Then he happened to run into one of his former workers at the grocery store buying a supply of ham and buns which he imagined would be his only meal option for weeks. With the weight of so many layoffs weighing on his mind, Day was thinking about any way he could help ease the financial burden on his workers who likely would be waiting weeks for Employment Insurance cheques or the Canadian Emergency Response Benefit to kick in. “There’s some work for some guys, but you can’t have everybody come into work, right?” Day explained.

He said the company has a fleet of 75 trucks but will likely only be able to keep 12 running through the rest of the year. It was tough but it was something I think we needed to do until something gets better.”Įven with the emergency wage subsidies up to 75 per cent being offered by the federal government, Day said it won’t be enough to keep everyone working through a slowdown of this magnitude. “If we don’t save the company, none of us have got a job. It was horrible,” said Day, who noted that most of his friends understood the decision to save the company in order to save their jobs in the long run. He said he has known many of their families for decades. Now running the oil service company his parents started in 1957 in Carnduff, Day had to make the difficult call to lay off 250 of 350 employees.

Through more than 60 years in business serving the Saskatchewan oilpatch, Fast Trucking Service has weathered many storms of low oil prices.īut owner Dennis Day says COVID-19 has caused a crisis of mammoth proportions for the industry.

Airattack 650 oil