Definitely.
We're just now looking at going to countries where the first language is not English. Up until 2008, we've predominantly brought in drivers whose first language was English, so we didn't have the language issue.
We are doing an extensive research program in trips to Ukraine, which would be, for our company, the next place we would bring drivers from. Having said that, there's a huge language barrier. It's probably the only barrier. There are lots of different challenges in every country that you go to, and as a company we try to research and understand what those are going to be.
In Ukraine, they have similar driving conditions; they use similar equipment—all of those things check out. It's a language issue. Right now we're trying to get some clarity on identifying within our own workforce what is an optimal level of English and what it correlates to, whether it's the Canadian Language Benchmarks or, when they're leaving their home country and being assessed at a Canadian embassy, using the IELP, or whatever testing mechanism it may be, and trying to align so that we know what level we need to bring.
I'm meeting tomorrow with the Saskatchewan Transportation Association representatives to try to come together as carriers to say we don't want to compromise safety and we don't want to compromise a person's quality of life. When you don't speak a language in a country, your quality of life is that much less than that of somebody who does.
We want to address all of those things and make sure that when we bring somebody from, say, a place like Ukraine, their level of English is at a point where they're going to get by and will improve substantially with training, which we provide on the post-arrival end, covered by the employer, with certified ESL teachers and with a defined path to where they're going, so that they can become prominent and successful members of our society. It's just in the research stage for drivers right now, but we know it's something we have to work with governments on.
What we fear is that somebody is going to come in and impose a certain level: you have to be a level eight or a level six. I worked for the University of Saskatchewan; the international students we brought to our university didn't have a level six. We have to make sure we identify the appropriate level of English—not to compromise any of those things, but so as not have a government infrastructure impose a level that's unattainable, because then we hinder the program all over again.
We as carriers are trying to find out who we need to talk to at the government, whether it's Service Canada or the PN level. Right now, it's the Alberta PN who's likely going to come with a defined level for truck drivers first. So it's a question of finding those key people to say, “We want to work with you. Come to our company, interview our drivers, learn for yourselves what is required for English to do the job.”