Transportation: don’t take it for granted

Program offers students a chance to learn
from experts in rail, trucking, air industries

By Derek Sankey

Most of us take transportation for granted; we just assume that people and goods will get from one point to the next. But a crisis such as a flu pandemic could bring Canada’s air, rail and trucking firms to a halt, at the cost of millions of dollars.

The transportation sector is also affected by complex—and shifting—regulatory structures, which have the capacity to affect millions of citizens.

These are just a few of the issues being contemplated by students in a transportation law course offered across several University of Calgary faculties, including the law school.
“Transportation is a matter that really touches everything,” says Peter Wallis, president and chief executive of the Van Horne Institute. “This could be a course for engineering, environmental design or economics. ”

Wallis helped implement the transportation law course four years ago with the help of Calgary lawyer Laura Safran to expose students from a range of faculties to the massive impact that the transportation industry has on all of our lives.

Crumbling infrastructure, “creeping re-regulation,” an acute shortage of workers and the struggle to create a better, more competitive logistics industry were some of the topics raised by top industry professionals from companies such as WestJet, Canadian Freightways and Canadian Pacific Railway at the course ’s wrap-up session in downtown Calgary recently.

Practitioners talked to students about the major issues facing the sector and pondered what impact a flu pandemic would have on an industry that could lose half of its workforce in such a crisis.
“ What happens at your local [convenience store] when that supply is disrupted and the staff is not on the job?” asked Darshan Kailly, president and chief executive of Canadian Freightways. Just-in-time delivery, for example, relies on timely, seamless delivery systems.

It was clear their messages were getting through to the students, who probed them with questions.

“Transportation is one of the areas I knew very little about and this course seemed to cover everything—rail, trucking, air—so I found it really interesting,” says Inna Lazman, a 24-year-old law student at the University of Calgary.

Lazman says the course—offered to second- and third-year students—was an excellent introduction to the scope of the industry.

“ This is a unique learning experience because you have practitioners teaching the course and people working in this field on a day-to-day basis to discuss candidly some issues that they face, ” says Wallis.

Safran, who teaches aviation law to the students, works for Fraser Milner Casgrain LLP and brings her own unique perspective to the course. She teaches with Paul Guthry of CPR and Alex McWilliam of Fraser Milner Casgrain.

“What the students glean out of all of this is a thread of commonality that runs throughout all of these modes of transportation,” says Safran.

The course is offered every winter semester and enrols between seven to 18 students from various faculties. Wallis hopes to expand that number by encouraging more faculties to get involved. “It has the opportunity to be a course of importance for many other faculties,” he says.