American Towing and Recovery Institute onThe Go
American Towing and Recovery Institute onThe Go
The Fight for Fairness in Towing with Joey Gagne
Caught up in an unexpected airport strike, I embarked on a wild road trip to Cleveland for a towing training class, battling through delays and a treacherous snowstorm. On the return journey, a wrong-way driver almost cut my life short, a stark reminder of life's fragility and the importance of cherishing every moment. These personal trials set the stage for examining how unpredictability and danger are just part of the towing industry's daily grind.
The episode takes a serious turn as we scrutinize the pressing issues within the towing world. From a tragic accident in Michigan to questionable billing practices in both Georgia and Canada, the stories illustrate the urgent need for regulatory reforms and community support. Toronto's tow truck drivers face illegal taxing and violence, painting a grim picture of the challenges that demand immediate solutions. This conversation underscores the critical need for improved safety measures and fair regulations to protect those working tirelessly on the road.
We are thrilled to feature Joey Gagne, president of Abrams Towing and the Canadian Towing Association, who shares his remarkable journey from a single truck to a fleet of 200. Joey provides invaluable insights into the industry's evolving landscape and how new regulations in Ontario are shaping fairer practices. The discussion rounds out with a focus on empowering tow companies through standardized training and flexible approaches, paving the way for success in this ever-changing field. Tune in to learn how the towing industry is striving toward a safer and more equitable future.
Welcome one and all to the American Towing Recovery Institute podcast. Remember this is your podcast to promote safety, education, positive public relations and networking within the professional and business-minded towing and recovery industry. I'm your co-host, dj Harrington, better known as the Tow Doctor, and my other host is Wes Wilburn, over 40-year towing industry veteran, the founder of American Towing Recovery Institute of Fayetteville, north Carolina. He has produced and conducted training and certification programs for leading towing companies, equipment distributors, towing associations, dot, fire departments, rescue, as well as military installations across the United States. Wes has been published over 100 times in major towing publications published over 100 times in major towing publications. Wes has developed many courses, including the most recent awareness-level course for all responders that specialize in electric vehicles as well as hybrid, natural gas and hydrogen vehicles. Wes has provided insight as the main speaker for over 30 years at more than 900 training classes and has been recognized as one of America's greatest towing trainers. He is well known for his straightforward but down-to-earth teaching style.
Speaker 1:No-transcript. Without further ado, here's my dear friend and a great guy for our industry, wes Wilkins. Well, dj, as always, you're way too kind with your introduction. I mean.
Speaker 1:I certainly appreciate your kind words. Just got back from Cleveland, ohio, over the weekend, did a class up there, dj and first of all, driving up there, I drove instead of flew. You know you got the strike going on at Charlotte Airport. I was afraid of that maybe possibly affecting my flight so I just decided to drive. You know Cleveland's right there eight hours, so it's right on the verge of being as efficient a drive as it is to fly. So I drove up there and I got delayed behind a major wreck in West Virginia. I was going to sit down for a couple hours.
Speaker 1:But by the time I got up into Ohio it was snowing and as I got closer to where I was going, just outside of Cleveland, it was snowing. And it was snowing First time I was driven late at night in a driving snowstorm, I tell you kind of got the old heart percolating a little bit. So we got up there and did a two-day school at a trucking company that just bought a tow truck and going to tow their vehicles with it. So we had a real good school. Jt Reasoner came out and helped me and we did a lot of hands-on with them towing their vehicles that they owned. And then I left just a little bit before training was over.
Speaker 1:On Saturday Everybody said you know they had it, it was under control, go ahead and get out of here, since I was going to try to drive maybe all the way home or part of the way home. So I got in that vehicle, dj got filled up with fuel, got something to eat and, you know, put it in cruise control and eased on down the highway. Wasn't running super fast, but I wasn't wasting no time either, and I got all the way back into North Carolina and I had experience that, I have to say, really made me take perspective.
Speaker 1:I'm traveling 70 miles an hour, probably in a 65 zone or whatever, but I'm boogieing right along is what I'm saying to you, my rural highway limited access highway and I just looked down at the podcast. I looked back up, thank God a minute or two earlier. No way back to anything, but I'm looking. I guess I mentioned looking down at the podcast of how things could have been different than it happened a minute earlier.
Speaker 1:So I'm driving down the road and I'm looking and getting ready to enter a construction zone and there's a car coming at me and it's a two lane road. There's nobody in my right hand lane, so I jump over real quick and zoom, the car goes by me. And I jump over real quick and zoom, the car goes by me. I'm looking, thinking, man, what's going on here? And long story short, apparently they were not. Apparently there was a northbound car in the southbound lane.
Speaker 1:Oh, my Nearly missed the head-on collision, like I said one minute earlier, where I glanced down for a second switching a podcast. I would have missed that beat. So I got to tell you everybody, take some perspective on how close things can be. And then, from that point on which I drove in, let's say, six hours or the eight hour trip, I don't believe I saw one police officer up until that incident. Then, as I got closer to home and it got later on the Saturday night, more police out, more police out, more police out, which, you know, thinking back to selling days, saturday night was always a busy time for selling for the police.
Speaker 1:Long story short, I feel like I dodged a bullet by a split second Because I'm telling you you know they were coming up and they didn't slow down or anything. There were bullets going northbound. I called the state police and it had been reported by other people, so hopefully they got him stopped. Holy moly, that was a close call.
Speaker 2:It's as close as you can get I mean head-on collision is if you're going 70 miles an hour and they're going. I didn't do that kind of math when I was in school because I hated it, but that's probably not survivable.
Speaker 1:It was a big vehicle too. I've done that for years taught a class, gotten in the vehicle and driven home. You know, one of the things is this was a Friday-Saturday class. Normally it's a Saturday-Sunday, so that driving home on a Sunday night is a piece of a pie difference too. Anyway, it gave me fresh energy. I feel thankful there's a good Lord out there looking out for me. It just gave me some perspective about life. I do need to focus and get things accomplished that I want to get accomplished. But we had a great school up there. I survived the snow okay. Got home to my lovely wife, april. Speaking of April, she's got some news stories she's going to read for us.
Speaker 2:So, speaking of near misses and Hambridge Heights, hambridge Heights towing owner, bill Hambridge this is out of Plainwall, michigan had not a near miss, he actually got hit. He got hit by a car While Hambridge was hooking into a disabled vehicle. Officials said a westbound traveling vehicle crashed into the disabled vehicle which then crashed into the wrecker. This one, bill Hambridge 15 feet into the air also moved the wrecker. This one, bill Hambrick's 15 feet into the air also moved the wrecker 15 feet ahead. Bill says this has happened to him four or five times over the past 40 years. It's never been his fault. It's always somebody that runs into him or something. But that's definitely leaves that 360 degree. Uh, head on a swivel. Head on a swivel, definitely Uh.
Speaker 2:The driver of the third vehicle was cited for failure to move over to an emergency vehicle and a civil infraction. Um, the driver violated Michigan's move over law which requires motorists to slow down and move into an open lane when passing stationary emergency vehicles. Apparently this has happened a couple times in in michigan because earlier that week barry and gilligan's towing in grand rapids, there was a crash between a tow truck driver and a vehicle happened. The Tuesday before that. The company said a tow truck driver was hit while responding to a crash and the impact tossed them into the road while they were loading up a vehicle.
Speaker 2:And then we interviewed Matt Finster last year, right after this had happened. His son was killed. It's a similar thing, but not exactly. He was on the side of the road and he got hit. Later that month that man that hit him was sentenced after pleading no contest to a crash that hit and killed the tow truck driver, killed the tow truck driver. We had, like I said, we had Matt win a podcast last year right after this happened, maybe a week or two after this happened, and DJ and I were both at the Wall of the Fallen this year where his name was put on the wall. Dj, wasn't that just so emotional?
Speaker 1:Yeah, very much so April, Just like every year, but it was a little bit more because Matt Spencer had spoken on our podcast about his son and about the whole situation and it was moving. The ceremony was moving, but we knew these people and so all of a sudden now it's a whole different ballgame.
Speaker 1:And when that family let go, the balloon that flew in the air. All the people were in tears because this is something that we have to address with our brothers and sisters in the towing industry that are involved. Work in the white line, you never know. That's why safety is such a big push by Wes Wilber.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he definitely does have it in every training seminar that he does, and it's like it's second nature with with us. So you cannot have too much. You cannot have too much safety in other news I'm going to have west to um to uh help me with this. When we did, we read an article the other day about one of the last podcasts about a towing company in Columbus, Georgia Coles Towing, that overcharged a little bit to the young lady.
Speaker 1:Well, we don't want to say overcharged, we don't know, but the bill was $4,000 to remove the car from a flower bed. To remove the car from a flower bed, and they had to. On a recorded line they shared with everybody that. They told the young lady that the car had to come back for an insurance company to inspect it. So anyway, long story short, the $4,000 bill. They re-upped it to make it a $9,000 bill and then they ended up taking the car back to her for $200.
Speaker 1:So and this comes from the towing company, this information comes from the towing company itself. So that was just an update on a story last week. Now here's a story where a similar situation happened north of the border up in Canada and I'm going to read that story and our guest after the break I'm going to ask him for his opinion on it sounds like a very similar situation. A young person has their car towed. They had for a week's storage. It was $5,000 for one week of storage. Everybody knows a mall for towning companies being profitable, but sometimes we've seen situations with extreme charges. But there was a second investigation from the OPP, which is the Ontario Provincial Police, and then it says advertisement and then it says Southway Towing is facing the following charges so operated.
Speaker 1:Charged in demand of payment without consent. Vehicle storage operator. Failure to obtain consent. Vehicle storage operator. Failure to obtain consent. Vehicle storage operator. Failure to comply with prescribed access requirements. It goes on with several others. The last one is it falls under the vehicle storage operator. Fail to make reasonable efforts to release vehicle upon request. Failure to make fail to make reasonable efforts to release vehicle upon request. From what I see, the Canadians look at operating a towing company completely different than it does down here in the state. Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.
Speaker 2:We'll talk about that with our guests. And then the last thing, and this is in Toronto. It says two truck drivers in the Toronto area are being illegally taxed, and then the word tax is in. Quotations from other companies have seen some forced to pay thousands and, according to at least two sources in the industry, have contributed to a rash of violence in recent months, including at least one fatal shooting. The sources one operator and one driver spoke to the Star on the condition of anonymity, citing a fear for their safety. So this seems pretty severe. Apparently there's laws that they put in place for that, but they figured a way around the rules and the regulations to still get this money from other towers. It says this is on the 400 series highways and what tells me it's like the 401, those types. That might be something that we can delve into a little bit too.
Speaker 2:Yeah with our guests, absolutely With our guests, yeah.
Speaker 1:So why don't we take a quick break? And right after the break we'll come back and introduce our returning guests.
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Speaker 1:Welcome back listeners. You're listening to the American Tone Recovery Institute podcast with Wes Wilburn and April Wilburn and DJ Harrington. Every week, we do our best to bring you informative episodes like the one right now. Informative episodes like the one right now. Make sure you download and listen for events on Spotify, itunes, pandora, stitcher, iart Media, amazon or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1:So, without further ado, let me pass it over to our main man, wes Wilburn. Thank you, dj, and I do want to thank all our loyal listeners 16,000 subscribers now. We, you, dj, and I do want to thank all our loyal listeners 16,000 subscribers now. We certainly appreciate that. If you like it, hit that like button, share it and, most of all, subscribe if you haven't already subscribed.
Speaker 1:We really appreciate that Well we have a friend of the podcast guest returning Anytime. We want to know what's going on in the northern border we can get to Billy Ganji Abramson up in Toronto. Been on the third time here, right, joey. Yeah, yeah, third, at least third time, I think I feel like I'm on there all the time.
Speaker 1:God bless you. We appreciate you taking time out of your day and I apologize I'm not a little bit more prepared. I should have had that pulled up. How many times? I believe it's the third time. If it's the fourth, I apologize, but we're happy to have you back. For our listeners that haven't heard you before, give us a little introduction of who you are, how you got involved with the towing industry and where you are today with with your business. Yeah, I'm Joey Gagne, president of Abrams Towing. President of the Canadian Towing Association. I've been in the business for about 40 years. I grew up as a towing brat. I rode around the tow truck with my dad and learned the industry from the passenger seat and then from the driver's seat, and I dispatched, I managed my business and so on and so forth. I'm still doing it today. We're a third generation, my son working with me and, yeah, still looking away at it and I love it and yeah, that's what I do.
Speaker 1:Tell us a little bit about the size of your operation. I know you've grown it quite a bit from where you took it over from Tyler. Yeah, I started with one truck back in 1984, and we grew the towing to about 200 trucks and then we also have a transport division which has about 100 trucks. So we do light heavy medium, we do recoveries, we do a lot of law enforcement towing, we do private tow aways, we do some roadsides, we do pretty much everything you can think of. We have a number of compounds. We run an auction as well for the cars that we have. We do a lot of training, we do a lot of stuff that every tow-er needs to do and a few other things that we do as a tow-er and a transporter.
Speaker 1:Well, it sounds like you got your hands full there. Yeah, we're working hard. We're working hard all the time. It seems like we're working all the time. Yeah, I can respect that and not only working all the time on your own business. It sounds like you have time to volunteer for the towing association as well. Yeah, I've been involved in all the towing associations that we've had here for the last 40 years in Canada, or the ones in my area anyways and we created a national association a number of years ago to try and help each other in different regions. Canada is such a huge area, very much like the States. We have people on the West Coast, the East Coast and Central, so trying to get our people understanding that everybody has the same problems wherever they are.
Speaker 1:If you're in Vancouver, if you're in Halififax or if you're in Toronto or Montreal, a lot of towers have the same issues and we, you know, a lot of times we think we're working in a silo. We don't know that everyone else has the exact same problem. So there's a lot of unique solutions that we come up with and we like to share that information amongst each other very much, like this podcast, share information with tours and make them come up with solutions to the problems that they might have and make their lives a lot easier. So I love being part of an association and offering those types of solutions to people and learning things about my own business as well that I may not be aware of. That's a good outlook and I definitely agree. There's so much to gain from when you participate with an association. It amazes me that more folks aren't involved. So what's going on up there? We had a couple of news articles. We read what. We've come back to comment on them, but just in general, what's going on up there? We had a couple of news articles. We'll come back and comment on them, but just in general, what's going on?
Speaker 1:Well in Ontario? I mean, we're having a lot of issues all over the country and, like in Alberta, they're having a lot of chasing, which seems to have taken over. Which seems to have taken over and a lot of people are complaining that that's because in Ontario, which is our province, that we're in, where Toronto is, in Ontario, we have a new regulation that came in last year that regulates a lot of the. It's like a license that regulates a lot of the. It's like a license, and it is a license that regulates how we operate and some of the responsibilities we have to the consumer when we do provide our services. And that has resulted in some towers that can't meet the standards moving to areas where they're not regulated. So that's created some problems in some of those other areas.
Speaker 1:But to you know, to address some of the issues that you mentioned, definitely the regulation has created a different environment than we've had in the past. There's some people that are getting on board and some people that aren't. So the thing I read about the car being stored and the charges coming from the OPP, that's a new situation. Well, those problems were happening and have been happening for a number of years, where there's some towers that you know, kind of just do their own thing and the church is considered to be outside the norm for the rates and then they're holding people hostage to get their car back. So the new regulations kind of addresses a lot of those issues and this person seems to have run afoul of the new regulations and allowed themselves to get you know, to get themselves in significant trouble because of the new regulations and also because you know they're going outside of what is reasonable. I mean there's reasonable pricing and then there's unreasonable pricing and I am a big proponent for getting you know getting what you need to get paid to make a living.
Speaker 1:But there is also some business models that aren't quite as reasonable as others. That's a very nice way of saying it, very accurate as well.
Speaker 2:So I have a question to ask. You said Toronto came up with new legislation.
Speaker 1:The province did. The province of Ontario is a huge province. It's like the size, population-wise, of, say, new York State and it's about the size of Texas.
Speaker 1:It's huge and we have a regulation that covers the whole province, including all the cities of Toronto, the largest city in Canada, and happens to be located in Ontario. So we've got, I don't know, somewhere in the Toronto area, somewhere around 10 or 12 million people, and the regulation covers all of the tourism in the whole province of Ontario and this operator that you're talking about it's from Ottawa, which is actually the capital city of Canada. It's also at the far end of the province, so it's about 300 miles away from where my head office and this operator. He's regulated by the same regulation that I am and he obviously, you know, has a different business model. Right, sounds like it.
Speaker 1:That's a good explanation, though, because Ontario I've traveled it a little bit is vast, as can be, and very spiritually populated in most areas, until you get to somewhere like Toronto, which is just as dense, population wise as New York City or anywhere else. One of the things about Toronto that I remember was the huge I guess they're calling them the 400 series highways with six and eight lanes at some points in both directions. Yeah, we have huge highways here. We have some of the biggest highways in North America, and we have half a million people a day driving by, driving along, close to where I am, the main highway 401. There's about half a million people a day driving that route.
Speaker 1:Half a million cars, Half a million cars. Yeah, that's very intense. That's in the Hoping, like ours. Yeah, that's great intense incident management challenges, I'm sure. Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1:Any comments about the other article we read? Well, I mean, I would say the one you're talking about with this guy holding people hostage. I mean I think that the regulation will address that, and the one you're talking about with this tax. How's like extortion? Yeah, I have heard of this for a while.
Speaker 1:I've heard of towers being it's not on the 401, because the 401, we have a tow system like an exclusive tow system, where certain contractors have different areas. It's very exclusive. You're not allowed to go on those areas. It's very similar to other areas that you have in the States with their police trip systems. So we have another toll highway that runs through the city of Toronto and I think that's where this is happening.
Speaker 1:I've heard about it in a number of different areas, about this taxation. So these are criminals basically trying to control certain strips of area where they're saying, well, you can't work in this area, otherwise we'll do something to you, and I think that they're making side agreements with you guys and saying, hey, pay me a little bit of money, you can sit on that corner and you can sit on that corner and you can sit on that corner, and I've heard secondhand a lot about it, but it's not a new issue. But it's a horrible issue because obviously we believe in free enterprise and if you're doing your job properly, you should be able to function and operate anywhere that anyone else is. Absolutely.
Speaker 1:I figured that was what was going on with that, but I just wanted to hear from someone who had a very dire view of the situation. Yeah, it's horrible. It's the idea that somebody's you know beating somebody up or hurting somebody or threatening somebody. For that reason, we're going to take a quick break. Can you hang around for a break? I'll be here.
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Speaker 1:Welcome back listeners, of course. Just like Wes Wilburn said, thank you for sharing this podcast with your friends. Please like and review it and share everywhere. If you hear one of the industry experts, like a Joey Garnier from Canada, by all means dial the hotline number in the podcast center 706-409-5603. Now Wes, we had one listener that actually called and wanted to know.
Speaker 2:Could you explain a little bit more about that accident or that tow?
Speaker 1:in Columbus, Georgia, where it first started at $4,000, then went up to $9,000.
Speaker 1:And evidently, as you were saying, they settled for $200. Could you share a little bit more so that our listener understands what you're actually referring to? Well, all I can really do is verify that your numbers are correct. They sound really off-base to me as well, but that's what this story says. Well, the original story we read, I guess last week or the week before I guess it was last week the original story talked about it was a $4,000 bill and it went to $9,000 because they put a $5,100 charge for legal fees.
Speaker 1:Oh my Apparently, according to this article I don't know, is the newspaper local?
Speaker 2:It was a local news article that I read in Columbus Georgia, but I have a feeling having articles in the paper, in the local paper, because the young lady that owned the car was also being interviewed. I have a feeling that has something to do with them just trying to get make her pay the minimum $200 and just be done with it.
Speaker 1:Well, whatever the motives are, it's horrible business practice. It looks horrible. That's just a horrible situation in my mind. Do you all have situations like that up there, joey? Yeah, I mean those type of situations are offensive. I mean it's horrible that the person I want the tour to get paid.
Speaker 1:I think that that's important to any of us that are towers that have been in this business for many, many years. We want to make sure that the towers get paid a fair rate. But I mean, when you get into a dispute and your price goes from $4,000 to $9,000, it almost seems abusive. You know, not knowing the situation 100%, you know I always wonder 100. You know, I always wonder. You know what led to them think that that would be reasonable and then to back down to the point where you go 200.
Speaker 1:Was it really a 200 total in the beginning or was? Was it really a four thousand dollar toll or was it really? You know? And if it was a 200 total in in the beginning, then why are you escalating to that point? And if it's really a $4,000 toll, then stick to your guns. I mean, if you're entitled to that money, you're entitled to that money, and if you have to go to court or you've got to do something. We've all been down that road. It's not pretty right. Sometimes you get into situations where you get into a dispute with a customer and the customer gets in a dispute with you as the vendor.
Speaker 1:But I mean, you're entitled to get paid for the work you do. Just make sure you can justify it, and one of the first justifications is making sure that you know there's a norm to what you do.
Speaker 1:If the going rate for the services is $200 an hour and you're charging $2,000 an hour, then how do you justify that? What's the difference between you and someone else? And if you've put in 10 hours and you use your heavy rotator or something like that, then $4,000 is nothing. That's cheap. So what was the driving factor and why is it that you feel that you're like? What drove you to drop your pants to $200? That just seems unreasonable. I don't think you could do a service for $200. I don't care what you're doing.
Speaker 2:I did agree with.
Speaker 1:And I think sometimes the difference in the price charge is based on who's paying it and I believe that is the worst of all. It should be the same emergency service rate is the same emergency service rate, no matter who's paying it. Yeah, and you also want to make sure that you know, like, how does this get to the paper and to the media in such a way that you're the bad guy? Because if you're not the bad guy and it's just a dispute, then you should be able to justify your invoicing. I always tell my people, you know, when you're writing an invoice, these are the parameters, these are our rates for these different services. Make sure that you've got, you know, documentation and pictures and things that justify what we're going to charge. And if you've done that, you know, stand your ground. And if you haven't done that, I mean there's a somewhere in the middle between $200 and $4,000, and I don't know what it is, but there's just no justification for going from $4,000 to $200 unless you're doing something wrong. That's all I can say. It just seems very wrong, or somebody is leveraging you and you're letting yourself be manipulated or taken advantage of.
Speaker 1:The tollers deserve to get paid. As I said, $200 is not. I don't do a lot for $200, right, I wouldn't do all. I definitely wouldn't be doing a recovery for $200. Well, we totally agree with that and I'm glad you're so open about talking about on the subject. A lot of people shy away from it, but it's a very good subject. You know your true cost, you calculate it. You know what it costs to run a mile. It's very, very difficult to start the truck up and go do a call for under $200.
Speaker 1:Listen, I learned from the knee of Donnie Cruz, who's a good friend of mine, canadian boy. He always gave me grief for not charging enough. When I first started a business he always said make sure you know what your costs are, make sure you run your business properly, make sure you're charging for your services and don't feel bad to be the guy that charges. Feel uh, uh bad to be the guy that charges a little more than everybody else, but make sure you can justify it. If you can't justify it, you know because you, you, you, you haven't done your, your work, you're putting yourself, you're hurting yourself, you're not hurting the client and you're, and you really make yourself, uh, you know the victim of, of, uh, your own, uh, you know the victim of your own, you know your own circumstances because you know you're entitled to get paid. You did the work, get paid for it, but do the work to make sure that people can trust you right.
Speaker 1:They feel like you did what you did, and these rates are reasonable.
Speaker 2:You're only hurting yourself when you do that. You're hurting your company if you own it, because as profit they can go back into benefits, insurance tires. If you're the employee, you're hurting yourself too, because if it's a commission call then that's a little bit less than you're making and also you're hurting your employer, which also goes into benefits. You know things like that to improve your, your trust. You're getting equipment. So being fair and charging a fair price just makes your company a little bit better because it helps the economics all the way around 100, yeah, and a lot of people don't see that.
Speaker 1:They don't see what it actually you know, just when we talk about numbers, of course we're just talking around numbers. We're not saying that's what anybody should charge. But people don't understand. Someone like yourself and other operators are paying a living wage taking care of their employees, running safe trucks up and down the road, participating in their employees running safe trucks up and down the road, participating in their communities, probably donating cars to the fire department and all kinds of other stuff. That people don't see behind the scenes when they hear the price of an average tow, which, you know, as you say, the price of just a starting point of an average tow has gone up tremendously. This is a starting point of what I would tell has gone up tremendously. Well, to your point, people think when you come there and give them a booster or a lockout or a tire change or you do these other services, they're paying for that half an hour or hour that you spend there, but they're paying for all the time before, all the prep time, paying for the piece of equipment that got you there. They're paying for all your training, your experience, your knowledge, all the things that you have had to build up. That didn't just come to you, you know in a, you know in a in a dream, right? It all came from a lot of work and effort and investment along the way. So all that stuff has to be part of how you build for, and you know you're entitled to get paid for all the costs that are related to running your business, building your business, growing your business and sustaining your business. That's very well said. It really is. Well, joey, we definitely appreciate you being here.
Speaker 1:Anything, tell us what's going on with the association. Do you all have any meetings coming up or shows this summer? Well, we do a trade show every summer with our provincial association. They always do a trade show which is like a tow show in Kitchener, ontario, and it's a great show. They do a great show every year. And then we're doing. The Canadian Towing Association has built a relationship with the government through this organization called ThriveWise and we're doing. All the tow trucks in Ontario have to be do a preliminary training, certification course, not really training, it's more of like a proof that you've done training, a proof that you have experience or knowledge. And we built we built a relationship with this organization, drivewise and we're helping to manage that process Because the government wants.
Speaker 1:I think we have 7,500 tow truck drivers in Ontario and they want them all to have done some sort of certification course to prove that they've got the basic knowledge of the regulation and basic knowledge of how a tow truck works.
Speaker 1:So we're putting a lot of effort into that and that's really probably where most of our efforts are at the current time. It's been a lot. It's been really a lot to take in when the government gets a hold of you. They got you by the tail and now they're figuring ways to tax us on all this stuff. So we've got to make sure we're managing that. We're doing a lot of lobbying, making sure that the government understands that we want to be part of the process to make sure that they don't overreach. We believe they've overreached a bit already, but a lot of it's in response to the criminality and stuff like that that's been happening with co-operators that were taking advantage of the consumers or each other.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, we've got our hands full. Lots going on with the association Boy, it sounds like it. If somebody wants to get involved with the association, how do they get more information? They can just go to the Canadian Towing Association. Canadian Towing Association. We have a website, We've got a Facebook page and you can join up right on the website. And if you want to do the certification courses and stuff like that, you can do it directly through us. We'll organize it for you. And there's three vendors there's us, there's RecMaster and then there's another organization called C3CA.
Speaker 1:That we're the ones that have the best deal. We're the ones that are putting it together a very aggressive program that allows the towers to do their own training or certification. So I can attest to my driver's experience. So if he does a Wes Wilbering course, I can attest to my driver's experience. So if he does a Wes Wilbering course, I can attest that he's done that course, he has these skills and that he's qualified.
Speaker 1:Then he just goes online, does a government-mandated online course and then, he can get certified online course and then uh, and then you can get certified.
Speaker 1:So, uh, um, I can do that. The way we built it is that I can be, I can get myself certified, or my company can have certified trainers that can verify and certify that these operators have already. They already have their experience, whether it's pre-existing experience or some training that we have to provide either ourselves or through a third party. So we've we created that relationship with the government through the Ministry of Transportation, so that our association has the ability to empower each tower, each towing company, to provide their own certification, which is really a big thing, because we want to use everyone's training. But we also want to be able to certify experienced operators as well, without them having to go back to the drawing board, which is really the big thing, because Ontario is so big like I said, it's like the size of Texas. There's some towers that are 1,000 miles away from other towers and the training is not necessarily coming to a rural Ontario, so it makes it more cost-effective for them.
Speaker 2:It sounds like it's giving a little bit of autonomy back to the tow companies as well.
Speaker 1:Which is really a good thing, especially with your geographical situation. That system sounds like it makes a lot of sense. Yeah, we want the towers to be able to have that certain amount of control. They're going to have to go outsource other training. Everybody does it, I do it, we use your training, we use other training, we find training, there's training within all different organizations, but you need to be able to control some of your own destiny, and towers are independent by nature and they're all over the place. We want to make sure they can do some of it online, some of it hands-on in their own yards. That gives them that autonomy, as you mentioned, which I think is really, really important as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, absolutely Well, joe, I appreciate you giving us time out of your day.
Speaker 1:We are going to have you on a little bit more regular basis. As we talked about earlier, we're trying to focus on the news, the daily news, on a weekly basis and definitely we got a whole lot of news from you, so I can't thank you for coming on and sharing with us anything you'd like to say in uh party. I want to thank you for having me on. I really appreciate you guys doing a great job and keep getting the message out there. The industry, thank you. Thank you, joe, it was really a pleasure.