Partnership puts Native people in the driver's seat

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Almost two decades ago, the Saskatchewan government declared that mines' surface leases must bring benefits to northern groups. Joint ventures and partnerships began to spring up in the northern part of the province. Northern Resource Trucking was one. The Company is a limited partnership between Trimac, with a 29-per cent share, and 11 northern-Aboriginal groups with the remainder.

"These northern people have organized their resources to put together a company that provides a service to the uranium mine so that the activity of mining can deliver a benefit to their home communities," said Dave McIlmoyl, vice-president of Northern Resources Trucking (NRT).

"NRT started in 1986. The Lac La Ronge Indian Band, through its economic development arm Kitsaki Development Corporation, was trucking to Key Lake uranium mine. The Kitsaki group was encouraged to talk to Trimac Transportation by the Key Lake mining staff, to become partners," said McIlmoyl. "We put together a company and each threw our contracts into it.

Northern Resource Trucking was born."

In 1986, Saskatchewan's northern residents were underemployed-a situation that allowed NRT to easily fulfill its mandate of hiring and training northerners. The company has trained nearly 100 drivers to date. Today, NRT's employees and independent contractors total 106, with northerners accounting for 30 per cent.

NRT experiences the industry's typical trucker turnover for-well, typical reasons. Competition to get truck drivers is tough industry-wide. Then when the romance of trucking wears off, many drivers leave the business.

"The trucking industry is a 24/7 operation. You're away from home and you have to work far longer than an office worker," said McIlmoyl.

Some truckers head for higher paying jobs at the uranium mines. Others return home to work in the community, for bands, or to establish their own businesses. NRT also loses drivers who become owner-operators. The company supports this success.

"We're 71 per cent northern Aboriginal-owned; any time you can take one of your band members or community members and give them training that allows them to obtain a head-of-household type job where they can earn a wage to support their family, it's a good thing," said McIlmoyl.

In fact, the company goes out of its way to help its employees become owners.

"A lot of the funding programs, like Aboriginal Business Canada or Indian Affairs, require a 10 per cent down payment. If you're buying a truck that's $150,000, 10 per cent is $15,000. People just don't have that," said McIlmoyl. "So what we've done is taken company trucks that are a couple of years old, got an appraisal on them, and sold them for the appraised value." NRT requires no down payment.

This might be good from a northerner perspective, but from a corporate perspective, migration can be problematic.

"Sometimes it is a bit of a strain to be continually training people," said McIlmoyl. "But," he added philosophically, "NRT is a training company."

The company had almost achieved 50 per cent northern employment but, because of the rapid growth of its fleet, NRT could not keep up with the demand for truck drivers.

In 2004, "We paid $1.2 million in company wages and we paid another $8 million in leased operator pay," said McIlmoyl.

"We just bought four new trucks this year for $120,000 apiece. For some of our lease operators who like a little more chrome and a few bells and knobs and whirlies, they paid $150,000," he chuckled. NRT owns about twice the number of trailers as trucks, which cost in the neighbourhood of a quarter-of-a-million dollars apiece.

New contracts keep flowing in and the company keeps branching out.

"We do all of the work for Cameco and Cogema," said McIlmoyl. "We do some ice road work in the winter. For the last number of years we have hauled everything into Claude Resources Seabee Gold Mine, as well as propane and fuel for northern communities. We aso haul lumber for Wapawekka Saw Mill in Prince Albert."

"When things were slow in the uranium business because of the low price of uranium," he said, "we diversified into the forestry industry and started a company called Woodland Tree Logging Partnership; NRT owns 29.99 per cent. And we are a contractor for Weyerhauser."

NRT, including Woodland Tree Logging, draws annual revenues of $25 million. Despite the ups and downs in the industry, NRT is obviously doing something right.

"Our twentieth anniversary is coming up next year," said McIlmoyl. "If you survive that long, you do become a well-financed organization that can look after itself. Either that or you fail in the trucking business."