Trucking & Covid 19: The Border - I

This post is for my non trucker friends. This post is not meant as an exhaustive and detailed account of exactly how our supply chain works but it is a view from the front line, a view probably a little different than what you hear from experts and academics. It's an opinion formed from my daily experience over the past 21 years, for what it is worth.

We have to realise that for many years now we have been integrating our supply chain with our neighbours to the south and increasingly with our neighbours across the globe. But those are words that mean little to most of us. That's because right now we are in a situation that sees us recognise that we have to maintain trade & commerce to get the medical supplies, food, and everyday products we all need to those that need it most. But it's not just about the finished products like respirators for those that have fallen ill and the personal protective equipment (PPE) for the health care workers caring for those that have fallen ill. We have to also keep all the products moving that make up those finished products. Let me give you an example.

A few weeks ago I picked up 42,000 pounds of a single ingredient in Minnesota that is used to supplement poultry feed. This single product, if we look at it as it crosses the border, is not important in comparison to the respirator or the PPE we need right now. But our poultry producers here in southern Ontario can't produce the chicken & turkey products you'll be wanting 3 months from now without that ingredient that is crossing the border today. Can that product go to the back of the line in terms of getting across the border today or tomorrow? Yes it can. Can we stop importing or exporting that product until the pandemic is over? No.

It's important for everyone not to think of only the finished products that are sitting in the warehouses ready for shipment but to think of all of the ingredients that make up those products and keep up the steady flow of products into our homes and businesses that we consume everyday and depend on for our incomes and all of the jobs in turn that depend on that income. We are interdependent. We cannot forget that. You may be physically isolated right now to protect yourself and your neighbours but you remain fully connected to your neighbours and your community despite that isolation. So it's just as important to keep all the raw materials and parts flowing that are part of that respirator or surgical mask or make up the meal you want to feed your family tonight. It's also important to keep all those other things moving that you may not think are important but your livelihoods depend on even though you may not realise it. You may be off work now but you need everything in place when you return to public life in order to pick up where you left off and you need to depend on the supply chain to keep you sheltered and fed in the meantime.

Please don't practice excessive hoarding. Your simply stressing the supply chain and confusing a system that is strong and robust in its own right. Think of your neighbours. Please conduct yourself from a place of compassion for others and not fear for yourself. We can all care for one another through this and adapt as we move forward, but if we just shut everything down or panic and think of ourselves only then the system starts to collapse.

As I said at the outset of this post, I am not an expert. I'm just a regular guy doing my thing just like the rest of you. I have a window that gives me a view of the front line and wanted to share. It's worth stepping back and thinking before acting. Don't make a crisis worse by overreacting. Please.