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Transcript

Inside Canada’s Towing Crackdown And The Fight Over Fair Rates · Towing News Now

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome on all to the Boeing News Now podcast.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_03: A podcast dedicated to insightful interviews, news stories that affect the towing industry, and a weekly spotlight on towing supplies and equipment.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_03: We have two hosts.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_03: One of them has been in the business for 40 years.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_03: The other his charming wife of many years, who also is the general manager of product supply.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_03: No other than Wes and April Wilburn.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_03: Wes and April, I turn it over to you.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_04: Well, DJ, as always, I appreciate your kind words and all you do to keep us the podcast rolling right along.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_04: Um DJ, how are you doing today?
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_03: I'm doing excellent, excellent, excellent.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_03: I have a brand new ventilator at the house.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_03: And when the lady said to me it'll make a difference, I thought, yeah, hello.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_03: It is fantastic.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm doing great, Wesley.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_04: That's good to hear.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_04: I know a lot of people have been crying for me and asking about how you're doing, so it's nice to hear that you're coming back strong.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_04: That's good to hear.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_04: April, how how about you?
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_04: How are you doing?
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_06: I'm doing well sitting here with some my husband, so I'm happy about that in this gorgeous North Carolina weather.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_06: And um really excited about all the great interviewer interviewees we've had and all the great guests we've had, and looking forward to this interview that's coming up right now, too.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_04: Absolutely.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_04: People have been asking about me.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_04: I'm definitely uh still involved in the industry.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_04: Open angle with their telling equipment direct.com website.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_04: It's really good.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_04: We're getting more organized than we've ever been, and it's really a joy to be involved with that.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_04: I really feel good about what's going on out there.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_04: So we got um a returning guest, uh kind of our north of the border uh reporter, I'm most of the time officially, of course.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_04: But uh there's been a lot of activity in the Canadian telling uh world.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_04: So we're gonna we got a our uh man that knows what's going on.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_04: Joey from Abraham.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_04: Joey's been a returning guest.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_04: So Joey, I'm gonna go ahead and ask you to introduce yourself again, our listeners.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_04: Tell us a little bit about uh you know how you got involved in the industry and where you are today in the industry, if you would, please.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_02: Uh well thank you for having me back.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's always a pleasure to be uh on your podcast and to uh you know talk to people uh like yourselves.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it's uh I'm a towing fanatic.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_02: I grew up in the towing business uh and I've been in the business for uh myself personally uh for my comp I started my company 42 years, for 43 years in September.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_02: And uh so I've been around it for a very, very long time.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_02: I my my father had a towing company prior to that, so um I've been around it for many, many years and uh and uh I grew up in it, so I have a passion for it, and along the way I built my towing company and I got involved with the towing associations and uh a number of different towing associations advocating for uh you know a better a better uh towing world or better safety standards and and better business environment for the towing industry in in our area and specifically in Canada.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um but uh yeah, so that's where that's who I am, and uh and I'm the president of the Canadian Towing Association.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_04: So you operate in the outer suburbs of Toronto, is that correct?
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: I have 11 locations all across uh Ont southern Ontario, so uh the most populous area of Canada.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_02: And we have uh close to 200 trucks providing services from light heavy and uh and flow services.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that's what I was born at.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_04: You're you're a very serious operator.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_04: Um and that's that's all uh you say all across southern Ontario, so how far is your furthest two terminals from each other just to try to get up there?
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um probably three hundred, no, probably five hundred miles from one to the other just at the top.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_06: Oh that is a spread.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_02: I'm kind of in the middle, and then there's one that's about two hundred miles away, and then there's a one that's about three hundred miles away the other way.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: So and then I've got other ones sprinkled in between.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: And uh we're along the four oh one corridor primarily, which is uh one of the largest highways in North America, and uh very, very busy, very, very uh busy truck route and and and uh traffic route.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that uh 401 that that was the biggest highway I was ever ever saw.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_04: Um very early in my career too.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_04: I think it was ten lanes in either direction at one point when I first saw it.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's a bit crazy.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's it can be it can it can be a bit crazy.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_02: It can definitely be a bit crazy.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_04: So give us an overview of what's what's been going on up in Canada.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_04: Um I know the associations have been working hard to to make things better.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_04: Give us a the the a b a big picture of you and then we'll zero in on a couple subjects and that's all right with you.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, certainly.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_02: So uh you know we we we do a lot of advocacy relating to uh regulations and and and government overreach and stuff like that.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_02: And so we've been working uh very hard to make sure that the uh the the some regulations that the government recently put in a few years ago is uh is working well for the TOWAS.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_02: The regulation was brought on because of uh consumer abuses and uh and then also because of some violence within the industry.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_02: Some bad actors came into the industry uh with some criminal elements and uh and then they escalated uh, you know, uh some of their ac their tactics to scare away illegitimate towers with uh some violence, including burning of trucks and shooting at people and uh and and just terrible, terrible activity.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_02: So the government put the regulations in place hoping that that would solve that and uh it it hasn't completely it's changed it.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_02: A number of other factors have changed it, but uh the regulations have changed it a little bit and they've it's moved around a little bit.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the the people that have been the bad actors as I call them um have been uh it's changed a bit.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_02: Some of them have been driven out of the business, some of them have some new ones have popped up.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_02: But uh uh so we work with the government to uh talk to them about why, you know, certain parts of the regulation don't work and uh and and how, you know, what some suggestions for them to make those things better.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the violence has changed and slowed down a bit, but it's still happening as evidenced by you know, this morning there's a news report about in nearby where we are, uh, about a shoot another shooting.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_02: There's somebody shooting at a tow truck.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: And shooting in in Canada is a real big deal because we don't have legalized gun carrying.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's a it's not uh it's not like you any just anybody can get a gun.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_02: It's very we don't have uh we hit we have very restrictive gun laws, so when people are running around shooting at people and it becomes common in a specific t area or or industry, it's very serious because it's not easy to get a gun up here.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_02: You can get them, but you don't you don't we don't have gun stores uh the way you do in in the US.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_02: We just don't have the same access.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_02: So those guns are all illegal guns.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_06: Okay, that's what the question I was gonna ask.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_06: That was the question I was gonna ask, Joey.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_06: Just by having the gun already, you've broken the law.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_06: You've already broken one law by having the gun.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_02: Just if you have is it just having the gun, you're probably breaking the law.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_02: There are limited uh uh ways to get access to a gun, but you're not allowed to carry that gun, a loaded gun in a vehicle.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um you you know like law enforcement is the only one that can have a loaded gun in a vehicle.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um but uh Totro driver definitely cannot be carrying a a gun of any kind and definitely not a loaded gun.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um and really the the way the the way the legislation works is you know, you have to basically belong to a gun club or something like that to have a gun and you have to have a uh you store those guns typically at the gun club or some other place that that they're not easily accessible to, you know, third parties or or you know, unqualified people.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_02: So it is very difficult to get a permit and then when you do there's limited places you can actually use them.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: So uh we don't um we don't normally see it.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_02: A regular person wouldn't normally just have be carrying a gun around with them.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_02: It's uh that's just not something that we do.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_04: That that tells me that super uh serious criminal element is uh the one that allows me.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the only way somebody's got a gun is because they've got the this it's shooting at other people.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's a stolen gun, it's a legal gun, it's uh a gun that was snuggled smuggled over the border or or or stolen from some other place that that you're not they're not it's not a legal gun.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_02: It's likely a you know, uh uh some sort of contraband.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's already bad the job is already dangerous enough, and then the end of the death situation makes it that much worse.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um Yeah, I mean the people have guns in in in the States and the US and I'm sure lots of Totruk people have guns, but we're not y we're not exposed to that usually, so then there should be no reason like if you're shooting at me, uh I likely don't have a gun.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_02: So it's not like an even it's not uh we're not it's not like uh, you know, I w I need a gun because the the the criminal has a gun and I want to protect myself as is some of the arguments for gun control or gun access.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_02: We nobody has a gun.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_02: Nobody should be carrying a gun.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_02: So if the criminal has a gun, we're at a huge disadvantage.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, years ago during the nineties, I spent a lot of time in in that part of Canada.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_04: Every time I crossed the border, that was one of the questions they always asked was are you carrying any firearms of any sort?
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_04: Which I I wasn't at that point, so but it that's a big deal.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_04: Another big question is we gotta take a quick break for a commercial, and I got a lot more I want to ask you.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_04: So can you hang around for after the break, Jerry?
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_02: I got all the time in the world for you guys.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: Coin equipment direct costs.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: That's nine one oh seven four seven nine thousand.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: We look forward to serving you.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome back, listeners.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_03: You know you're listening to Coin News Now.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_03: This is the famous podcast that's growing and growing, and I can't thank you enough for telling your friends about it.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_03: And I want to remind all of our listeners, we have over 20,000 listeners now, and we are available, and and this is important.
• 14:23
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• 14:33
  SPEAKER_03: And we can't thank you enough for telling your friends about it.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_03: So since I'm bringing them back, before I switch you back over to April, Wilburne and her wonderful, intelligent husband of 40 years experience in this industry, the famous Wes Wilburn, I want to ask you a question to Joey.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_03: Joey's a great guy, he's been a good guest.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_03: Is the insurance companies up in Canada similar to the insurance companies we have here?
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_03: Because I looked at the article and it mentioned the insurance company, and then see, I thought the insurance companies were actually owned by the government, but I'm not a m I'm I'm not a major mistake.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_03: So, Joey, can you clarify that one?
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so the you know, is it just as uh in different states you have different regulations.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_02: We have in different provinces, we have different regulations when it comes to uh you know uh uh insurance.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_02: And in different provinces, there are there's three provinces that I can think of that have government insurance, uh, but Ontario where I am and and and most of Canada has uh like Alberta and Ontario and Nova Scotia and and and a couple other provinces have just regular insurance, just like you would have.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_02: There is some nuances to it.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_02: There's you know, like it's not uh it's not a hundred percent uh the same as it is uh in in in every other province.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_02: Like there's a in Ontario we have what's called no fault.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_02: So everybody has to be insured.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_02: The insurance you know covers the claims and stuff like that, but uh there's no suing the other party.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_02: Usually your insurance pays your claim and and uh the other party pays their claim unless there's uh unless there's some severity that's beyond uh the basic claim.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_02: So uh in Ontario, if there's uh if I have an accident, I hit another car, their insurance, their liability insurance covers their car, and my liability insurance covers mine.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_04: Gotcha.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_04: And is that more with a commercial truck and a car accident?
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_02: So it's a little different with trucks because the commercial vehicles uh have a different um it's very similar, but it it it there is some threshold because the the the cost of the claim can be significantly higher on a commercial vehicle than it is as maybe on a on a on a standard sedan or or or passenger vehicle.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_02: So uh, but still you gotta have insurance to get coverage, and uh the government doesn't get involved in that.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_02: They just have basic rules as to what kind of coverage is you need to have, and uh you know you buy you can buy your insurance from any broker and any insurance company.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_02: We've got dozens of insurance companies in in our area that sell commercial truck insurance or tow truck insurance and even more that sell passenger vehicle insurance.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_04: So down here when a commercial motor vehicle hits an automobile, the automobile can be totally at fault with the commercial motor vehicle gets a lawsuit slapped against them by the driver, yeah, the people with the car.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_04: And it's a big issue.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_04: It has a lot of money to cost the trucking and towing and etc.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_04: Basically you're saying that that general everybody suing everybody mentality doesn't isn't part of the game up there, is that what I'm hearing?
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and in Canada we don't have the same what tort laws as you do.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_02: So our our laws, our insurance uh liability regulations are different.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so there is coverage in it, but they have restrictions on what you can sue for.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_02: So you're really suing for, you know, uh what was the cost of the damage of the vehicle, what was your injuries, things like that.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_02: Punitive damages is not the same for in Canada as it is in the US.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_02: So the claims, and we and one of the reasons why some telling companies won't come to the US is that what our insurance won't cover the cost of some of the claims you can potentially get uh in a different uh insurance environment.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_06: Understandable.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_06: It's understandable if this the structure is so um upsided here in America as far as if the commercial if the commercial vehicle is not at fault but they can still get sued, uh you know, it's very understandable that they would be hesitant.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I I I've heard of catastrophic claims, which I'm sure you what they call the nuclear claims where you know it's hundreds of millions of dollars.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_02: We would never get a claim like that.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, uh I was talking to an a broker, an insurance broker, and he, you know, he's explaining to us in a in a seminar I was at, and they were talking about you know why our insurance are law our are in Canada insurance was a certain amount, but once we wanted to go to the US it w it went up dramatically, or even sometimes coverages wasn't weren't weren't available because you know where uh a similar claim would be two million dollars in Canada, it would be 20 million in the U.S.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_02: And we just we just don't have the coverages for that.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_02: Not our our regular insurance doesn't cover that.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_02: It's not we're not we're not that we're not buying insurance that has that that amount of coverage.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_04: Makes sense.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you for answering that question a little side sidetracked, but it's a very interesting.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_04: Let's go back to the uh the new legislation and it's it solved a bunch of problems, but created some more smaller ones that I understand that correctly like that, or tell us what's going on up there.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, they with the regulations they came out with a bunch of rules and stuff like that, and a lot of the rules are you know meant to create accountability for customer relations, but then they've also created uh you know some restrictions on who can get a license to tow.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_02: They've made that a little harder, which some of it's it's it makes sense and it it's good and it's driving driving some of the bad actors out of the business.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_02: But some of it is uh you know uh it's they just don't have all the clarity they should have to it.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_02: So we've had some challenges where they've you know charged a driver with uh uh an issue and uh and that driver didn't under quit it was difficult to figure out how they were going to deal with uh you know the uh the uh litigation process or just the process of of of going through uh I'm not guilty and let me defend myself.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_02: The uh and uh the due process has been a little bit uh uh not clear.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_02: So we've asked for some we're constantly working with online to be more clear on that process because they're still building out some of those penalties and and uh and accountability on the on uh when they found somebody not compliant.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_02: And then we've had, you know, they the the big push was that they thought that the regulation would stop chasing.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_02: So accident chasing has been a huge problem in in Ontario specifically and Toronto area.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_02: And they uh and they expected that was that the regulation would just throw it would dry up because of it, and really just got worse because uh the bad guys find just find another way.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, they don't they don't really care about laws, regulations too much.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_02: They don't care about raw laws and regulations, that's why they run around with guns and why they burn somebody's tow trucks because they're not really that scared of the regulations.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_02: So there's more but more of a burden on their on the average tower than the uh with the regulations than there is has really been on the the bad guys.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_02: And so we've you know we've been working with government trying to convince them of that and uh and because they're complaining.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_02: And one of their overreactions has been that they want to they figure that they're gonna cap the pricing that we can charge, and I've heard that in a couple other places.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_02: And my again, I I say, you know, they're bad bad people.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_02: The the price you telling them that they can only charge this amount doesn't is not gonna prohibit them from charging more.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um you you may get them once in a while, catch them doing it, and somebody will you know hold them accountable, but quite frankly, they've been charging, you know, whatever they feel like, and they just change the approach, right?
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_02: They look for a different way to collect the same money.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, they've built their business model around the criminality or the the you know the kickbacks or the or the the uh the money that they're able to glean from the insurance companies or the consumer for the activity that they're doing, which is primarily taking people to body shops or to injury re injury doc doctor injury clinics and and stuff like that.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_02: So um, you know, they're they're uh they're uh they're they're frustrated that they haven't been able to, just with the basic regulation, they haven't been able to stop this activity.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_02: So their next step has been, you know, let's let's put a cap on how much these people can charge so that we'll squeeze the money, the act the economic opportun opportunity out of this type of activity.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_02: But as we've said, don't get the money from the tofues.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_02: The tofu fees are, you know, there are some people taking advantage of the tow fee, uh, but there's a whole bunch of other things they're doing along the way.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_02: So they'll just defer or re redirect their activity to get the money from a different source, and it won't, the tofu capping of the tofu will only happen will only hurt the the average toll person.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_02: And be and once you let government get into your business and start telling you what you can charge for your services, you're literally asking for you know uh I call it uh extinction level event uh where they drive companies out of business.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_02: There's a lot already, our industry is old enough.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_02: Like we have a very old industry with a lot of older uh people that are you know, mom and pop shops that are running tone companies that are just looking to transition out.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_02: And if you just give them a little bit of a push, they're just gonna leave.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_02: But just say, Yeah, I'll sell my trucks and I'll go.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_02: And uh so we're we're we're we're working with them to push back on that and say, listen, capping rates is not gonna solve the problem.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_02: There's all these other solutions.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_02: Here's here's here's two or three.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_02: Here's a whole we created a 48-page document, we gave it to the government and said, here's a here's why what you're you're trying to do won't work, and here's some other options.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_02: And uh so we're working with the government on some of this stuff, but the you know not everybody's uh you know of the same opinion as to what the solutions are, so you've there's uh quite a bit of work to try and get there.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_06: So uh Joey Oftentimes here in the US we have a lot of laws, but we don't enforce it, so we make new regulations.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_06: Is there already existing things on your guys' books now?
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_06: It's great that the government wants to intervene and make it more more fair, but do you is there already existing things that are not enforced that you guys have right now?
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, definitely.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_02: There is there's a Consumer Protect and Protection Act that that you know talks about you know accountability and and has some teeth to it that if the actually if that department actually took some action and said, okay, you didn't give the owner of the vehicle a a price in writing before you towed their vehicle, so you know you can't charge that money.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_02: And and there's the Highway Traffic Act, which is that the that says that you're not supposed to come to an accident scene uh without without uh being called there by either law enforcement or the consumer, um, but they don't enforce them.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_02: And so the regulation has layers of the same language, and it and and so they they say they're gonna enforce that, but they have but nobody's enforcing the existing regulations.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_02: And the Consumer Protection Act, I remember being involved in it when they before they came up with the regulation and speaking to them and talking to them about how the Protection Act, which is a provincial law uh regulation, like I was like, okay, so you guys have all the you have all the the tools here.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_02: Why aren't you enforcing them?
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we just don't have staff.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_02: We don't have staff to do the enforcement.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_02: We get thousands and thousands and thousands of complaints across all industries, not just towing, and we can't get to them.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_02: So we pick and choose the ones the squeaky wheel gets the grease.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_02: We s we work on the on the ones we can work on, and the and we don't work on the rest of them.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_02: The rest of them don't get that they just can't deal with them, they don't have the the resources.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_02: And law enforcement, I always say, I, you know, I'm a I I I go back and forth on law enforcement because I I really I want law enforcement to be part of the solution, and I find that more often than not they're part of the problem when it comes to accident chasing specifically.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and it depends on what jurisdiction you're in, because some places the police officers are like, yeah, we've got a system, everybody's gonna follow the system, and if you don't follow the system, we're gonna hold you accountable.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_02: But in some areas, there's very much lawlessness in the process, and basically these regulations that we have in place, somebody has to say, Well, you're not doing it right, and and I'm gonna hold you accountable.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_02: And the most likely person to do that is gonna be law enforcement.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_02: And law enforcement often is they're either overstretched themselves staffing-wise, or they just are indifferent and they just take a the stance that you know what, somebody's here to tow the car, and I'm gonna get this road cleared, and I really don't care what happens after that.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_02: So uh yeah, you want this guy to tow your car, and this guy's talked to you, sold you a bill of goods, and you you want to go down that garden path, you go right ahead.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_02: Here's your here's the ticket for having the accident, or here's your accident report.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_02: Carry on, just get out of my intersection.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_02: And then they just walk away from it.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_02: They take a hands-off approach, and so they let these bad actors just run amok, and you know, uh they'll get a complaint and they'll say, listen, that the consumer made the decision themselves, it's not my problem.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, that's that that's that's probably more as likely as anything.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_02: And the consumer is victim is a victim, like the consumer usually is traumatized from the scene of an accident.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_02: They're not often they're not prepared to make a judgment.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_02: They're really not prepared a lot of times unless they've been in an accident before, or you know, especially younger people, or you know, some people just that you know are are are nervous drivers, they have an accident.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_02: It's a it's a you know, it's catastrophic for them.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_02: I you know, I I've been driving for you know 40 something years, 45 years, and I and I've had lots of accidents.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_02: And so I have an accident.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_02: I just look at, you know, I work the problem.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_02: But most people panic.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_02: So then some tow truck guy shows up and says, Hey, I can tow your car, I'll deal with your insurance company, I can take you to a body shop, I'll I'll take you home, uh, you know, get into my truck and it's nice and warm in there because you get away from your car, maybe it'll catch on fire.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_02: Like there's all these pitches that they have, so they become the source of of uh comfort problem solving.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_02: Problem solving and and and problem solving, and then and then they exploit the consumer and the insurance company after that.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, the um I've heard many different times how the uh the privacy of the world to get you on the hook.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_04: The um so tell us what the association's doing.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_04: We've got a couple minutes left here.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_04: Tell us what the association's doing and how people can get involved because they're towing Canada, how you can get involved.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_02: So our our our association is the Canadian Towing Association, and what we do is uh we advocate for the for the industry.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_02: We go to our legislature, or in our case it's called Queen's Park, and we talk to the the uh government officials, we talk to the bureaucrats, we talk to the politicians.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we're having a TOL conference, very similar to the TO summit that's happening in the U.S.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_02: right now.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we're having a toll conference in June.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we're bringing in a bunch of uh experts to talk about uh you know regulation, to talk about insurance, to talk about uh slow down move over and safety.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and our conference is uh you know, it's a business conference.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_02: It's not a toe show, it's not some sort of trade event, it's really just a business conference.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_02: And in that event, we're we're we're we're uh rallying the troops to support uh you know the initiatives that we're we're lobbying for, which is to protect the industry from over-regulation and protect and help with the regulation that's in place to make it have a little more teeth for the bad actors.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_04: And this is in June, you say?
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_04: June 10th and 11th in Toronto.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_04: All right, get on the association itself.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you can get more information.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_02: You can go to our Facebook page, uh Canadian Towing Association.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_02: There's information about the event, and uh you can contact us and ask for more information, or you can just go to the Canadian Towing Association website and get more event uh information about the event.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_02: But uh yeah, everybody everybody's welcome.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_02: There's a cost to it, but everybody's welcome.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_02: We uh we want to come and network and listen to our pitches uh about uh not necessarily pitches, but but our experts who will talk about uh you know uh what the challenges are and what some of the solutions are to those challenges, including our advoc advocacy and uh and lobbying efforts.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_04: And you guys were hard on behalf of the tower, and it's very uh recommendable the work that you do and have done for years, even uh a whole group of folks up there.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you very much.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_02: We you know it's always it's it's always uh nice to hear somebody say thank you.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_02: It's hard to get sometimes when you're running an association.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_04: That's a fact.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_04: That is a fact.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_04: Joey, thank you for taking the time to come and talk to us today.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_04: Any thoughts you'd like to leave us with?
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_02: I'd like to say keep doing what you're doing, guys.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_02: You're doing a great job and keep uh advocating and communicating.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_02: I I tell everybody, you know, we gotta be talking.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_02: You know, don't uh don't talk about each other, talk to each other, talk communicate and and support each other because the industry needs all all of us to work together to uh come with a better outcomes.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_04: Well, that's the truth.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_04: That is absolutely the truth.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_04: Be safe out there, and if something pops up you need want to share some more information, come on back and we're gonna uh we can have to just over get the information on the event and we'll be talking about it as it comes up closer.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you so much for having us.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_04: Be safe out there.