Any UK truckers here that moved to Canada?

Yet it seems like that's asking too much from a lot of drivers these days. Hammer down and pass. Who gives a flying #### about oncoming traffic? Or about the line of traffic stopped for construction? The bar is literally on the floor and so many of the dip####s with a Class 1 still can't reach it.

 

money and age man.

it’d be a few thousand to properly see Canada, that’s not an issue, but the time I’d need to make that money back up could be the difference. I’m 31 and lose 5 points for every year over 30.

if I had time on my side I’d probably take your advice, but it’s a luxury I don’t have sadly.

 

Hey, glad you found a spot that fits, but here in Calgary, were watching the companies close weekly, and the equipment's getting shuttled to auction. 894 000 Class One Drivers are unemployed in Canada. All while I have people running out into the middle of the street, in front of my dump truck, so they can literally BEG for a driving job. Even with all that going on the 35 driving schools in Calgary, run 14 hours a day 7 days a week. So it might not be your reality, but that is the reality of trucking in Canada right now.

 

is this a more recent thing because of trumps hard on for tarriffs or has this been the case for a while?

 

This is the third year of nose dive decline in the trucking industry, and there are 0 signs of recovery or improvement. Rates soared to unrealistic highs 2019-2022, and then it all came crashing down HARD. The problem is, the capacity in Canada tripled during that boom, as everyone was jumping in on those historic high rates. People were paying $300-350 000 dollars for a New Cascadia, expecting the good times to last 5+ years. Now rates are at historic lows, and going even lower. Just read up on the whole "Pride Group" Bankruptcy, its in the billions. I had to leave a company I invested 6 years of my life, and thought I would be with until retirement. (not just as a driver, I was their LCV trainer/road tester, Yard Supervisor and moving into Asst Terminal Manager). I left a year ago, to ride the housing bubble in dump trucks, and things have only gotten worse for them (I would have been left go if I stayed). Bison will not have owner operators by October, multiple big names are prob going to go bankrupt if there isn't a holiday freight bump this fall.

The main problem, is everyone in Canada is broke, and the volumes reflect it (esp food). 60% of Canadians are $200 dollars from bankruptcy, and those are official Statscan and CBC numbers. Walmart Canada even dumped its own fleet, to use Canada Cartage, because they don't have the volumes to justify running their own fleet here anymore. Costco was going to bring Costco Fleet to Canada, and pulled back, instead making XTL and Bison their in house fleets/shunt services.

One thing people are not talking about, as much as they should, are the grocery stores closing. Coop, Safeway, Sobeys, Loblaws are closing locations, or downgrading them to Discount Stores (NoFrills, Freshco) That might not seems like a big deal, but considering these stores have been operating in those locations for 50-70 years, and the population is increasing rapidly; that's a pretty good indicator of just how broke people are. Everything is pretty much riding on the housing/construction bubble, which is already slowing down in Toronto/Vancouver so.

Even with all this going on, the cost of everything, taxes, property taxes, insurance (esp insurance) is sky rocketing. So we're heading to a point, where $30/hr will be the break even point to survive working FT hours (Calgary is currently at $25.50/hr break even FT). So like I said, there is no point coming here, and those with the money/means, are leaving in record numbers (Canada now has the most natural citizens, by percentage (15%), living abroad, out of any country in the world).

 

an honest and bleak assessment. The UK isn’t in any better shape. I’m sorry to hear things didn’t work out at the company you were at.

hope things improve and that you and everybody else on here keep your heads above water man.

 

Thats a bleak look in Calgary, I always found it difficult to get a load out of there and it was invariably a bad rate.
I moved to the maritimes from Europe in 2010, its treated me pretty well and was a great move for me. I've never been tempted to look at living in other provinces, I've spent a lot of time driving in them though.

 

Pride is still in business because the courts allowed the family members to put up millions of their own money and buy back the company screwing everyone else they owe money to . my current mega carrier let go 5-7 o/o because it’s slow and they were the worst performers with low miles being run . I heard pride is also letting o/o go . You’re right about needing $30 a hr in trucking now just to keep up with cost of living. The problem is atleast here in the toronto area is those jobs are very hard to find and very few companies are hiring altogether. $22-26 a hr is average hourly rates for dryvan and reefer and everyone else wants years of experience for tanker , flatbed etc so making a move into a different part of the industry is tough . Especially right now

In my opinion it’s probably the worst we have seen in the trucking industry in decades and governments both here in Canada and the us aren’t helping matters. both with trumps new policies and then canadian government letting so many immigrants in who flock to trucking because it’s easy to get into has really messed the whole industry up

 

The downside of working in Logistics/Transport for so many years, you get the "real view" of whats going on, good, bad or otherwise (esp dealing with food/refrigerated transport). Everything I said can be fact checked, If anyone reading this doesn't believe it. I honestly don't know where its going to end, but sooner or later, some level of government is gonna have to admit, the TRUE unemployment rate is 30% (not the skewed bell-curve they present at 7.4% as of today). However! someone finally admitted the Material Deprivation Index exits, and POVERTY in Canada affects 25% of people—that’s way higher than the 10% often quoted by Statistics Canada.

"Managed Decline" Canada, The UK and Australia, 3 countries, one plan.

 

Many people are returning to The Maritimes, after coming to Alberta for the boom years 2004-2015. Right now 20K people are month are moving to Alberta, most thinking they will walk into a good paying job, a rental or starter home/townhouse and things are "more affordable". The reality is, the overall costs are not to far off, compared to Vancouver or Toronto now, esp with the insane insurance and housing cost spikes.

Freight here is dead, its like Florida, you can bring stuff all day long, but good luck getting out. Also just WAY to many trucks and scrap metal flip flops willing to do it for nothing TEAM.