The Trucker Quality Assurance program was developed by the National Pork Board to assist truckers in understanding the specific needs of pigs and how they react to the transportation process.

It covers everything from handling to condition of trucks and facilities to driver attitude.

Sask Pork has offered certification under the TQA program since the spring of 2005 and will now add the Certified Livestock Transport Addendum to its training.

Sask Pork Producers Services Manager Harvey Wagner notes CLT was created to address specific Canadian transportation considerations.

Harvey Wagner-Saskatchewan Pork Development Board

The Certified Livestock Transport Addendum was developed through Alberta Farm Animal Council in consultation with the Farm Animal Councils in Saskatchewan and Ontario with a whole number of different advisors.

It was viewed to be an addendum for Canadian conditions regarding the cold weather transport and Canadian laws and regulations.

Our laws are clearly somewhat different and we work under different circumstances.

Hours of transport right now are slightly different.

Who's responsible for what animals.

If there's a problem who's responsible for what and, of course, there's not many areas in the U.S. that get as cold as what we have in Canada so there are specific things that you have to do in cold weather, how you board up the truck and how many animals you load and how you do that kind of thing so there's a number of different situations here.

Wagner notes Sask Pork will offer both TQA and CLT certification and, while the certified livestock training won't be mandatory, it is very useful and gives a good background of circumstances and specific conditions in Canada, with cold weather transport in particular.