Concerns over jet fuel delivery prompt driving lessons

GREG YOUNGER-LEWIS

An outcry over public safety in the High Arctic has prompted territorial officials to set up driving courses for every community in Nunavut, after discovering under-qualified drivers were delivering jet fuel to airplanes in Resolute.

RCMP officers warned the local fuel contractor, 953731 NWT Ltd., at least three times over the past six months, that it was breaking the law by hiring improperly licenced drivers to truck fuel in the community.

The company has delivered jet fuel to the airport and diesel to all houses in the community for the past three years.

Police said there might have been other warnings given, but without the tracking system available in other territories and provinces, it’s difficult to identity companies with repeat offences.

The company is owned by Aziz Kheraj, Resolute’s former mayor and owner of the South Camp Inn.

The company was recently under investigation by the government of Nunavut’s Petroleum Products Division, which hired Kheraj to handle their fuel contract in the community.

Archie Stewart, the PPD’s acting director, said the government followed up on complaints last month from a resident and hamlet council about alleged fuel spills at the airport. Results showed the spills were minor.

But Stewart said it was the community’s accusations against the company about under-qualified drivers that lead his department to launch a territory-wide training program.

By the end of the program, Stewart said his division will ensure that their contracted companies have employees with the proper class of driver’s licence.

“We take these complaints very seriously,” Stewart said. “The onus is on the contractor to make sure their drivers are trained.”

In the case of Resolute, the GN petroleum division hasn’t visited the community to train drivers since the fuel contract was awarded in Sept. 2001.

Stewart said, so far, their investigations suggest problems with licencing in Resolute came from confusion over how to interpret Nunavut’s Motor Vehicles Act.

Fuel truck drivers in Resolute were warned in the past that they needed a class-III licence with an air brakes endorsement. Most drivers reportedly said they only needed their lower-level class V licence.

At least one employee, who drove for six months, admitted having no qualifications to drive the fuel truck.

Since the latest complaint in mid-February, Kheraj paid for an instructor to teach and test his drivers so they can get the required licences.

Stewart said PPD trainers will now visit every community in Nunavut to make sure their contracted fuel truck drivers have a class-III licence and air brakes endorsement.

“We would rather err on the higher side,” Stewart said, “rather than the lower side.”

However, the investigating police officer said that Nunavut has more than a training problem with fuel truck drivers.

Const. Peter Villeneuve, who works in the RCMP detachment in Resolute, said the territory needs a tracking system to catch companies with repeat infractions. Most provinces and territories have a so-called “national safety code” to keep tabs on businesses with chronic safety problems.

The high turn-over rate of officers at RCMP detachments is an even bigger incentive for Nunavut to establish such a system, Villeneuve said.

“We have no way of knowing [if there’s been previous incidents],” Villeneuve said in a recent interview.

Villeneuve said the tracking system is also especially important in Nunavut because contractors have a large number of drivers, joining and leaving their companies.

In the case of Resolute’s fuel contractor, Villeneuve said he only knew to investigate the company’s history of road infractions because of complaints from one of their former employees.

After finding that the company had repeat warnings, Villeneuve was about to issue a fine of $115. But he backed off after discussing the situation with the government’s motor vehicles branch in Iqaluit.

Kheraj said his company complied with his understanding of the law at all times.

“The act is misleading,” Kheraj said. “If you read the act and you go get a legal opinion on the act, my drivers were qualified to drive.”

A chief safety investigator at the Workers’ Compensation Board office in Iqaluit said they are also reviewing a request to discipline Kheraj’s company.