Mexican Trucks and Driver, Part 2

While, north of the Mexican border, our neighbours are wondering how to keep a possible flow of uncertainty about trucks coming from the south, we are wondering what can happen if we loose the buffer zone crated by the whole country of the USA. As I have written earlier, my view is more on the financial impact of the outpour then the trucks and the drivers with non verifiable skills and records.

In this whole question of letting Mexican trucks run freely north of the actual buffer zone along the southern border, one concern is coming out from them too. In 2001, the Mexican government has been petitioned by a group called “CANACAR”. This group seems to be about the equivalent of our Canadian Trucking Alliance or of the American Trucking Association. CANACAR, in 2001, had asked the Mexican Senate to cancel the trucking section of NAFTA, as reported in Land Line Magazine. Still today, CANACAR is claiming no real benefits to open the borders.

In the appearance to the Mexican Senate, the president of the group, Tirso Martinez Angheben, expressed the following points to stop the American Pilot Program.

• Transportation prices in Mexico are lower than in the USA or Canada;
• It will cause transportation prices in Mexico to increase;
• It will not accelerate the border crossing process;
• It will generate strong pressure on salaries paid to Mexican drivers, which in turn will increase the cost of domestic freight in Mexico; and
• The Mexican government lacks the capacity and infrastructure to supervise U.S. carriers entering Mexico and to prevent foreign companies from providing domestic transportation only reserved for Mexican nationals.

Don’t we have the same concerns but the other way around?

• Transportation prices in Canada are higher than in Mexico;
• It will cause transportation prices in Canada to decrease;
• It will not accelerate the border crossing process;
• It will generate strong pressure on salaries paid to Canadian drivers; and
• Can the Canadian government have the capacity and infrastructure to supervise any carriers entering Canada and to prevent foreign companies from providing domestic transportation only reserved for Canadian citizens?

These are some talking points that the associations representing carriers, owner-operators and drivers could sit down to see the full impact on our industry here in the great white northern.

Jean Catudal