Atlantic Provinces Trucking Association director Jean-Marc Picard is not too satisfied with how police have responded to a series of cargo and truck thefts in the last few months.
“The response from the … RCMP is, ‘are you insured?’ And if so, they don’t see to put any priority to it,” he told the CBC.
According to the APTA, the carrier called the authorities a second time. Police once again said nothing could be done and hung up on the carrier.
APTA says that the truck thefts in the Moncton area have cost companies more than $300,000.
Picard said there are ways the police could be trying harder to catch the cargo thieves.
“We’ve got cameras on the roads now and [the Department of] Public Safety’s got cameras at their scales. They should look for abnormal activities, they should talk to the Quebec and Ontario police because obviously all the loads probably end up there because it’s organized crime and it doesn’t seem like that’s being done,” Picard said.
Picard said he would like to meet with the RCMP and possibly see an officer dedicated to dealing with cargo thefts.
The RCMP, however, said it is in fact looking into the complaint raised by the trucking association.
The Canadian Trucking Alliance has been trying to raise the profile of this issue with government and enforcement agencies. CTA has published a groundbreaking cargo crime study ; introduced a cargo theft reporting document; and joined forces with CargoNet to help carriers introduce an additional layer of security aimed at reducing their vulnerability to cargo crime.
