What to Expect After June 2021 for the Canadian ELD Mandate

The Canadian Electronic Logging Device (ELD) Mandate is drawing closer and closer.

To continue our preparation awareness efforts for our customers, my colleague, Omnitracs Director of Product Management Florence Dougherty, and I teamed up to host a webinar around everything ELD users in Canada can expect after the Canadian ELD Mandate becomes effective on June 12, 2021.

I highly encourage you to watch the entire webinar for all the answers to your top questions around the mandate. In addition to watching the webinar, continue reading for some of the fundamental topics and audience questions Florence and I explored and answered.

The scoop on phased enforcement and certification

The effective date for the Canadian ELD Mandate is still June 12, 2021. On March 2, 2021, the Canadian Minister of Transportation announced a phased enforcement period that will begin with awareness and education only. Until we understand the enforcement strategy, we join the rest of the industry in standing by to see the enforcement strategy developed by each province and territory. We know Quebec has indicated they will not enforce the mandate until June 2022. Also, on the same day as this webinar, Manitoba announced its enforcement strategy would not begin until December 12, 2021. At that time, they will start a period of education and awareness until June 2022.

Since October 26, 2020, there has only been one accredited body, FPInnovations, authorized to certify ELDs in Canada. This is critical because Canadian regulations specify that providers must obtain certification of their ELDs through an accredited third party, which differs from the U.S. self-certification process. Currently, there are no certified ELD devices in Canada registered with Transport Canada. Along with Omnitracs, several ELD providers have undertaken the certification process with FPInnovations, leading to a number of devices in the queue to be tested.

I want to emphasize many procedural processes must be complete before the testing begins. Once the device testing starts, it is expected to take four to six weeks for FPInnovations to complete its testing. If technical standards compliance issues are found with a device during testing, additional time is necessary to correct the issue(s), and retesting will take place.

The uncertainty around the enforcement timeline and certification availability is why I strongly encourage all federally regulated motor carriers to commit to the ELD provider of their choice as soon as possible. Make certain you are working with a trusted provider, like Omnitracs, who prioritizes education, webinars, membership associations with Canadian transportation bodies, and associated costs. Providers concentrating on awareness and streamlined compliance are far more trusted than those who are unprepared and uninvolved.

Vehicle movement specifications in Canada

One of the major points Florence and I continuously went back to in the webinar was around vehicle movement. It is highly pertinent that all carriers operating in Canada understand that all vehicle movement is recorded once they reach 8 km/h. Here are a few essential things to keep in mind regarding vehicle movement in Canada:

• If a driver must absolutely move their vehicle while in sleeper-berth status, there is no way to move it without breaking the status. They should annotate the reason for breaking the status in their ELD record.
• If a driver fails to indicate a yard move or personal conveyance status, that cannot be fixed. They will have to annotate the record with clarifications.
• If an unauthorized user drives the vehicle, it will automatically be recorded as an unidentified driving event. The subsequent authenticated user logging into the ELD will be required to accept the unidentified driving record as their own or reject it, requiring further adjudication by the ELD administrator.
• If a driver fails to log out of the ELD and another person drives the same vehicle without their own login, the driving event created cannot be removed from the incorrect driver log. The record can only be annotated to explain the extra drive time.

Yard moves and personal conveyance limitations

In both countries, yard moves and personal conveyance are not considered duty statuses. Instead, they are referred to as special conditions of non-driving duty status. Yard move is a special condition of on-duty not driving, and personal conveyance is a special condition of off-duty. Both require the driver to manually indicate their desired use before initiating vehicle movement to avoid the automatic recording of drive time.

Both the U.S. and Canadian ELD regulations provide for the automatic termination of a yard move status when the vehicle exceeds 8 mph (32 km/h). However, when operating in Canada, drivers will have to remain vigilant to reconfirm the continuation of yard move after each complete engine power cycle, power-down followed by a power-up. An exemption in the U.S. allows the yard move status, once manually selected by the driver, to continue across multiple engine power cycle events without further driver intervention.

Using personal conveyance in both countries requires drivers to manually indicate their use of the status. In the U.S., personal conveyance rules are not limited by distance nor time. In Canada, along with other regulatory limitations when using personal conveyance, there is a 75 km personal conveyance limit during each 24 hour period. The ELD will enforce this by switching the driver to a driving status if the 75 km threshold is exceeded.

When traveling between the U.S. and Canada, drivers should be aware of the Canadian 75 km personal conveyance limit and be mindful that Canadian enforcement may impose daily limits even if the personal conveyance was created when operating in the U.S.

For more topics and answers, watch the full webinar here! I also recommend you explore our EverythingELD webpage for all the information around the Canadian ELD Mandate. Last but not least, read our blog article from our previous webinar where we set our sights on answering frequently asked questions around exemption qualifications in Canada and differences between the U.S. and Canadian ELD Mandates.