The trucking industry is honoured for all the attention and respect given to it by Canadians during this very challenging year.

In response to all the love shown on truck drivers for their invaluable service throughout 2020 – the kind words and waves from cars on the highway; the #thankatrucker social media posts; and even the meals delivered to rest stops when the continent shut down – the Canadian Trucking Alliance and Trucks for Change (T4C) are urging our industry to pay it forward this holiday season.

“CTA wants to show how our industry is giving back to Canadians and how grateful we are for all the support we have received during this difficult year,” said CTA Chair Jean Claude Fortin.

To show our appreciation to Canadians, CTA and T4C are imploring carriers to get involved in a local charity or company initiative that helps those in need this Christmas and then promote it online.

Over the next month, CTA will highlight on social media all the good deeds by our industry during the Holidays. Some of these include annual carrier traditions (18 Wheels of Christmas) while others are standalone acts by companies and their employees like organizing a toy drives or volunteering to collect or sort food at a local food bank, says CTA’s BRTF Chair, Doug Sutherland, who will liaison between CTA and T4C to champion this effort among the industry and raise awareness for the need to support communities this holiday season.

“Thousands of people came forward in unprecedented ways to express their gratitude to our industry this year. This is our chance to say ‘thank you’ back,” said Sutherland.

Regardless of event, CTA and T4C wants to collect images and event descriptions from CTA carriers to post on our social media accounts. Each post will be tagged with the popular hashtags #ThankaTrucker and #TruckersPayitforward. We have developed a toolkit to assist carriers with participation in this campaign, advice to posting to social media and provide suggestions/guidance/contacts for activities they could get involved with.

“T4C has been helping carriers participate in many charitable acts for years, but we think getting involved is more important now than ever,” said T4C Chair Scott Smith. “I don’t think it’s lost on anyone at many of our carrier companies that we are part of ‘the lucky ones’ while other areas of the economy have been decimated by COVID-19 shutdowns and restrictions. At the same time, charitable support infrastructure is being strained to the limit, so every bit of extra involvement our industry can provide will be extremely helpful to those in need.”