Any company manufacturing vehicles in Canada, or that vehicle ships from one province to another, must affix their National Safety Mark (NSM) number to those vehicles. As well, most provincial Highway Traffic Acts require companies affix an NSM to all vehicles they manufacture. The purpose of the NSM is to certify their vehicle production complies with the regulations under the Motor Vehicle Safety Act.
CTEA can help manufacturers prepare their application for an NSM, and also offers guidance in the administrative and technical requirements associated with the process.
Join CTEA's director of government and industry relations, Don Moore, in conversation with CTEA’s technical programs manager, Jeremy Harrower. It's everything you need to know about the national safety mark but didn't know who to ask. 

In this episode we cover: 

• lighting requirements
• vehicle stability
• braking requirement
• document retention
• how to apply for a national safety mark
• and much more. 

Resources

•  Canadian Transportation Equipment Association 
• CTEA NSM Application Review 
• Transport Canada NSM FAQ
• Transport Canada Vehicle Safety Standards
• Transport Canada Motor Vehicle Safety Regulations (C.R.C., c. 1038)

Tara Lehman of Netwomen joins Don to discuss the need for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) in the modern workplace. She will look at the benefits of considering DEIB for companies in recruiting and retaining talent in today’s competitive labour market and available resources for introducing a DEIB company culture.
Tara Lehman is Netwomen's division director for Transport and Trucking in Canada and the USA. She previously managed Haldex's Canadian Distribution Centre. After 23 years of working in the trucking/transportation industry, Tara joined Netwomen to promote the value of DEIB in this male-dominated industry.

 Canadian Transportation Equipment Association

Netwomen

Tara Lehman LinkedIn

[email protected]

Twin Life Business & Coaching Services

This is the final instalment of our CTEA 2023 annual conference coverage. It's the final Labour and Immigration session featuring Marie-Josée Groulx , Director of strategic partnerships and integration for the New Brunswick provincial government, and William Gobeil, a Quebec lawyer providing immigration services to both Canadian businesses and foreign workers. This session covers how to participate in various foreign worker programs with tips on how to make the process of hiring workers from abroad as seamless as possible. Topics include:

• Steps required to demonstrate the need to hire foreign workers
• The employers' responsibilities 
• Ethical recruitment 
• Success stories 

Episode 12 is a continuation of the previous episode. Julie Demers, Vice President of Legal Affairs & Human Capital at Manac, and Nathalie St-Pierre, the General Manager at Les Ateliers Beau-Roc, share their experiences with recruiting and hiring overseas workers under the Temporary Foreign Worker program, this time, expounding on some of the challenges they faced, including:

• Service Canada investigations
• Workers' rights versus employers' rights
• TFW in a unionized environment

This session was recorded at CTEA Annual Conference in New Brunswick in September. 

We continue with highlights from this year's CTEA Annual Conference. The next three episodes feature the Labour and Immigration discussions. This episode is part 1 of a discussion with Julie Demers, Vice President of Legal Affairs & Human Capital at Manac, and Nathalie St-Pierre, the General Manager at Les Ateliers Beau-Roc. They share their experiences with recruiting and hiring overseas workers under the Temporary Foreign Worker program, including:

• Overcoming language barriers
• Sourcing worker housing
• Accommodating cultural and religious traditions
• Working with government agencies

This episode features the second half of the trailer manufacturers roundtable discussion, recorded at CTEA’s Annual Conference in September. The session was an hour long so we split it into two parts to make it a little more digestible.  Part 1 of the session can be found in the previous episode. 

The topic is “Improving Efficiency and Productivity in Trailer Manufacturing: Getting the Most Out of the Human Resources You Have.” Panelists discussed how they tackle the inevitable challenges, and shared some of the lessons they learned along the way. 

Topics covered in this episode include:
- Finding the ROI in custom orders, 
- Can lean manufacturing work with a shaky supply chain?  
- Engaging workers in a multi-generational work place where everyone seems to have different priorities and expectations. 

The panel moderator is Tony Nathan of K-Line Trailers in Langley, BC. Joining him are Roderick Levesque from Manac in St. Georges, Quebec, and Mark Resmer of GINCOR Werx in Mattawa, Ontario.  

This episode features the first half of the trailer manufacturers roundtable discussion, recorded at CTEA’s Annual Conference in September. 

The session was a full hour long, so we split it roughly in half to make it a little more digestible. We’ll have the second half of the discussion in the next episode. 

The topic is “Improving Efficiency and Productivity in Trailer Manufacturing: Getting the Most Out of the Human Resources You Have.” Panelists discussed how they tackle the inevitable challenges, and shared some of the lessons they learned along the way. 

In this episode features:
- the challenges of employee absenteeism,
- calculating the real cost of customization and special orders,
- how scheduled and unscheduled maintenance affect productivity, 
- and improving internal relationships and communications between sales, engineering, and production. In other words, getting everybody on the same page. 

The panel moderator is Tony Nathan of K-Line Trailers in Langley, BC. He was joined by Roderick Levesque from Manac in St. Georges, Quebec, and Mark Resmer of GINCOR Werx in Mattawa, Ontario.  

Climate change is the most pressing problem of our generation. Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters estimates transitioning industry to net-zero will cost hundreds of billions of dollars. That transition will be a huge undertaking that can't be done overnight and can't be done alone. Yet the federal government, at one time, seemed prepared to leave industry on its own to figure it out. While it took plenty of arm twisting, the most recent budget did include some industrial supports to counter the impact of the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act.

Matt Poirier, senior director of National Policy and Government Relations at Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters (CME) joins CTEA’s Don Moore to explore ways Canada can help the manufacturing sector adapt successfully to the net-zero paradigm. 

The Four pillars

Develop a skilled workforce through effective immigration and skills development policies. 

Drive innovation and investment in advanced manufacturing technologies 

Increase domestic manufacturing production and exports.

Assist industry in adapting to Canada’s climate change challenges.

Canadian Transportation Equipment Association

Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters

While Canada may have won the geographic lottery in sharing a border with the world's biggest economy, Canadian manufacturers have been less successful in cracking overseas markets. The United States consumes more that 80% of our exports, leaving little capacity for growing other trade channels. The question is, how do we get manufacturers to invest in their businesses, to buy new technology and to adopt new processes that could make them leaner and more efficient? 
Matt Poirier, senior director of National Policy and Government Relations at Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters (CME) and CTEA’s Don Moore explore the options manufacturers already have at their disposal, and ways Canadian governments can assist them in growing export capacity. 

The Four pillars

• Develop a skilled workforce through effective immigration and skills development policies. 
• Drive innovation and investment in advanced manufacturing technologies 
• Increase domestic manufacturing production and exports.
• Assist industry in adapting to Canada’s climate change challenges. 

Canadian Transportation Equipment Association

Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters

Canada is the smallest country of the G7 nations, which makes it difficult to compete at scale with some of our trading partners -- particularly our neighbours to the south. We need a little help to stay competitive, but is it government’s role to fill that gap? What can government do with help Canadian businesses compete globally? Manufacturers need investments and incentives not handouts to remain competitive. Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters (CME) is working to ensure that happens. 
Matt Poirier, senior director of National Policy and Government Relations at CME shares his perspective on how government can spur growth in the manufacturing sector through strategic investment and economic incentives for business.  

The Four pillars

• Develop a skilled workforce through effective immigration and skills development policies. 
• Drive innovation and investment in advanced manufacturing technologies 
• Increase domestic manufacturing production and exports.
• Assist industry in adapting to Canada’s climate change challenges. 

Canadian Transportation Equipment Association
Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters