At School Districts 41 and 43 in Burnaby and Coquitlam, where bus service is provided on an outsourced basis through a contract with Cardinal Transportation, a new agreement between the districts and the bus company stipulates that drivers over 65 must not drive on routes serving schools in the two communities.

“Nobody is losing their job,” insists Dex Hallwood, director of purchasing for the Coquitlam School Board. “We have to put the safety of students first. That’s the most important thing.”

Hallwood said that Cardinal drivers over 65 were being assigned to different duties, not let go, when they were removed from school bus duty in his district and in Burnaby, which is covered by the same contract as Coquitlam. Calls to Cardinal to verify what happens to drivers removed from bus routes in the two districts were not returned by the time this story was filed.

Hallwood cited the 1999 Ensign decision in Alberta to bolster his view that being below the age of 65 should qualify as a “Bona Fide Occupational Requirement” under human rights legislation, thus permitting his board to block anyone over that age from driving a school bus.

‘My blood began to boil’

Dennis Jaeger drives for Cardinal on Coquitlam school bus routes, and he has made fighting the new age requirements into a personal crusade. He has already fired off a letter of protest to the Coquitlam school superintendent, Lorcan O’Mellin, spoken at an open school board meeting in May and arranged to meet with district purchasing director Hallwood on June 19.

Jaeger told The Tyee he has spoken with B.C.’s Human Rights Tribunal and may co-operate with other Cardinal drivers to file a human rights complaint. Still in his early 60s himself, Jaeger says “my blood began to boil” when he learned that older fellow workers were being re-assigned to other work sites and taken off school board work in Coquitlam and Burnaby.

Greyhound takes keys at 65

“I fought in a war to protect democracy,” says Jaeger, who says he was a U.S. Army Ranger and prisoner of war in Vietnam. “All my life I’ve tried to help people, and this is just another example. I will not allow people to be suppressed”

Jaeger says that it is “nonsense” for Cardinal to refuse to let drivers operate school buses in Burnaby and Coquitlam and then transfer them to do the same work in Vancouver and Surrey. He says his June 19 meeting with Coquitlam district official Hallwood represents an opportunity for the district to correct a policy he says is discriminatory. “Otherwise we may have to take legal steps.”

Greyhound Canada, which is governed by federal legislation and employs around 1,000 drivers across the country, continues to require retirement at 65.

© The Tyee

Keywords: driving, mandatory retirement, ageism