WHEREAS the Occupational Health and Safety (OH&S) Act requires all municipalities to have a safety program;

WHEREAS municipalities (as employers) and their employees are full partners in maintaining safe workplaces as they operate large motor vehicles;

WHEREAS municipalities fall into the jurisdiction of Carrier Services, a branch of Alberta Transportation, that is responsible for monitoring commercial carriers in adherence to the National Safety Code (NSC) requirements;

WHEREAS Alberta Transportation is randomly auditing municipalities for their compliance with requirements of the NSC and the Commercial Vehicle Certificate and Insurance Regulation;

WHEREAS there is a significant duplication of requirements and efforts between OH&S and NSC requirements;

WHEREAS the costs of complying with both pieces of legislation have a significant impact on Alberta municipalities, especially smaller ones;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Alberta Association of Municipal Districts and Counties urge the Government of Alberta to review both OH&S and Transportation Fleet Safety legislation to identify areas of duplication and to promote joint compliance.

The County of Thorhild has an OH&S program.  Council, management, and staff of this municipality have made a commitment to achieve the Certificate of Recognition (COR) by December 31, 2011.

In 2010, the County of Thorhild was randomly audited by Alberta Transportation Carrier Services and found deficient in some areas identified by the audit report.

Very few municipalities were aware of this issue until recently (AAMDC has since distributed a member bulletin).

The County has over 45 vehicles subject to Transportation Fleet Safety regulations as these regulations apply not only to big trucks but to emergency response vehicles and passenger vans.

The County had to increase the amount of resources budgeted to comply with the audit.

The AAMDC has no active resolutions related to this issue but did release a member bulletin entitled Information on Alberta Transportation’s Safety Audit for Vehicle Operations on January 12, 2011.  Visit www.aamdc.com for more details.

Transportation:

Alberta Transportation’s Vehicle Safety and Carrier Services Branch collaborated with Alberta Employment and Immigration in March 2011 to review Occupational Health and Safety and Transportation Fleet Safety legislation, and found no duplication.

The Vehicle Safety and Carrier Services Branch would like to again offer to work with municipalities, to identify gaps and make improvements in order to meet the National Safety Code audit requirements, before being audited.

The AAMDC is pleased that the government took the time to examine this issue and met inter-departmentally to examine the potential overlap between these two pieces of legislation.