A convoy trucks hit the road in Canada to protest what they call Quebec’s unfair treatment of Ottawa’s truck drivers.
The drivers took to the Champlain Bridge, briefly bring traffic to a halt.
The Ottawa drivers say they’re fed up with being pushed out of Quebec. They say that they have to fight through a mountain of red tape and they’re targeted with “incessant inspections stops” simply because of where they’re from.
“They just harass you so bad that I sent all my rights back and everything for Quebec because I wouldn’t go any more,” truck driver Gord Griffith of Russell, Ontario, told CTV News.
Ron Barr, the head of the Greater Ottawa Truckers Association told CTV News that Ottawa treats Quebec workers fairly. He said that dozens of Quebec companies do snow removal for the city of Ottawa without being registered to work in Ontario.
“We go over there. We’re compliant. We get stopped. They go over here, they’re not even checked,” he said.
“It’s a long-running dispute, and Jack MacLaren wants to return to a level playing field. The Carleton-Mississippi Mills MPP has re-introduced the “Fairness is a Two-Way Street” Act calling for retaliatory restrictions on Quebec companies looking for work in Ontario. It was first enacted by Mike Harris in 1999, and repealed by Dalton McGuinty in 2006,” CTV News reported.
“This will slam the door on Quebec. Quebecers will lose jobs. But we’re going to protect Ontario jobs,” says MacLaren.”
Ottawa drivers would like to see Quebec lift restrictions on both sides of the border, which would allow for more competition and fairness.
To read more about the ongoing dispute, follow this link to the Ottawa Citizen.