major crossings already anywhere from 15 minutes to two hours.

"When we're at the two-hour rate, we're at over 1,000 trucks in line," said Walsh. "If you add 30 seconds onto each of those trucks, it just ramps everything up. A domino effect is created and then you can't make your delivery on time."

Walsh says he has been using the ArriveCAN app regularly when crossing the border, having no issues.

"Most of the people that I speak to are like-minded as I am, that the vaccines are important and this is our livelihood, and that this is just one more requirement that we have to cross the border and they've taken the appropriate steps," he said.

While Cook does agree with the mandate, and is fully vaccinated, he still thinks it's a bit much, since truckers were able to cross the border freely for more than 20 months.

"I mean, how many people do we come in contact with, really?" Cook said. "We're probably isolated more than anybody who is going to the grocery store.

"I think it's a bit of an overreaction. We went through a full year without vaccines, everything was fine, it worked. We didn't have a high number of drivers testing positive.

"Whatever your opinion is of the vaccine is, it no longer matters," he added. "The way it is, if you want to be a commercial driver, it's not an option anymore (to be unvaccinated)."

Cryderman also hinting that other mandates for the industry could be coming as well.

"We're being told that over the next couple of months, anybody that stays on this side of the border needs to be fully vaccinated as well," she said, "which will put further strain on the capacity in trucking.

"We're fortunate that a vast majority of our drivers that cross the border are vaccinated, but we do have some who are not," Cryderman added. "So that means more empty trucks sitting against the fence, and more empty shelves."