In addition to KAP, the working group includes the Coalition of Manitoba Motorcycle Groups, Manitoba Transportation & Infrastructure, Manitoba Agriculture, Manitoba Public Insurance, the RCMP and the National Farmers Union.

Why it matters: A Manitoba dairy is being sued over a muddy stretch of road and a motorcycle accident that followed. The case could have implications for farmers when future farm activities make a mess.

The lawsuit centres around a highway mud slick believed to have caused a deadly motorcycle accident in 2022. Manitoba Public Insurance, which filed the suit, says the mud was left by the farmer or farm staff.

MPI has filed a statement of claim against Pennwood Dairy in the RM of Hanover, farm owner Gilmer Penner and a farm worker (named in documents as John Doe).

“The working group is focused on making roads safer for all motorists by looking at solutions to reduce the dangers of excessive debris on Manitoba’s highways and will be doing so over the next few months,” KAP general manager Brenna Mahoney said in an emailed statement.

Mahoney said KAP is not aware of any other situations in which this kind of legal action has been taken against agricultural producers.

It’s not just about farmers, she said, although the potentially precedent-setting lawsuit could impact future farm operations. It should be a wake-up call for anyone on the road.

Mahoney pointed to the Manitoba Highway Traffic Act.

“The legislation outlines the responsibilities of all motorists when it comes to items or substances being left on the road. This legislation applies to all vehicles travelling on the road, whether they be commuter, commercial or other,” she said.

Section 217, parts 1-4 of the act cover substances left on the road that may cause injury. It requires that anyone who drops something likely to cause injury or vehicular damage to remove it immediately or to “place advance warning devices on the highway in accordance with the regulations.” Fines are laid out should the regulations be neglected.

While KAP is watching the MPI case closely, the organization says it’s actively promoting safety through its FarmSafe Manitoba initiative.

“Key messages are focused on all aspects of road safety, including following legislative requirements,” Mahoney said. “Additionally, we have one-on-one farm safety consultation services, allowing farmers access to free professional education and training on farms.”

Mahoney said the working group intends to expand beyond the founding members to include other stakeholders that play a role in road safety.

“These include groups from other industries who are frequent travellers on Manitoba’s roads, as well as municipal stakeholders and relevant provincial organizations,” she said.

Lawsuit details

On Sept. 24, 2022, a group of six motorcyclists were travelling west down provincial road 311, five kilometres northeast of Steinbach.

The motorcyclists drove into mud debris, which covered both lanes on the highway. The lead motorcyclist, Denis L’Heureux, was thrown from his bike and was struck by an eastbound vehicle. The RCMP pronounced the man dead at the scene. His 12-year-old daughter, who was his passenger, was uninjured. The other five motorcycles also lost control in the mud, but no other injuries were reported.

MPI is seeking $34,946 from those named in the lawsuit to recoup the costs of towing and repairing the motorcycles. The statement of claim argued that either the dairy owner or an employee was responsible for leaving mud on the highway while operating farm machinery on the road and that they failed to clear the debris, post warning signs or take steps to have the road closed. MPI argues that makes them liable and responsible for the collision.

In an email to the Co-Operator earlier this year, MPI said it “pursues civil action when it believes it will be successful in proving the other party is at fault, resulting in a recovery of losses.

“This ensures MPI can deliver on its mandate to keep rates affordable for customers by recovering its losses from those who carelessly create road hazards and fail to remove them as required by law.”

Pennwood Dairy could not be reached for comment.

The post KAP joins highway debris working group appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Pandemic disruptions to testing made it difficult to get Manitoba licences in 2020, which meant workers could not drive or move equipment between fields.

“It was brutal. We did not get anybody through, able to get tested. Not a one,” said Sam Connery-Nichol who farms near Portage la Prairie. She employs around 50 seasonal agricultural worker program (SAWP) staff each year.

Members voted to lobby the province during the Keystone Agricultural Producers (KAP) annual general meeting on January 26.

The resolution states that SAWP workers have 90 days from arrival before their home country drivers’ licence expires. Workers must also quarantine 14 days when they get to the farm.

It says Manitoba Public Insurance (MPI) often doesn’t have openings for written or road tests for over a month.

Additionally, in 2020, MPI offices were often closed due to the pandemic.

The resolution asks KAP to lobby MPI, Manitoba Agriculture and Resource Development and other stakeholders to extend SAWP workers’ home licences for the entire eight months of their work permit.

Connery-Nichol, who brought the resolution forward, told the Co-operator she’d like to see this extension for 2021 or for the duration of the pandemic. She said she’s willing to pay extra for insurance if necessary.

Workers who’ve previously passed MPI tests don’t need to be tested again. According to MPI’s website they can surrender their foreign licence and renew their Manitoba ones.

Five previously licensed workers returned to her farm in 2020, said Connery-Nichol. Ideally they’d have 10 licensed drivers, but they made do with five workers doing multiple round trips. It wasted a lot of time, she said.

She said other farms, who hire fewer workers, were less lucky. Employers sometimes had to do all the driving.

MPI cancelled all road tests on March 14, 2020, according to a news release. Testing resumed in July. At the time, MPI said it had a backlog of 4,300 customers who’d previously scheduled tests.

Today, someone booking a Class 5 road test could get an appointment within a week to 10 days, said a spokesperson for MPI in an emailed statement.

Workers must pass both a written, knowledge test and a road test. Connery-Nichol said workers often need two or three tries to pass the written exam. They can take the test in Spanish (or other languages) but Connery-Nichol said the Spanish in the test is in Spain’s dialect, whereas many workers hail from Mexico.

It’s also very formally written. It would be like Canadians taking a test in formal, British English, she said. Many workers don’t have a high level of education, so they struggle. It’s also not uncommon for workers to need two rounds at the road test.

Workers can’t apply for the test before they arrive in Manitoba, or during their quarantine, because they have to set up a customer account and provide identity documents in person, said Connery-Nichol.

“Right now it’s nowhere near normal, and we need help to make sure things are working,” she said.

Getting licences for foreign workers has been troublesome even before the pandemic. Paul Gregory, whose operation includes seed production, forage and bees near Fisher Branch, hires beekeepers from the Philippines. To take the test, the beekeepers must take the day off and drive 100 miles (160 kilometres) for the test, he said.

Then, if they fail the test, they have to do it again — sometimes three or four times. “It’s a big deal,” he said.

KAP members also put forward a resolution to MPI to prioritize locals when booking testing appointments.

“Driving test appointments in rural areas are being booked by people from Winnipeg and Brandon,” it says.

Gregory said they’ve already done some lobbying on the topic, and some policy changes have been made, but this resolution formalizes the ask in a policy statement.

MPI said it has already changed its policy on booking road tests, at least in regards to Winnipeg addresses.

“MPI recognized that many residents did not have access to road test appointments due to an influx of Winnipeggers booking appointments,” a spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “In December 2019, MPI changed its policy… Winnipeg addresses could not book an appointment in a rural centre.”

Drop the head tax, say farmers

KAP farmers asked the organization to lobby for a reprieve from a US$750 “exit clearance” fee the government of the Philippines charges on Filipino workers who haven’t worked in Canada in the past six months.

The resolution asks KAP to lobby the Canadian government to work with the Canadian Honey Council and the Canadian Federation of Agriculture to ask the Philippines to waive the fees for workers returning in 2021 to work for the same employer as in 2019.

Many Filipino temporary foreign workers weren’t able to come to Canada in 2020 because of the pandemic, the resolution says. Beekeepers, dairy farmers and pork producers often rely on TFWs from the Philippines, it adds.

Employers are on the hook for these fees.

Paul Gregory, who brought the resolution forward, said none of the Filipino beekeepers he usually hires for the season made it to Canada in 2020, which means each will require an exit clearance document.

The “POEA Exit Clearance,” according to the Government of the Philippines’ website, serves as a “travel exit pass” for workers at airports, is an exemption from a “travel tax and airport terminal fee” and serves as a worker’s guarantee that he or she is covered by government protection and benefits.

The fee generally goes to HR firms that are contracted to issue these clearance letters, said Gregory. It was originally meant to educate workers on their rights, but now serves more like a head tax, he said.

“As far as we can figure out, it’s kind of a money grab,” said Gregory.

The post KAP delegates ask for extended drivers’ licensing for foreign workers appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

For the time being no automated suspensions will be issued, though the process for reviewing the licence of a driver with a newly diagnosed medical condition will still occur and suspensions may apply if appropriate.

The changes will help Class 1 drivers who are unable to meet with their family doctor and obtain a physical exam, due to the coronavirus.

The post MPI temporarily relaxes medical suspension for commercial drivers appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

After all, these rigs can carry staggering amounts of weight — for example, a Super-B can carry 42 tonnes of grain in a single load. To put that into perspective, it’s the equivalent of 14 of the largest Ford F150 pickup trucks in a single vehicle.

They’re also physically large. More than once I’ve noted that trucks these days are significantly larger than the first house I lived in.

Operating something that large and heavy on the highway is an awesome responsibility, one that shouldn’t be taken lightly. The job of the operator is to ensure that everyone else they encounter on the road gets home safely.

Just how high the stakes can be came into sharp contrast in the late winter of 2018, when an undertrained and inexperienced driver on his first week of operating a rig unsupervised blew a stop sign, causing the Humboldt Broncos tragedy.

The result has been new far more stringent standards for driver training. That’s as it should be. What isn’t as it should be is the way our provincial licensing body has dealt with the rollout of these standards.

In this province it appears Manitoba Public Insurance has dropped the ball, failing to build any additional capacity to meet these new demands. It’s failed to add any more testers to meet the demand ahead of the deadline, or to offer more testing slots, pushing many past the deadline date.

Farmers claim they’re being discriminated against and that there’s little sign that MPI has been listening to them during consultations. Commercial truckers are being favoured for the few available openings and as harvest approaches, they fear the lack of licensed drivers will hamper their operations.

As KAP representatives Les Felsch and Chuck Fossay put it, the issues they raised were ignored as two farmers’ voices were lost amongst the chorus of as many as 30 representatives of the trucking industry and trucking schools at meetings.

Those groups have their own axes to grind, according to Fossay. One sees it as a way to get someone else to train their drivers. The other sees the new requirements as a government-mandated windfall they can charge each driver up to $9,000 for.

It’s unfortunate but true that even amidst tragedy there will be those who seek to find advantage in the chaos. One can’t blame government for wanting to act on the training shortfall. There’s ample evidence that inexperience was the key contributing factor to the Broncos crash.

But one can expect the government response to be reasonable, measured and properly executable. It shouldn’t favour one group over the other, no matter how loud the voices become in advisory meetings. It should recognize the realities the affected sectors face, including the seasonality of some industries.

One of the clearest signs of just how little the needs of agriculture factored into decision-making is the Sept. 1 deadline imposed for the shift, followed by rapid overbooking of the July and August testing slots. It essentially ensured that farmers would find themselves locked out of qualifying new employees to operate the equipment as harvest approaches.

KAP vice-president Jill Verwey noted in the article that their operation near Portage la Prairie has three individuals who haven’t been able to schedule a road test.

Farmers do have some extra consideration in the form of a one-year extension that would allow them to be licensed to operate farm-plated trucks only within the province. But that does nothing to address the immediate issue that there’s not a testing slot to be found at any price.

If MPI is going to continue to be both licensing body and insurer — a situation that in many ways is tantamount to being judge and accuser both — it must be required to be fair and to provide adequate levels of service. How the organization decided to impose these new requirements without dedicating any further resources to the implementation is baffling.

Perhaps this startling level of unaccountability can only be chalked up to the bureaucratic fog of being the only game in town. When one has absolute power, it can be easy to simply assume the customer needs to fall into line.

It’s often said driving is a privilege, not a right. That’s true, but perhaps a tad oversimplified. It neglects the facts. Facts such as at times it’s a necessity to keep the economic wheels turning and at the bare minimum the government cannot throw up roadblocks, intentional or otherwise, to those making a good-faith effort to meet the requirements.

MPI and the provincial government need to take steps now to correct this oversight.

The post Editor’s Take: Truck licensing snafu needs fixing appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

“Certainly the people who teach Driver Ed do so out of a sense of mission more than to make any money at it,” said Dennis Schoonbaert, who was involved with Driver Ed for 41 years, and at one time owned and operated 16, 21 & 42 Driving School out of Shoal Lake.

“While I’m not involved with the Manitoba Public Insurance (MPI) program at present, I’m extremely proud to say a number of features of the program were tried here in Shoal Lake and then became required parts of the provincial program. Those included inviting parents to attend the first class; emphasizing the importance of parents taking an active role in training and monitoring new drivers; and the introduction of a co-pilot’s manual.”

Schoonbaert said the motivating factor to open a driving school was the fact that his wife Evelyn (who was his girlfriend at the time) was involved in a serious car accident in which one of her best friends was killed. The accident happened during a trip home to Rossburn from university in Winnipeg.

“It had a huge impact on me, and I was convinced seatbelts would’ve made a difference, and vowed to get involved in Driver Ed to try to make a difference,” said Schoonbaert, a former principal of Shoal Lake School. “I was blessed to have the dedication of Karen Mathison in Hamiota, and fellow Shoal Lake resident, Dave Stewart, instructing students while in operation.”

Edith Galloway shares Schoonbaert’s desire to help area teens develop safe driving habits, offering Driver Ed classes in Birtle and Russell.

“Enjoying young people, there is good in every student, and as an instructor you need patience to instruct and bring out the best in each and every one,” said Galloway, secretary at the Birtle Elementary School during the day. “Since becoming involved, I would say I have taught approximately 1,000 students passing through the program.”

Introduced by MPI in 1987, the program remains very worthwhile today, according to the men and women who deliver the program across the province to 170 Manitoba high schools.

Full-time students are encouraged at the age of 15-1/2 to enrol in the subsidized program, which gives them 34 hours of in-class instruction, eight hours of behind-the-wheel training and eight hours of in-car observation. The cost to enrol in Driver Education is $50 per student, as MPI subsidizes the course fees (approximately $300 per student) to ensure the program is accessible to everyone.

Feeling Driver Ed is a valuable program that needs to be kept alive in the rural area, Ken Kirk of Hamiota has recently picked up where Schoonbaert left off, and is now instructing in Hamiota and Shoal Lake.

The curriculum covers topics such as basic driving skills, rules of the road, novice drivers’ risk assessment, impaired driving consequences, defensive driving, winter challenges and gravel road driving.

“Along with local driving, we like to take students to Brandon a few times, as small communities don’t present scenarios of traffic lights and roundabouts,” said Kirk. “Travelling gravel roads is mandatory, and I feel it is very important for students to learn how a vehicle handles on gravel versus pavement.”

Galloway agrees. “It’s beneficial to expose new drivers to all situations in the surrounding area including highway and city driving,” she said. “Gravel roads have always been part of my driving training, sharing tips to watch out for animals, farm equipment, driving through dust, and the distance required, all with safety in mind.”

Instructors are an important part of Driver Ed across Manitoba but parental involvement is critical to their teen’s success as a new driver. Working together, they are helping them get behind the wheel in the safest way possible.

The post Driver Education a valuable high school program appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.