Shaun Newman Podcast - #672 - Blue Collar Roundtable #4

Episode Date: July 2, 2024

This is the fourth instalment of the Guardian Blue Collar Roundtable which features three truck drivers with a combined 122 years of experience. Trent Lalonde, Kim Wylie and Steve Newman discuss the trucking industry, making it a trade and the dying culture of trucking. Let me know what you think. Text me 587-217-8500 Substack:https://open.substack.com/pub/shaunnewmanpodcast E-transfer here: [e-mail] Website: https://silvergoldbull.ca/ Email: [e-mail] Text Grahame: [phone] – and be sure to let them know you’re an SNP listener.

This is Ken Driesdale. This is Dr. Mark Trozy. Hey, this is Gordon McGill. This is Drew Weatherhead, and you're listening to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the podcast, folks. Happy July. Happy Tuesday. You know what that means.

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beauty Caleb taves renegade acres they do the community spotlight i'm on the road right now So the community spotlight is this, which probably isn't a great community spotlight, but I think of all of you as my community, which means if you're interested in staying in touch for the month of July, I'm tossing some of the travels out on Substack. So there'll be a few pictures, a few thoughts, nothing too crazy. And I would love to have you come over there and interact and see what your thoughts are of July and, you know, slowing it down. No episode tomorrow.

Today is Tuesday, nothing on Wednesdays, here in the month of July. And a reminder, the mashup guest hosts all of July. You got Chuck Prodnick this week. It's going to be a ton of fun. Vance Crowe the week after, Drew Weatherhead the week after that. And quick dick, McDick on the final week of July. All right. Let's get on to the tale of the tape.

Combined, they have 122 years of truck driving experience. I'm talking about Trent Lawn, Kim Wiley, and Steve Newman. Here's another Guardian blue collar round table. So buckle up, here we go. Welcome to, well, actually, it's the Guardian Plumbing and Heating Blue Color Roundtable. It's number four, folks. So if you missed the first three from earlier in the year, we had our inaugural back at the start of the year. We had a bricklayer, a plumber, and an electrician.

And we represented all three provinces. We had Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. And then the next time we went online, we had Quick Dick, MacDick, Chase Barber, and crackpot farmer. And that also was three provinces. And then last time we had the old boys. Now on the fourth iteration, we have the truckers. So thanks again, guys, for doing this.

We're joined by Trent Lalong, Kim Wiley, and my father, Stephen Newman. And I'm looking forward to a trucking blue-color roundtable. This should be very, very interesting. Now, before we get into it, I just want to go around the table, allow people to, you know, briefly explain. I assume your trucking credentials. I don't know what truckers do. I don't know if you guys change you hockey cards or what on the road. But regardless, that'll give people a chance to just get a feel for your voice and who you are and where you're from. And we can go from there. Kim, we're going to start with you because you're the guy out in the truck working. Like, I'm like,

this is ridiculous. I mean, what better way to have a blue collar roundtable than to have one of the guys trucking still working? And so we'll start with Kim. Kim. Kim, fire a, Where are you from and a little bit of your background in the trucking industry? Yeah, I'm from Humboldt, Saskatchewan. I married a sweet little gal from Humboldt and moved her home to her mom and dad 30 years ago, because I'm never home, right? So, yeah, and 43 years, I started in 1981 and hauled gravel for a couple of years, and then I went out on the highway, and I've been out in the highway ever since.

and I've been fortunate enough to find a company I've been with for 27 years where I'm home every weekend. So it's worked out quite well, actually. So we just run the prairie provinces and license for BC over to Ontario, but just stick to the prairies. Trent. Yeah, I've been trucking now. I guess I got my license in 92, started over the highway in 93. I hung it up in 2021 because I just couldn't make a go of it with the way the rates were. It was time to sell.

So I went to work in an office now. I started my own. But back when I was trucking, I went completely independent in the year 2001, my own operating authority, my own truck, my own deck. And that's been my experience, which was a great lead in. And so from when I started working in an office, yeah, and I've hauled everything from oil to decks to, I've been on the ice roads as your dad, done all kinds of different things. I've been all over North America with it. And it was a great adventure, but now it's time to make it better. And finally, well, I'm going to say Steve, but everybody knows I'm going to say dad at some point here.

So, Dad, you chime in here with your background on in the. in the trekking world. Well, I apologize for Sean because you guys have to put up with him all the time. He's our youngest and I started in 74. So in a month and a half, it'll be 50 years. And I've been not across Canada as far middle of Quebec states, all the way to BC, territories, Yukon. and trucked, sort of like Trent, just hauled just about everything. And it kept our family live. We broke farming in the mid-90s, and that was the only thing that kept us going. You know, I was saying to this to Trent on the phone before we, you know, as we were talking about this idea,

is I'm like, you know, one of the things that dad told me, and I can't remember, it feels pretty prophetic. But it was before COVID ever came about, but he said, you ever want to shut this country down? Just piss off all the truckers. And I chuckled about that in the middle of COVID because what ended up happening was the truckers revolted against the country. It is a profession that has been around for a very, very long time. The more truckers I talk to, the more proud they are of their industry. And yet it's like so many blue-color industries that kind of get kicked around or kind of treated like the lesser of some of the jobs out there.

And yet the importance to our way of life, especially in Canada, I don't think can be understated in the importance of trucking. So appreciate you all hopping on and doing this. Now, we're going to start with Kim in the truck. I think, you know, dad worked today. I'm sure Trent worked today. And Kim's out doing them both by still being in the truck. So Kim, wherever you want to start this off,

I know we talked a little bit about Humboldt. If that's where you want to start and just see where it goes from there, fellas. But we'll start with Kim out there. Trent, feel free to chime in and dad as well. Well, to start with, like, Humboldt is, it's grown, you know, the 6,000 people. So when that accident happened, like, you know everybody or you know of everybody in town. And that's the same year that my daughter graduated and she had three people from the bus crash, you know, in her graduating class.

You know, one was deceased, one's in a wheelchair, and one's in long-term care, right? So it hit us pretty hard, you know. And my wife is a teacher's assistant at the high school, right? So she knew all the kids, you know, and same with the rest of our family. You know, and we found out about it Friday night at 7 o'clock, because I got home at 5.30, and the wife said, well, the Bronco bus had been involved in an accident, and you think, oh, you know, fender, bender, hit a deer, right? you know and then because of social media my daughter found out actually what what it had happened and then at that point uh every time the phone ding it was bad news right so i just i got to a point

where with my phone i just shut it off because i already knew what what what had happened here we got another big bad mark on the trucking industry, right? You know, because it hasn't been all that great for quite a few years. And I was loaded for Calgary. So I left Sunday afternoon. And I was, I might have had maybe three hours of sleep and 72 hours, right? because there's no way you can, there's no way I could have slept out of that deal. So I tried three, I tried three times to do the video and finally and kindersly,

I, I had enough, I guess enough gumption to say what I wanted to say, right? And I did say trucking needs to be made into a trade. And then I started thanking all my mentors right up. from my dad and my two uncles and everybody that I had come across in the trucking industry. And I've been fortunate enough. I worked out of Edmonton for 14 years for one company. And there was quite a few guys that were older than I was, right? And they would show you the ropes. And then the same thing when I come over to my present job here too, right? There was quite a few older guys. You know, they would tell you what you were doing wrong and then show you how, you know, straighten you out and show you how to do it correctly.

You know, and I made the video and I posted it and I shut my phone off again because I had people texting me. You know what happened, right? People messaged me and I just at that point, I just couldn't deal with it. And I before I shut my phone off, I phoned another good friend of mine. And he lives just northeast of Calgary. And once in a while, I'd stop at his place. And we'd have a coffee in a morning and coffee row in a small town. So then I phoned him. And I said, yep.

I said, I got to stop and talk to you. He goes, oh, by all means, he says, I'll pick you up. We'll go for coffee, right? And I've been there enough coffee row in that little small town, right? everybody knows who I am, right? You know, so it was pretty good therapy to have a chat with some of the locals there in that little small town. And then I got back into the truck and fired up my phone.

And there was one text from my oldest son. He says, you need to call me. Oh, geez, now what? So I called him. He says, have you gone on your Facebook? page yet. I go, no. He says, you need to because he says, your video just blew everything wide open. I said, what? Oh, yeah, he says, you better check that out. And I was blown away with the response, right? I just, I was overwhelmed with the support. And it, it really opened up my eyes over that.

and the power of social media. And then shortly after that, Trent had got a hold of me. And we were talking. Then he says, do you realize, he said, if you write a letter to the House of Commons in Ottawa, that you don't, there's no postage.

You don't have to put a postage stamp on that. I go, what? Oh, yeah, he said, it's free postage. I go, oh, here we go, right? So like Trent said, you know, he wrote up a letter and signed their names at the bottom. And I must have sent 36 letters off or 40 letters to the House of Commons just because. And then I probably sent half a dozen to the Saskatchewan legislature, but you had to pay postage on that, but that's not a big deal.

I'll call it for trucking as a trade. And I did get some responses back, but it was like in a form letter signed. by the member of parliament's assistant of the assistant right so it was never really formal on that end they but uh they uh they definitely knew that uh something was in the works right people were starting to email them phone them and and write in about what what was going on in the trucking industry so it's been a long road, but the more I talk to people and especially other truckers,

they're agreeing that it needs to be turned into a trade. It's really come in the last, I'd say what, year and a half, two years, Kim? Because when we first put that out, like we put a lot of effort into it, and there were a lot of people, there were people like John White and other people in the trucking industry and trucking magazines that stood behind it.

Like you were lucky to even get a form letter back from a politician. And we sent it to every party. Like I'm a very political guy, but Kim and I both decided, no, we're not, this is not a political thing. Quite honestly, I was hoping it was going to be unanimous. I thought with the momentum and the mood in the country at the time, I was really expecting this to catch fire and I guess, you know, I'm a little bit

delusional, a bit of a dreamer. I thought this was the time when we were going to be able to make this change and I was wrong. And we were even getting like the backlash we were getting from truck drivers. That was terrible.

I wasn't like to hear from truck drivers. And we had pretty much shelved for what about two years. Trent, if you don't mind, why were you getting backlash from truckers? they were scared that well actually they just didn't understand it but they were complaining about everything about how quite honestly the most common story i would hear as well if it becomes a trade then the unions will move in and they would go into some story about waiting at a dock where the union guys wouldn't

unload them or just just just nonsense really uh and then like every stupid reason you could you can imagine came up. Oh, and then they'll be taxing this more and they'll do this. Just every conspiracy theory imaginable. And Steve, you can attest to this truckers love conspiracy theories like you wouldn't believe. So Kim and I had had backed away from it. And then we started seeing on social media where the idea had a life of its own. And I mean, there are other people. There are people in the states have been pushing for this and there are people long before Kim and I were involved were and a lot of them contacted me who were fighting like banshees for for years to make trucking a trade and several of them contacted me and and came and said you know what guys it's your turn to carry the torch because

we've tried everything we can and I was actually warned the the trucking like the Alberta Trucking Association and different trucking associations they said they're not your friend they don't want trucking to be a trade because they don't want the rates to go up, right? And that's why we've seen throughout, if I can do a quick brief thing on trucking, it was deregulated in the 80s, right? And the idea was, oh, the free market will take control. And then in the mid-90s, rates started going up, drivers' rates started going up. And I remember famously, J.B. Hunt started paying 42 cents a mile U.S. to a driver back in 1995.

and and that was just a shocker and everybody had to pay more for a driver because guys were leaving the industry and they couldn't get more people in so actually him the first thing they paid 12 cents a mile when I started in Lloyd here 12 cents yeah to drive like crazy yeah I believe that yeah it was very low yeah and then they went uh so to get drivers originally both Canada and the US wanted they were bringing their idea was they would train people off of welfare. There was a the transport career development center. And this was their idea. They take people from welfare. Well, trucking is a lot more involved than that. I mean, you don't go from not having a job at all to become a truck driver where you're

working at least 70 hours a week from from not working at all. That's too big of culture shock. So that failed. So then they brought drivers in from the UK and those boys did fantastic. but they said, bloody hell, you blocs are working for nothing. They just couldn't handle, they didn't like the low rates. So then they went to India. They wanted people who were poor to come and work and they thought they'd continue to be

poor, but these Indians don't ever think that they're stupid, they're not. And they saw what was happening and they didn't like being taken advantage of. So they started their own companies, right? So now we're in a situation where we have all these companies, many of them are still run from India via the internet, via cell phones or phone technology. And it was in 19 or 2019, Katie Tomlinson did an article October of 2019 in the Globe and Mail about human trafficking in trucking, where they're bringing people over from India and pushing them into a truck. And you can look up the article, I think I sent it to you, to work for nothing. So it's white

slavery. And I thought, okay, well, this is finally going to change. That changed nothing. Nobody's even addressed it. I've talked to MPs about it and they said, well, we're fighting on it in committee, but it won't go anywhere. So that brings us to this point. How do we get trucking to be a trade? With any trade, what happens is you create a process and you repeat that process until you perfect it. In trucking, at one time, it was like Steve said, like Kim said, you learned from your mentors, right? You learned from the guys previous.

I had that. You know, when I started, I was 25 years old. and I'd be crawling underneath a truck to do a break check, Camloops v.C, and I would have guys like your dad, and I probably would come up to me at one point. I doubt it. No, I did. Well, they would come over, and they would poke. I'd be checking my brakes, and they'd lean underneath.

They'd get right under the truck or trailer with me and say, how you know there, young fella? You know what you're doing? Because it was still manual breaks, and you had to set them up. And they would check on you. And I was always grateful for that. And they do, like Kim said, they would show you how. If you were willing to listen, they would tell you everything.

If you were willing to listen. We and we were on the CB, guys would call you on the CB. Well, today we have a language and a cultural barrier to all of that. Which started probably in the mid-90s. Because when I ran East, you were saying the East Indians were, I don't know what you call it, laboring for nothing and they would put four guys in a truck and uh and turn them loose and it was and that was oh sorry yeah you know and that that made the the industry go backwards just because and you couldn't uh you couldn't compete without it and this isn't truck or lore because this was

documented in katie tomlinson's article and anybody can read it it's on the internet I look it up all the time. So this is a situation we're at. But what the truckers, when they went to the free market, they said let the free market rule, which it did. But then the government starts getting in there and messing with it and bringing in cheap labor. Right? Because so now you're you're fiddling with the system. If they had left it alone, we'd have been far better off.

But now how do we correct this mess? Well, we have to have a standard where people can. And by the way, today, it's almost impossible to become a truck driver because nobody will insure you. So what we need is a system where we can bring drivers in from nothing and have them go through a process and become a driver, right? Virginia Tech did a study a few years back. Actually, Gord used this in one of his articles, Gord McGill. Shout out to Gould. I did see, I did see, Trent, the hippie picture.

He sent it to me because I was like, is this true? Is Gordon McGill? were you at one point like dreads and everything and he sent me the picture so i do have confirmation on that he was a far left isn't that wild no i mean isn't that wild like for people who haven't listened to gordon mcgill he was just on last week and like uh you know he's talking about the coots for he's talking about different things going on in canada and you know trank texts me and goes he was a hippie and i'm like okay sure and of course it's true blew my mind i'm far left Actually, I met Gord on the ice roads.

And when I first saw him at the camp up at Yellowknife, you know, he was sitting down and I thought, why is it cleaning stuff sitting with the drivers? But, you know, shouldn't he be cleaning a toilet or something? And I did because he was a hippie. Dreadlocks down to his butt. And then I found out he drove. And I thought, well, somebody's going to get fired for hiring a hippie. But I ran into him in Enterprise one day. It was a Sunday, and he was storming around Enterprise because he needed a torque wrench

because he'd had a tire changed in Yellowknife. And he'd sat in Enterprise for six hours because he didn't have a torque wrench to retorke the wheel, which is what you're supposed to do as a professional. And he would not leave until he had done that. And that's where we became friends because I had a torque wrench in my truck. And he said, you carry a torque wrench? Of course I carry a torque wrench. So we retort his wheel, and after that we were buddies.

We started to like each other. Gord is one of the finest people who I know. He's a righteous man, and I'm really glad to know him, and he's a very dear friend, which is amazing because he's a frigging hippie. But anyways. Not to, I want to get to the trucking as a trade, but I also don't want to skip by this point, because I saw you last, about it. I see dad laugh about it over here.

And it was Kim talking about mentorship. And the old boys, they would show you what you're doing wrong. Right. Oh, yeah. If you ever worked with an old truck, you know, like I got my, you know, I had to swamp back in the day. And I thought they weren't, it wasn't a sweet teaching. It was put that chain. What are you doing?

No. What the hell? Where are your boomers? Go get your boomers. What do you got for incredible? Actually, guys, let me see. I started when I was 18. And my first job, don't tell Roburges this.

But they sent me out where Roboes, and they had caboors in those days. And he, old art, Robirds said, go out, hook up unit, whatever it was to the green trailer. He had a green trailer, which was long. But he says, it's got a real deep pin setting. He says, you're going to have to move the fifth wheel. And so I went outside and I counted wheels because I thought, where's the fifth wheel? Like, you know, so I'm going around the truck. I can't find the fifth wheel, eh?

And I'm going on, this, this is looking bad, right? So how am I going to do this? They had a guy, a mechanic that, you know, like to tip back, the odd one or two. And so I kind of knew him and he was friendly. So I went in there and I said, I'm having trouble with a fifth wheel. And he says, that damn thing, it sticks all the time. He says, here, I'll come with you. And that's all I learned what a fifth wheel was.

Yeah. Kim, you can hop in. I just find mentorship lacking everywhere. This isn't a trucking only thing. This is everywhere. I get talking, you know, somehow I walk into the media realm, you know, and now I'm doing these things. And I get talking to the old school media journalist.

And they talk about how the mentorship that they grew up under in media is gone. It's just, it's obsolete. Oh, yeah. Well, I see the trend of this mentorship disappearing, and I find that very interesting. So not to spend a ton of time on it. I mean, we can. But, you know, Trent's talking about meeting Gordon McGill and a fun story there. I just think, you know, the importance of mentorship and the older staff, the older class,

even if they did it rough around the edges, showing you things and looking out for you is an important thing. So if you had a story about that, Kim, or Trent, I just thought, I, I, I, I, I, I wanted to pause on it for a second. Actually, that's why I can't drive a Mack truck. The old boys, I was young. And so, you know, I went with a couple of them. And he says to me, you can't drive a Mac truck, eh? And I said, why are they different or something?

He says, no, you just can't have two assholes face each other. Yeah, right. No, I've never jumped in a Mac truck since. You're talking about it. a little rough around the edges. Well, it usually involved, if you were doing something wrong, there was a profoundly laced rant

that went on. It went on for like minutes. You can't do it that way. It's not going to work, right? Oh, yeah. Exactly. Yeah. You know, because that company out of Ebenton,

they had a bunch of, they had 40 foot by eight wide van traders, right? And they had the flat pot. on them. Well, if you know anything about a flat pot, right, it didn't have maxi brakes on it. So when you dynamited the trailer, you had, you had brakes, parking brakes until the air run out of the air tanks. And then you had nothing, right? So, of course, there's usually one guy out of the herd there, right? Oh, yeah, I'm going to show you guys how to do it, right? So he takes a run at it, knocks it off the dolly pads, because now it's freewheeling across the yard, right?

you know and I'm going oh geez that was that was one of the big things the old guy said you back up to that trailer to the fifth wheel hits the plate and then you hook up the airlines and you charge the trailer grab a handful of spike and slowly back

underneath it eh right oh yeah it was it was crazy times back then right you know and I started in 81 yeah I missed all the old, you know, twin sticks, five and fours, four and fours, six and fours.

I missed all that. I was the next generation, eh, where there was one stick, and that was it. The first time I come down Rogers Pass, running double, and the guy was in the bunk, eh? And so I'm starting at the top, and I'm just kind of, you know, you got the j-con, it's just kind of rattling, and then you shift the gear, and then it's rattling, and you shift the gear, and then it's rattling. but you know you're picking up speed the whole time he comes out there and just wax me he says what the

hell are you doing and i i said well you know just he says we keep going the way you're going we're doing 140 by time we hit the bottom and uh that's when you first learn you go up the hill you come down the hill in the same gear that you went up the hill and then that way the jake's going to hold and that is and you're going to run away no trend Trent you you look at i you you look i you know what I love? It's better if it was in person, but it's fun because I'm looking around and I can hear all the truckers. They're like, oh, this, you know, they're all starting to see like they want to hop in. Trent, you've been trying to hop in here. I love this. This is how I learned. It's fond memories. And this is why we need to make this a trade because listen to all the tricks that

are coming out here. Okay. Like there was a thing. a little while ago where a guy had steel eye beam go through the cab of his truck and and kim sent around to to everybody on facebook a picture of it and we all knew the guys who knew who've hauled steel ibeam that you're supposed to put a chain from your truck and you put it around the front of the steel eye beam right and then back see steed on his head it was exactly what because you don't want an ibeam for a passenger correct and if you do that and you do it at each end that that That beam cannot move back and forth. And if it can't move at all, it gets no momentum, and it will never come forward and go through your truck.

Okay. And that is a trick of the trade that you learn, right? That is what you put into the trade. And that is what you teach in load securement. That is what you teach these guys to do. Now, like your dad and I have both done fluid and we've done different things. hauling fluid, hauling oil, hauling propane, completely different ballgame.

Your truck and trailer moves different. Hey, I never hauled a swing and beef, but yeah, that's another thing because it'll knock your trailer around. So there's all these different aspects to trucking, okay? And it's, we need to put that together. We need to get this knowledge while it's still available. Well, you know, we're still around.

And you need to put it in a form that you can then put everybody through. Okay, so you come in and you know nothing about trucking. And then we have an apprenticeship program where if you have, you know, you base it on the attrition rate. So if the attrition rate and trucking is 5%, then a guy that has 100 trucks has to train five drivers. We are training right now. And they're going through the course. We're paying $10,000 per driver for this course, and then I've been going out with them.

And there's guys. that have are just lost. And you would think coming out of a course. Now this is Alberta? This is Alberta. Alberta. Yeah. Just for reference, right?

Trent and Kim, Saskatchewan, just to give everybody reference. It's surprising. Like, you know, they still don't have a clue is what, you know, just as far as shifting and stuff like that. What I was going to ask Trent and Kim, you know, you talk about making trucking a trade. for the layman sitting here what does that do that changes what trucking is right now like what is that what is that going to do to help the industry so you don't have another humbold or you know another ibeam going through like how does this change the trajectory of where trucking is heading humboldt would never have happened that man and uh no i'm not going to get into whether you should be in jail or deported or whatever that's i'm not I'm not even going to say his name because I can't remember it.

But that whole situation, that making trucking a trade, had trucking been a trade, I can absolutely guarantee you the humble tragedy never would have happened. That is the one thing I can guarantee. You can cut down trees and you can put up bigger flashing lights and they're doing everything, but they're dancing around the issue and it infuriates me. if there had been a structure, a trade certification, where that man, he was not qualified to haul a super beast, he wasn't qualified to drive on his own. And I have nothing against any man or any person, for that matter, because women make damn good truck drivers, and the industry is learning that too.

I have nothing against anybody who wants to become a truck driver, but you go through a process like anything else. We create a process. That's what every industry does. You create a process and you have people go through it and they're better on the other end and they're trained. And I'll tell you one thing at 30 years of trucking and Kim is what, 42 and you're 50, Steve. I'll tell you one thing that we can all agree on. We're all amazed at how much we still have left to learn. Oh, yeah, for sure. It's going to give you a better quality of driver.

Yeah. You know, if you, you know, apprenticeship, work up to a journeyman. I mean, I got mine in 1981 with four and a half days worth of training, so probably not even 40 hours. So we got a melt system in Saskatchewan here that's turning out 120 hours. And I see the results of that. And some days I'm flabbergasted because, you know, like Trent said, I mean, you're not getting the quality of a driver out of 120 hours. Well, why is that? Like what's going on in that system there that's not turning out people that can't back up

because I had one of those situations. I was at a heavy equipment distributor. And I was waiting for the dock. And I walk into the shipping office and the shipper is losing his mind on somebody in the other end of the phone. And he says, do not send that driver back here. do not, any circumstances, I don't want that driver in my yard. And I'm thinking, well, what's going on here?

So he hangs up the phone. I said, what's going on? He said, well, he's been trying to back into the dock for the last half an hour and count back it in straight. I go, what? Oh, yeah, yeah. And he'd come out of the States, this guy. I don't know how he found his way down to the States and how he found his way back,

but he managed to do that. So I'm thinking, well, what's going on? he's got 120 hours of training and you came back into a dock straight. So, yeah, I kind of questioned that too, right? But I mean, I got my, yeah, I got my training there in 1981 with four and a half days. And then it was about three months after the bus crash there that Saskatchewan decided they needed to upgrade their training. so that's when they come out with 120 hours of melt. They had 39 years to update their training.

Like, you've got to keep up with times, right? It sounds like you guys learned the same way as I did from older fellas. Yeah, boy, yeah. And if you didn't have thick skin, you weren't going to make it because they let you have it. Are you stupid or something? you know, and they explain why you're stupid, eh. But now they don't want to say anything because, oh, that's, you don't want to call a guy stupid, eh? Right.

Yeah. But we still get, we still get guys coming into our pipeyard that, you know, like, you go, holy smokes, you know. Yeah. You know, well, after, you know, after the old guy got you all straightened out and pointed down to, the right path, you know, he would explain to it, slap you on the back, right? Yeah, chuckle to himself, right? Yeah. Right.

And the way he go, right? Yeah, exactly. So is the thought, boys, with the trade then, if I may, because, you know, like, when I listen to you three talk, you all came through with less training than they give now, right? Like, I mean, 120 hours and you guys came through with less. And, you know, some of the truckers I respect, and I respect a lot of you out there. I want to make that clear. But the ones that have interacted in my life,

they share a similar story. So it's the quality of person that's coming through in those instances that, you know, it didn't matter if it was 120 hours or four hours. They were going to learn. They were going to take the shrapnel from all the older boys saying, you're a moron. You need to figure this out.

They're going to like, that suck. I don't want to do that again. And see, the trade is going to put up more, I don't mean barriers in a bad, way. There's probably a better, more stepping stones maybe to make sure the person gets as much training as possible. And if I may, one of the things that you hope, and I think, Trent, you alluded to

this, is you can attract this quality of teacher or mentor to that program. So when they start learning, it's like, oh, listen, you don't want to do that. These are the things you want to remember to better, you know, to give all the knowledge. So you're making it a little bit more difficult to get into, trucking, but then you're also surrounding that with the best minds trucking has to offer, which I might argue there's lots out there to best practices, best like knowledge. You know, you guys start rattling off a bunch of different things in trucking. I'm like, I don't even know. You guys are speaking a second language right now.

And we've just got started. Is that right, Trent? Like, am I right in my analogy or my thought process up to this point? I want you to acknowledge your dad is the man, too, by the way, when it comes to trucking, okay? But anyways, yes. No, you're exactly right. Let me be very clear. Dad is the man when it comes to trucking. And, and, and the thing that I probably, you know, all of us kids would say he has the right, like an amazing temperament for it. So like he never, you know, I've worked for lots of, you know, show it to Harold Bowman, you know, if he ever listens to this. We should have had Harold

on. We should have had Harold on. Harold is, is, I was, I swamp, I swamp for him as a, you know, was a young teenage kid. And I'm sure I had nothing between my ears. And he was stern. But I enjoyed it because, you know, I would rather you tell me exactly what I need to do. So I can go out and do it and I can learn and I can be successful at my career. Then you just not say anything and I just fail miserably.

And I don't know what I'm paralyzed by like, what the heck do I even do? And so Harold chewed up swamper after swamper after swamper. And then he hit me. And he probably thought I was, I was the owner's kid, and now, well, seeing how this goes. But we struck up a great friendship. And I really enjoyed working for him when other people didn't because of how,

and I put it in pretense, how hard he was. He just was direct with how he wanted things done. Okay, I can do that. You got used to being yelled at probably. Probably. Probably. That's probably what it was. Yeah.

But you learned, didn't you? But we all learned that way, Sean, but it was wrong. And it should have been laid out. It should have been a trade like with plumbing or anything else. And there's a whole, okay, here's a proof. The industry itself recognizes that trucking is a trade. And I'll tell you how. When you look through driver ads, you know what they say?

Must have minimum two years experience. Must have minimum three years experience. Two years of driving truck is 6,000 hours. You know how many hours it takes to become a journeyman? 6,000 hours of work time plus schooling. Okay. So they've just said that it is a train. trade, but they don't want to pay.

That is a problem. And the other thing that you said earlier, and you repeated what your dad had told you, smart man, that's a first. Trucking, that if trucking is the one industry that can shut down all of North America.

Think about that for a moment, because you're right. Do you want those people getting together? Because if we become a trade, we're now an affiliation. And we've lost Trent. Trent, where did you go? He was right in the middle of a good point, but he froze up on us.

I can see you. Can you hear me? Oh, oh, geez. Trudeau. I'm just going to click pause for a second here. Got you one sec. Okay. Sorry.

You were saying you don't want truckers to get together. Correct. Because we do have that kind of power. But right now, 80% of the trucks in Canada are controlled by India. Okay. So they have that power. And I hope they never flexed. We have turned over our supply chain to another nation right now.

Say that, Trent, say that stat again? 80% of the trucks in Canada are operated by people from India. Okay? They are immigrants from India, which, by the way, and before we go too far here, because I'm going to defend them, I have worked with guys from India that will drive circles around most people. There are guys that have been here a long time and they take the trade seriously. I had one guy I worked with. We were hauling pneumatics.

I brought the load so far. He was going to take it on to the customer. He gets out of his truck. He walks right past me. He inspects everything. All the work I'd just done with dropping the trailer would not talk to me. You're not, you dad's laughing because he knows exactly what's going on. Would not acknowledge me until he came around and everything was okay.

And then he introduced himself and we were cool. And that's the way the old school truckers are, unless everything is done right, they're not even going to say your name. They're not going to acknowledge you exist. And then afterwards, okay, they're either going to give you hell for doing something wrong. I really like that guy. We've got to be friends. So they exist. They exist.

No, I've run into lots of guys like that. I have. Well, and once again, to point out 80% is owned by India, doesn't have to be inherently racist or something. wild. It's our industry that makes our country run and it's ran by or owned by another country. Something that isn't Canada. So I mean, like, you know, you can put whatever country you want there, Trent. That is a wild statistic because you're right. Imagine if 80% of the farms were owned by another country.

Yeah. Think about that for a moment. Immigrants from another country own all our farming. Would we allow that? Would we allow them to own all our steel mills? But we allow them to own our supply chain and they can shut it down. in the blink of an eye. We used to go into Toronto. And I took Sean and his next older brother.

And they would drive the nuts out of me because I'm just, you know, they wouldn't shut up. Why he is, that's why he's doing what he's doing because he won't shut up. But we'd be driving Montreal to Toronto at night. And so to give them something to do, I'd just say about count trucks going the other way. And they'd get up to a thousand and then they'd play out and fall asleep in the bunker or whatever.

and then going into Toronto and it would be three lanes and it was all the trucks three in the morning everybody trying to get in there before the traffic and it was the fresh lettuce and the beef and the fuel and the lumber and you know and just and and and and an and then if you shut all that down nobody they wake up and they got no Cheerios in the morning they're going what is going on here. So now from a political standpoint, do you want that organized? And here's the other thing I can say from being involved in politics. They don't think that far ahead. They really don't. Your average politician is thinking about the next election and they need a certain number of votes. They got to ID the vote. Then they got to get out the vote. And if they can get appease a group,

that's what they will do. And yeah, there's not. politicians can disappoint you, I'll tell you that. So what we need to do is, as I was mentioned earlier, and it's happening, and this show is happening, is we need to let people know that trucking should be a trade, what all is involved. And, you know, that's going on with their stories. You know, you're lost, Sean, and you actually have trucking experience. A lot of people are like that, because that's how involved this job is. When we get talking trucking, we're not even getting into engines and setting brakes and mechanics

and all the other safety stuff that goes into this. We're just skimming the surface. It is that involved. Trucking is that involved. And there are that many layers to it. And there are so many different things. Heavy haul is a completely different bowl game from hauling a tank, from hauling cattle, from hauling steel.

They're all completely different, but they all operate right now under the same license that you get in, what, 120 hours through Melf? And come on, half that time people are sleeping in the classroom. Okay? So we need this system. The industry recognizes it. That's why a lot of insurance companies will not insure a driver

with less than 6,000 hours experience, two years. Some are going 9,000 hours now. So they recognize that the industry needs experienced drivers, but nobody wants to pay for it. Now, if you went to the, and for some reason they get away with it. They want that cheap labor. Because if you went to the government and said, hey, look, we can't get carpenters, eh, to build houses because, you know, we want to pay

15 bucks an hour and no carpenter will work for 15 bucks an hour. The government would tell them, go pound sand, pay your people better, you're not going to go to another country to bring in cheap labor to build houses. But when it comes to trucking, they allow it. Because people think they don't really have that respect for driving that they should. They don't realize how involved it is. Wow, you're dealing with a lot of stuff. well, especially with on-time delivery.

Nobody stocks anything anymore. It's all on-time delivery, right? You go any parts distributor, and I don't care who they are, the truck manufacturers, the truck dealers, and I need this part. Oh, well, we'll put it in on a stock order, and it'll be seven days. Oh, geez, you guys. Like, it's not here sitting on your shelf. Oh, no, no, nothing like that, gee.

Well, and the other thing that always affected us was, or myself, was if you got into Toronto, you wanted to get in and out of Toronto. So you wanted to get in, unloaded, and loaded and out before Friday. Because if you got there on Friday and couldn't get loaded, you sat the weekend. Same thing if coming out west, Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver, it was the same deal. And so you were going as hard as you could. so you get in, unload, load, load, get out. But yeah, you're right about it's...

So I guess then, okay, we... Let's start here. Okay, so let's talk about this trade thing for a second. Okay. You want to turn it into a trade. Have there been places in Canada or around the world, I'll let you take wherever you want to go, trend, that have turned it into a trade?

Is there anything that's like, well, look, just look over the fence. There's a trade. Australia, the United Kingdom, the Land Star Trucking out of the States, guys are not allowed to even touch a deck until they've gone through a week of load securement training and then they have a graduated license. That's not a full on trade system. But yes, there are lots of places to do it. It actually, I believe South America, is it Argentina that has it as a trade?

It is becoming more and more recognized all the time. But I would say the UK and Australia would be your prime examples right now. So, yeah, it is being recognized. The trouble is with the government, can I talk about the fight? Because it's not just making it straight. One thing I had a battle with in Saskatchewan, Steve, I think you probably recognize there's nowhere for a truck to park in Saskatchewan. No. BC is not.

Is this your rest area advisor panel? Like I came out. Well, you guys remember John Gormley from the radio, right? Yeah, sure. He's a buddy of mine. And so they, the Saskatchewan government was closing rest areas back in 2019. And I heard that on Gormley and I went nuts. So I started calling people up and we got a rest area advisory committee.

SGI was on it. Susan Ewert from Saskatcham Trucking Association. Shout out to Susan. She's top notch. Doug Siemens on it. Fantastic guy. He's retired now. Seaman's Transportation Group, but he was fantastic. Quay, Quay from SGI.

Wonderful people. And everybody was on it and we had three meetings and the government did not want to build rest areas. By the time we were done, we had them convinced, okay? And they had given me a written promise that they were going to build them. All right, and given all of us that written promise and the people of Saskatchewan.

And the reason we needed that, look at BC. They're spending $100 million over nine years, $28 million last year alone to build and upgrade rest areas. BC already has rest areas. You need a place to pull over and do exactly to do that proper inspection. By law, you have to pull over and do an inspection of your load within 80 kilometers at the time you load. Okay, well, you need a spot to do that. Now, most places have them, like Alberta has them everywhere. BC has them.

You pull in, you do an inspection, you're into a paved area. There's truck parking. There's lighting. There's a washroom. You check your truck over and you go. You're in and out 15 minutes, really, unless there's a problem. And if there is a problem, you can call a mechanic out and they can fix it on the spot. So you don't have to move to get it fixed.

You're in a good, secure spot. Okay? Saskatchewan doesn't have that. So we hit the. up and we said, look, you got to build this. They fought it like heck. After the second meeting, they went to the DOT officers and they said, look, because they were really looking to get out of this.

So they went to the DOT officers and they said, when are you going to build these? We need them now. They said, we are tired of doing inspections on the side of the road with vehicles whipping by our head. We need a safe spot to do. We had had an accident. There were two bad accidents, one by Cutworth, one just south of, uh, uh, uh, uh, a bigger on the same day where a snowstorm blew in and trucks hit vehicles and killed pastures

in vehicles humble it's not the only accident the bad accident that has happened there's been lots of death and people are saying well why didn't these guys park because there's nowhere to park there's nowhere to park and the reason and the reason they don't want to do it is because of money is that is that is that what it is trend like the government standpoint okay we got the promise and then years later they still hadn't built them so i'm emailing them and calling them it took 14 months for the Saskatchewan and I did it the proper way for the uh Saskatchewan department highways to respond to me and they said oh we're not building them i said but i got a promise from yeah we're not building them so i had a meeting with jeremy cochrell and uh

david buckingham was there and and marf freezing and they were explaining to me they wanted to explain to me why they weren't going to it so i walked in and i have my little notebook and i had my questions. And I asked him, I said, is there a rest area within 50 or within 80 kilometers of every major city in Saskatoon where you can pull in with 130 ton overdimensional load, heavy hall load to inspect it? And is it 24, is it available, you know, 12 months a year? Is it seasonal? Is it paid? Is it lit? Well, they don't have it. And so I went on with that. And I went on with this question. Well, by the fourth question, Jeremy Cockrell, who I have zero respect for as a person or as a politician, was getting angry. So I backed away from that. And they were using every

excuse in the book as to why they weren't going to do this. At one point, David Buckingham told me, well, we didn't build them, Trent, because it would have cost $25 million to start this. And we needed that money to hire doctors to save lives. So I looked at him and said, give me these doctor's names. And by the way, I said you built passing lanes all through that time, all through COVID. So you had the money to do it. They don't want to do it. Finally, I got the reason, you know what the reason is? They said they don't know how to manage them because you have to do garbage pickup, basic sanitation. I said, look, if you can't do manage sanitation, that's a basis of health care. What are you doing running our hospitals? So they had every excuse in the book. I've raised

holy hell over that. And I'm not going to stop. I was so disappointed. I could not believe they did that. To me, I mean, I'm a prairie boy. I'm a Saskatchewan boy. When you give a promise, you damn well keep it or you die trying. Sounds like you can be to run for parliament. Yeah. I will vote for you.

So anyways, that's where I'm at with them. So, but we need that support also. Okay. There's other things. There are stupid laws and trucking that chase people. out. All right? For one thing, you have to have what's called the Schedule 1. And it's not a bad sheet, but it shows you, like, let's say you have a defect of life. And whether that will put you out of service or it's whether it's something you can still operate with and have to get repaired

later, right? And it's done on a table. And it's kind of neat to have, but it's really kind of useless to. Okay, you have to have that in your truck or it's a $370 fine. But it's not just in your truck, it has to be within arms reach or they will give you a $375 fine and you will get a violation on your record, which will now affect your ability to get a job. And it will affect your insurance and everything. It affects you. It's like a criminal charge. And then even if they give you a warning on it, it's the same thing. You don't have to pay the fine. You cannot fight it now, and I'm waving a blue pen here right now, and there's a reason for that too. But anyways, they will go after you for that and ruin your life because you didn't have it within arm's reach.

No other profession puts up with that. It's the same thing if you don't have your dangerous goods books right beside you. Okay, a blue pen. What's important? I always had blue pens with me in the truck. You know why? Because when you get an overdimensional permit, it has to be signed, and this is a law, documents have to be signed in a contrasting color of ink to the color of the actual document. Okay, so if it's in your dad's shit, nodding his head, he knows what I'm talking about. So you have a blue pen so that when you sign it, it shows your signature because what they would do to you in different states, this is more of a U.S. thing in Canada, but it applied in Canada too. If they found that you signed that permit in black ink, they would rip up the permit, give you a whole bunch of tickets,

maybe even have the low toad and you would have to get a new permit because you signed it in the wrong color of ink. As ridiculous as that sounds, that's what they would do to you. If you don't sign your bill of lady, if they stop you and say, show me your bill of lading, you show it to him. It says, you know, you got 40 toads of whatever. And they say, oh, you didn't sign it. That's a, I think it's, isn't that like $300 for that fine? Because you didn't sign your bill of lady. And they nitpick you on that. And they'll shut you down for that. All right? The standards, like every province got different standards, like for wide loads and oversized loads.

And I got, I got frack bins on here. I'm 11 wide, 48 feet long, and then the walls are six feet high. And then I got another shorter bin tipped on its side, inside. So I'm 14, 8 high, you know. So we've been hauling them out of Regina up in Iscu. And I met one of her other trucks yesterday. He was going up with a set. And then I met him coming back.

And he phones me up and he says, you're never going to guess what happened to me yesterday. I said, what? He says, well, he says, there was this scale open. And I won't tell you which one, but it was close to Lloyd on the Saskatchewan side. Right? He says, yeah, they did a level three on me,

checked all my paperwork. And the guy says, he says, it's illegal to run with your beacons on if you're not over 10, 10 wide. Marshall. Yeah, right, good guess. Because he pulled me over with a scissor neck. And we actually have the strobe lights on the trailer. They come on and he said, yeah, you can't run because you're not 10 feet wide.

And I'm nine, I don't know, I'm 9, 8 or some stupid. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Why would you do that to a working man, right? That's what bothers me. Yeah. So our guy, our guy's got the gift to the gal, eh, because it was, oh, yeah, it's a hundred and eighty dollar ticket, eh? Right?

So our guy's got the gift to the gal. So he said, oh, yeah, well, then it turned out to be to a written warning. And he said, when I was leaving slamming the door, he just gave me a verbal, right? I'm going, holy man. He said, now that's different, you know. And our guy said, well, he said the reason why, he says, you know, I'm wide. I want everybody to know that I'm over-dimensional load. I want to be safe, right?

I want to be safe. And that's what his answer was, is that you don't need them on, and there's $180 fine, right? Oh, man. I said, geez, I said, you know what? Instead of, oh, what's the word? I'm looking for here. or heck or heck even applauding him for going above him you know in so many parts of industry they want you to go above the standards right like if you know if you you do over and above what

the safety standard is when i was working in the oil field that's what they wanted to do they got to the insane point where you couldn't chew bubble gum on site pretty much and what you're talking about is you're putting on the safety beacons because you're almost at 10 feet wide it's like well we should probably put them on because we're close. And he's going, no, that's $180, fine. Can't do that. Right? I mean.

Well, actually, Kim, we haul different sizes of tanks. But if we go through Alberta, we are 185 high and 15 wide. And then once we get to BC, we can't go into like Fort St. John until after midnight. And so if you're ever hauling, a black tank that that wide in the dark, then you go, this is crazy, eh? And I realize you got pilots all over the place, but I mean, people don't realize the black,

he can't see you. Yeah. And I just don't think the common person understands how much goes on while they're not paying attention. And then what you're pointing out, Kim, with your story about the scale is, you know, there's no scrutiny, and yet the scrutiny that happens seems like why the heck would you penalize somebody for trying to be safe that doesn't that

that actually makes well yeah yeah it does right john uh your dad just made another brilliant point that is what do you think i why do you think i brought a montrent you know very good here's experience i'm going to have a blue car route table about trucking i'm like oh man i like that better come great but what he just said okay what he just explained there That's why you need truckers in on making these rules. If you have a black tank going in in the middle of the night, a guy who's driven for 50 years and has hold these tanks and knows something, he's going to say, look, guys, no, we've got to do it this way because.

And right now, okay, me being on that rest area advisory committee, the only reason I was on there is because I raised such holy hell, they let me on. Okay? Otherwise, I would not have been there. Okay. And they're probably regretting it right now because I'm bringing up the fact of what a bunch of jack wagons they were for breaking their own promise. It used to be promise made, promise kept. It ain't that way anymore.

And I'm reminding them of that. Anyways, that's why we need it. That's why we need that association. And I believe there is a fear that we would be the most powerful group in Canada. Are we going to do anything with it? Probably not. We didn't fight pretty good. But we would be able to get laws passed. The idea of you having to sign in a blue pen rather than a black pen,

nobody's going to get a ticket for that anymore. You know, if somebody has their lights on because you're at nine feet, 11 inches rather than 10 feet, nobody's going to get a ticket for that. We're not going to give you a ticket because, and by the way, most truckers keep their trucks. I mean, you'll look at a truck with 2 million miles on it. Kim has two trucks like that that are spotless, they're immaculent. Truckers put everything away. Generally, I didn't, but I mean most guys, too.

And everything to this idea, you have to have, yeah, hippies. Anyways. Yes, up the hippies. They would keep to have that right beside you all the time is a ridiculous rule. Like, of what benefit is that? I had a peace officer in my office today, quite a good guy. He actually does animal protection. And he was asked, we work in the same building.

And he was talking. He said, look, I do help do DOT inspections. And so we got talking. And I explained some of the rules to him. And I brought out, here's the other thing. Your dad has notebooks on different loads and how to do stuff. So do I. Every good trucker does.

There are notes out there like you wouldn't believe. Actually, Kim and I have a Facebook group called Trucking is a trade. And we put out a thing one time. We said, show us your notebooks. How many responses did we get, Kim? That was just unbelievable. Oh, it's crazy. It was an encyclopedia, a trucking encyclopedia.

And that's what truckers are keeping. Okay, we need that in one format. All right? We need to go through those books and put them together so that when guys are doing things, that information is there and available to everybody. And you're always learning stuff. That's the other thing about trucking is truckers love learning more stuff from the good ones. And the guys at last love learning something new about trucking.

So we need that forum. We need to create that group. And the only way we're going to do it is how I said at the beginning, the way politicians work and I know them well is you have to start a parade. We need what you're doing right here today. You did good there, Steve, with your son. You got them online here. By doing this, by having us on and people are going to hear it.

Okay. And they're going to realize, hey, trucking should be a trade. And it creates that and it gets that parade going. and then politicians are going to want to jump in front of that trade because, well, I won't say any of your argumentatory about them. But anyways, because they want to get the votes. And if they see that there's a group of people, that there is a momentum behind trucking as a trade, look what they do right now. Look what they're doing with pronouns, right?

They'll believe anything if they think there's a vote in it. They really will. They'll go along with anything if they think they can get a vote out of it. Right? You know. Well, you know, Trent and Kim, man dad for that matter one of the things I've thought you know through COVID to this day and where the blue collar round table stem from was we need we need the common sense folk to start talking into

him their voices heard when I went to college when I went to college in the states uh Wisconsin and I'd drive I'd turn into uh it was a there's a radio show at night and it was a guy who took his only callers he talked to was the truckers of America and it was like the wildest show under the sun. It was so cool to just have responses coming in from all over the country. And I was just tootling along in my car, listening to these guys talk about the stories of the night. And, you know, I fast forward to where we're sitting at. And I go, I don't know why it didn't dawn on me until Trent passed it on. I've tried getting dad. It's funny, I've tried getting dad on different roundtables, blue colors, the first four. And you want nothing to do with it.

And then I said, yeah, I'm talking to these couple of trekkers. They're going to come on. Oh, geez, that sounds kind of interesting. What are you on here? You know, but in fairness, the voices of the common man, which is, there is a lot of skill tied up in that, that sentence, right? Plumbers, electricians, on and on and on. It goes. I don't mean to single out any profession, but truckers certainly fit into that.

There is a brotherhood there. There is this lost art form. And people need to hear from you guys. Because what you're talking about with the trade and like, it'd be nice. to have this and this and this is to have truckers be a part of building that trade, because then it would probably become something that people really want to be a part of. If the bureaucrats get their way and have their say in your trade the entire thing, Trent, and maybe dad and maybe Kim, I'm like, I don't know how many truckers are going to want to go

be a part of a bunch of nonsense that doesn't make any sense, because that's part of the problem right now with not only trucking, but a lot of industry, is it isn't the people who build the industry, the builders and the movers of it that are doing the work on creating what governs it. It's a bunch of people have no idea what they're talking about. Oh, yeah. It's been like that for quite a while when you think about it, right? With government legislation, you know, e-logs, speed limiters. Are you having to run a e-log right now, Kim?

Oh, yeah, we've been on e-logs. We went on e-logs probably about five years ago. We're way ahead of the time. Yeah, we as well. Yeah. Now, I'm looking at the clock, guys. And why don't we end this on a positive note about why we love driving truck? Sure.

Each of you can have a story about why you love driving the big rigs. I would love to know. Kim, you're on the road. You give us why you love driving the big rig. Oh, well, I got nobody looking over my shoulder, right? your phone dispatch once or twice and go do your job, right? Yeah, I've never, I don't know, I've never had an office job or anything like that, never been cooped up in a building.

I don't even know if I could handle that, tell you the truth, right? Well, but it's pretty much the freedom, you know, you can, well, way back when, before paper logs, you know, uh, especially with that company that I worked out of Edmonton, there'd be, you know, there'd be five of us running together. And usually you'd get the battle for two guys would split off and go up to Prince Albert. And the three of us would go to Saskatoon. Well, one guy would split off at Saskatoon and two of us would end up in Regina, right? So it was, you did your drops and then you pretty much met everybody at Lloyd coming back.

and then you had five guys running together all the time, eh? Out to Saskatchewan and back. So, you know, so it was, that's just the way it was years ago, you know. But it's, I pretty much like working by myself, usually. Steve? Well, it saved my life, like our livelihood. We come from the farm and we just about lost it and it was trucking that saved it. And we still have the farm.

But I always enjoyed, like with the super bees, I'm naturally lazy. So rather than unhook, you know, the pop and back it in and load it and then go back and get the lead and load it, I'd give it five tries. And I got, so I was pretty good at back. and a super B up into stupid places, eh? And now we're hauling big loads, you know, like we're 130,000 pounds and over heights, over width, overweight. And it's just, that's a challenge for me and I enjoy the challenge. And, you know, Trent, I'm going to let you go last.

You can wrap this up. You know what I, what I've enjoyed about watching dad specifically in trucking? It's taught me a lot of different things. growing up, it's funny, you know, as a young father now, I got three young kids, you know, and they drive you wild. I don't remember me driving them wild on the way to Toronto and getting this, I just remember counting trucks, right? And it being a fun game. But the things I really enjoyed being in the semi back then was, um, was multitude of things. But there was, there was a culture of trucking back then that was very special. And, you know, you see different

organizations build that culture and people want to be a part of it. it. And so I always point to hockey and a hockey player, you know, and, and, and the culture of hockey. And when hockey players are involved in it, they, they have this, they have this way of just sucking you in and, and they build things around hockey players and hockey players get it. And when you talk about trucking, I remember riding and the waves and, and, and how important it was to talk on the CB and warn and be kind of like a team, right? You were constantly being, hey, heads up on the boot, and you had your own lingo and, you know, as a kid, you're like, this is so cool. Like, what the heck? Can I talk on the radio?

you know, sometimes we'd get to talk on the radio. Other times you were not allowed to talk on the radio. But, you know, like it just, it created this culture. And, you know, the more trucking truckers I talk to that are, you know, maybe dad's age, maybe a little younger, maybe a little older was it used to be a profession that was really cool. And that doesn't happen by accident. That is literally a culture around how trucking is. And that is, you know, when I look at it, you know, when I look at.

trucking. The reasons I didn't get into it was because I saw how much dad had to work in order to provide for his family. And I was like, man, I don't know if I can do that, right? Certainly you can. But one of the things I admired about it was the friendships and the culture that came out of being on the road and around different men for the most part who looked out for one another. You know, it's something very lost in our society today. That would be my memory or my thought on trucking. and I'll leave it to Trent to finish us off. I'm going to just butt in there. I imagine Trent and Kim, you both,

you've got friendships that are from trucking, and there's nothing more satisfying than being a long ways from home and running into a guy that you know when you go, hey, how's it going, you know, or if you're in trouble, you've got somebody there to, you know, just as it's almost like backup, eh? and I still got guys stop in at the shop here that I drove with years ago. And they still, you know, you create a friendship and they're still there for you.

Oh, yeah. I've got a list while I phone this guy on Monday and this guy on Tuesday and this guy on Wednesday, right? Oh, of course, yeah, every Friday I phone this guy, see what's going on, right? Oh, yeah, it's freaking nonstop, eh, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. For sure. You have friends all over North America, wherever you run, you know.

I had a friend stay at the house last night. He was in town for just a day surgery. So he stayed and, you know, and I hadn't seen him in a while. You're still friends. Yeah, the people you meet. I, as Kim had mentioned, I enjoyed the independence. You know, I always took my dog with me. And, you know, probably my fondest memory.

I used to run out to BC like almost every week. And I would stop just before Savona. There's a rest area right on top of the hill there. You can look down over the lake. You guys know where it's at. There's a picket. There's a table there right before a bend. And you know exactly where I'm at, Steve.

But I would stop there and I would get out. This is before phones, cell phones, or the smartphones. And I would read the newspaper. My dog would run around and he'd play and come back. And when he was ready to get back in the truck, he'd come and he put his paw on my leg. It's time to get back in the truck. And I just enjoyed that freedom, you know. And I got my brother-in-law into trucking for a period of time.

And we were talking about it one time. And I said, you know, when you get home, you can't really tell all the stories that happened in a week. Because like, where would you begin and where would you end? You would see so much. You know, I can remember one month being I was out on in the Atlantic by Boston. Boston and I'm looking out at the Atlantic Ocean, right? And my dog's with me and he's looking at the ocean trying to probably figuring how far I get throw a ball into that form.

But anyways, three weeks later, I'm in the Pacific, on the Pacific coast, right? And just that adventure, just I thoroughly enjoyed it. I missed that. I miss that. I do. Yeah. I took the wife, it was our anniversary. So we had a load going down to next.

Niagara Falls, eh? So her and I went down there and we stopped at, I think it's Beamsville, just North of Niagara Falls. And we sat there and had lunch and this raggedy old, like you're talking dog, raggy old dog with a scarred up tennis ball and he'd come and run up to us and drop the ball. And we threw that ball for, I don't know, half an hour and then picked up the ball. He'd had enough and away you went to get it. But we still talk about that. You know, remember that stupid dog? But yeah, it's, but there's always an adventure. Every day was an adventure. Actually, I'll give an ice road story. A friend of mine, he's since past Trevor Logan. He was a great guy. And I ran on the ice with him. And he was, I ran into him. I was up at the camp at

Yellowknife. And he came. came in and he was telling me about how the night before they were stopped in Fort Providence and a guy had a hub heating up. It wasn't burnt up, but it was heating up. So there was a group of them and they're deciding what to do and they, you know, somebody had chains. So and Trevor was a leader. So he coordinated everything. So they chained up the axle, took the wheels off. Somebody had a wrench. So they took the wheels off, strapped them to the deck. And then they switched loads, right? Another guy had a lighter load. So they put a lighter load. So they put a lighter load. on that truck and the other guy took the heavier load and and they brought it in right and the way

Trevor started that story comes up to me goes Trent you should have been there and that's and I wanted to be there because it's fun and afterwards he said to me he said you know who can do that who can do that he said not just anybody can do that you got it you got to be a trucker you got to love this job they didn't get paid any extra for that they got their their mileage rate or whatever they didn't get a dime extra for that but they took care of their brothers they took care of the situation they got the job done they brought the load in they got it all done because they're friggin men and they got it done truckers and that's what we love that's that's what we love and unfortunately that is dying I don't think it's I don't want to say

it's completely dead but you gotta want to you got to want to do it right you got to You got to have the love for it. Yeah. And I see you. But with the love for it, like, I know a guy, we won't name them. We'll just call him Dave Clark from Shell Lake, Saskatchewan. Anyways, Dave is a great guy, and he can operate anything. Okay, he can fix anything.

Farm boy, born and bread. Do I need to go any further? And he told me, he said, Trent, there's nothing I love more than driving truck. And he said, I gave up my license completely because he said, I cannot stand the way truckers are treated. And he says, I won't have any part of it. So he gave up his license. And Dave is exactly the man who should be driving truck. And he's the guy that you would want there when you broke down in Fort Providence.

And he's out of it. And Steve, you know what I mean? How many good guys have you seen leave because they just can't take it anymore? Yeah, yeah. Well, I tell you, we just lost Kim. He just taught, whether his phone connection cut out or maybe a bad service area, who knows. I tell you, I don't know about everybody else sitting here, but the Blue Color Roundtable, the Guardian plumbing and heating blue color roundtable, the idea behind it was to give some voices to people who don't seem to get a chance to talk about, you know, their background.

and how that relates to what's going on in society. And these episodes are, you know, eye-opening and a lot of fun for me. And so I appreciate, Trent, you reach out and throwing this idea at me. And to Dad and Kim, wherever you're at for hopping on and doing this, I've really enjoyed it. And thanks again for making some time this evening. It went far better than I'd hope. Thank you for having this. Nice meeting you, Trent.

It was really good meeting you too, Steve. I'll talk you later. Okay. Thank you.