Canada Makes Hours-of-Service Violations Ticketable

In July 2023, the federal government announced that enforcement officers in Canada could issue tickets with set fines for violations of the Commercial Vehicle Drivers Hours of Service Regulations. Transport Minister Omar Alghabra made the announcement on July 10, 2023, in a Transport Canada news release.

How the change was made

The change did not touch the hours of service rules themselves. Instead, the government amended the federal Contraventions Regulations, which list the federal offences that can be handled with a ticket instead of a court prosecution.

The amendment, SOR/2023-137, was registered on June 19, 2023 and published in the Canada Gazette, Part II, on July 5, 2023. It came into force on the day it was registered. Transport Canada said contravention tickets could be issued once the amendments were published.

The regulatory analysis published with the amendment explained the problem it was meant to solve. Before the designation, enforcement officers could deal with hours of service offences only by issuing a warning or by proceeding with a summary conviction under the Criminal Code. Warnings were not always an effective deterrent, and taking minor offences to court could be disproportionate and slow. Transport Canada made the same point, saying the court route had taken considerable time and strained the justice system.

What the tickets covered

The amendment added a new Schedule XVIII designating about 60 provisions of the hours of service regulations as contraventions. They included offences involving driving hours and off-duty time, as well as administrative requirements such as keeping records and providing information.

Fines were set in three tiers:

• Tier 1: administrative and minor recordkeeping contraventions.
• Tier 2: on-duty and driving limits, off-duty requirements, more serious recordkeeping problems, and contraventions that hamper a carrier's compliance monitoring or enforcement.
• Tier 3: tampering, falsification or obstruction, the most serious recordkeeping contraventions, and the most serious breaches of driving limits and rest requirements.

Fines ranged from $300 to $1,000 for drivers and from $600 to $2,000 for motor carriers, depending on the tier. The Gazette gave examples. Driving after 16 hours had elapsed between two required off-duty periods carried a $1,000 fine for the driver, and a carrier that requested, required or allowed it faced $2,000. A carrier that failed to make sure a vehicle carried the required ELD information packet faced $600.

Consultation with the provinces

Provinces and territories enforce the federal rules on extra-provincial carriers on Ottawa's behalf, so Transport Canada consulted them in February 2022. It initially proposed fines of up to $300, $500 and $1,000 for the three tiers. The jurisdictions agreed with the tiered approach but recommended doubling the fines and setting them higher for carriers than for drivers, and Transport Canada adopted those changes.

The department also ran a 20-day public consultation. Responses from professional organizations in the commercial driving industry were generally supportive. Because the amendments created no new offences, they were not prepublished.

Court still available

Transport Canada said tickets were an additional tool and did not replace the court process, which stayed available for prosecuting offenders. The department presented the change as building on its earlier ELD mandate, which had come into force on June 12, 2021, with enforcement beginning on January 1, 2023.

Archive: this article describes rules and events as of July 2023. Regulations may have changed since, so check the current rule before relying on it.