I was born and raised in Montreal, Quebec. From a very young age, I remember how hockey was such a big part of the life of people in Quebec. Saturday night was Hockey Night in Canada and I would be glued to our grainy black and white TV to watch the hometown Montreal Canadiens play […]
Leadership Lessons from the Habs Amazing Victory over the Maple Leafs
I am a resident of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. I live in a city and province where Covid-19 is just about out of control. It did not have to be this way. The warning signs have been there for months. But the premier of this province just did not get it and still does not get […]
Fifty-one days after taking office, President Biden signed into law the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Relief Bill, one of the most important pieces of legislation in the past 50 years. The bill is significant in many ways. It will put money directly into the hands of lower- and middle-income Americans, those most in need of […]
The new year has started with a bang with TFII’s planned purchase of the LTL Freight division of UPS. TFII is a large Canadian freight transportation conglomerate and it’s deal is unique in some ways but not in others. The challenge for many Canadian LTL carriers has been to establish a solid arrangement with a […]
New Year / Same Challenge: Finding Truck Drivers
4 years ago
As we begin the new year, trucking companies throughout North America are facing the same challenge – – – finding qualified truck drivers. There are several forces shaping the supply of drivers. The coronavirus is making drivers sick and some have not come back; the virus is also causing older drivers to retire. A surge […]
Covid-19, and its effects on our personal and business lives, was clearly the major story of 2020. This topic was covered in the previous blog. The impacts of the other major news story, the Biden / Harris election, will play out over the next four years. However, there were several other surface transportation events over […]
The Covid-19 pandemic, and the response of the Canadian and U.S. governments and citizens to the virus, is clearly the major story of 2020. The pandemic did not just have impacts on the health of many Americans (i.e. over 11 million cases, 250,000 deaths) and Canadians (i.e. over 306,000 cases, 11,000 deaths); it also had […]
Freight volumes are at record levels on many lanes this fall. Load rejections, freight embargoes and rate increases are now becoming the norm. Even driver shortages, which started to dwindle in the early stages of the pandemic, are once again a factor in securing capacity to move freight. Motor carriers have leverage as to the […]
Shippers throughout North America are trying to cope with the tight freight capacity that has been driven by Covid-19, truck and driver shortages, freight embargoes and the surge in eCommerce activity. While many manufacturers and distributors conduct annual and bi-annual freight bids, this methodology is proving to be too static and rigid for shippers experiencing […]
Truck capacity remains tight during this peak season and this is expected to continue into 2021 as inventories are replenished. We are seeing all-time highs in the number of loads in the spot market. Despite the impact of Covid-19, capacity has been reduced by a decrease in the truck driver workforce that occurred during the […]