Submission

Attn. Commissioner Harry W. Arthurs

Ref: Labour Standards Review

Dear Commissioner,

First of all, I would like to thank you for allowing our firm to take part in this review process.

As a small company, I strongly feel that for the most part, our government has constructed a reasonable set of guidelines to be followed by employees and employers alike. If there were one area of concern that I have as an employer, would be the limited amount of funding accessible to small businesses for training purposes.

Like most small businesses, our budget for training remains very small compared to other areas such as equipment maintenance, fuel purchases, insurance and licensing of equipment. Well all of these costs have become extremely difficult to manage, fuel and insurance costs within the trucking industry are undoubtedly causing everyone's safety budgets to become strained. What is unfortunate within our industry is the fact that we can "not' pass these costs back to the consumer.

Because of the lack of regulation within the trucking industry, competition is such that most companies are now doing business with next to no margin left. As a business, although I believe our emphasis should be placed on employee safety, continued rising costs in these areas will assuredly take from every company's safety budgets.

Again, thank you for allowing our firm the opportunity to provide our opinion on this very important topic.

Premiere Van Lines

Darryl Amirault
Managing Partner