A truck driver’s licence is supposed to signal more than the ability to pass a test. It represents hours of practice, sound judgment and the responsibility of sharing public roads with families, commuters and other professional drivers. Yet a November 1 examination of Canada’s trucking industry by The Canadian Press, together with a damning Ontario audit, has raised questions about whether every operator is being held to the same standard.
Missing training hours, uneven oversight and allegations of licensing fraud are now colliding with concerns about foreign-worker exploitation and fierce competition between trucking companies. The central issue is not where drivers come from, but whether schools, employers and regulators consistently protect the people behind the wheel and everyone around them.
A National Review Reveals Two Very Different Trucking Industries
The Canadian Press examination, published November 1, described a sector where responsible carriers increasingly compete with businesses accused of cutting corners on equipment, training and employment practices. Industry representatives say companies that pay for experienced instructors, maintain their vehicles and properly compensate workers can face pressure from rivals offering cheaper freight rates. What appears to a customer as a modest saving on a shipment can reflect very different decisions about what happens before a truck leaves the yard.
The stakes extend well beyond the trucking business itself. According to U.S. transportation statistics, trucks carried 55.7 per cent of the value of U.S.-Canada freight trade in 2025. Drivers handle a vital link between factories, stores, farms and households. A broken oversight system therefore affects both public safety and fair competition. The investigation does not suggest that all carriers are unsafe. Rather, it highlights how inconsistent compliance allows a minority of poor operators to undermine an essential profession.
Undercover Students Discovered Missing Training Hours
Ontario’s auditor general supplied some of the most concrete evidence in May 2026. Investigators enrolled as students at six truck-driver training providers during 2025 to see what instruction was actually delivered. At two registered private career colleges, they received only 59.5 and 81 hours of training, respectively. Ontario’s mandatory entry-level program requires at least 103.5 hours before an eligible applicant takes the full Class A road test. The shortfalls were substantial, not merely a handful of missed classes.
The audit also found instances of students receiving completion certificates without satisfying all required training. That creates an obvious problem for someone trusting a certificate to confirm readiness for the road. A newcomer to the occupation might assume that graduating means every essential skill has been covered, even when it has not. Auditor General Shelley Spence cautioned that findings from six providers cannot be projected across every school. The significance lies in documented failures within a system intended to prevent precisely that outcome.
Crucial Driving Skills Were Missing From Some Courses
Hours were only part of the story. Two undercover students were not taught important manoeuvres, including left turns at major intersections, reverse parking and emergency stopping. These are not obscure skills used only during examinations. They are the kind of movements a driver may need around busy intersections, loading docks or an unexpected hazard. With a tractor-trailer, there is little room to improvise safely when a manoeuvre has never been properly practised.
Ontario’s existing 103.5-hour minimum includes classroom learning, yard instruction and behind-the-wheel practice. Industry reporting on the audit describes a breakdown of 36.5 classroom hours, 17 yard hours and 50 hours driving. Each part serves a different purpose: understanding regulations, learning vehicle control and applying those skills in traffic. Simply recording attendance cannot substitute for demonstrating competence. Training quality also depends on qualified instructors, realistic conditions and honest records, which is why the gap between a signed certificate and a prepared driver matters so much.
A Quarter of Training Colleges Had Never Been Inspected
The audit exposed a weakness outside the classroom as well. As of March 2025, Ontario’s ministry responsible for career colleges had never inspected 54 of the 216 registered private career colleges actively offering entry-level truck training. Among 81 colleges that had reached a five-year reinspection point, 44 still had not been revisited. Those figures indicate a monitoring problem, even without assuming every unchecked school was doing something wrong.
Responsibility was also split between the ministry overseeing private colleges and the Ministry of Transportation, which handles licensing and road safety. The auditor found that inspection findings were not routinely shared and that neither ministry consistently tracked outcomes such as road-test failures or collisions involving graduates. Ontario accepted the auditor’s 13 recommendations, and the colleges minister announced a broader inspection push in May. The lasting test is whether the province can recognize weak programs before students graduate, rather than uncovering problems only after a public investigation.
Alleged Bribery Raised Questions About Licensing Integrity
Training failures are troubling enough; allegations involving the examinations themselves add another layer. In January 2026, Ontario Provincial Police announced that eight people faced a combined 24 criminal charges after an investigation into suspected irregularities in commercial Class A driving tests. The Serious Fraud Office had begun examining the matter in 2024 following concerns referred by the Ministry of Transportation. Police alleged that bribes were arranged to secure favourable treatment for certain applicants during road tests in Kingston and the Greater Toronto Area.
Industry reporting identified five driving examiners and three instructors among those charged. These remain criminal allegations, not proof that the accused committed the offences, and charges should not be mistaken for convictions. Still, the investigation shows why examination integrity cannot be treated as a separate administrative detail. Even a well-designed training curriculum loses credibility if testing can be manipulated. A legitimate student who pays for instruction and completes every requirement also suffers when other applicants are suspected of obtaining an unfair shortcut.
Different Road Tests Created Another Uneven Standard
Ontario’s auditor also questioned whether commercial road tests evaluated candidates consistently. Some testing centres used routes with lower highway speeds or did not assess every required reversing manoeuvre. Industry coverage of the audit reported a first-year at-fault collision rate of 1.9 per cent among drivers tested on replacement routes, compared with 1.5 per cent for those using standard routes. The comparison deserves attention, although it does not establish that the route alone caused the difference.
The audit also raised questions about applicants travelling considerable distances to take their tests. In 2023, about 40 per cent of newly licensed Class A and D drivers travelled at least 50 kilometres to a testing centre, according to figures reported from the audit. A candidate may have many legitimate reasons to choose a location, including appointment availability. The concern emerges when a licence test becomes easier or harder depending on the centre. Drivers entering the same occupation should face reliable assessments of the same essential skills.
Safety Figures Show Why the Oversight Debate Matters
The Ontario audit reported that large commercial trucks represented roughly three per cent of vehicles on the province’s roads but accounted for 12 per cent of vehicles involved in fatal collisions from 2019 through 2023. That is a serious disparity, although the wording is important. Involvement in a collision does not establish which driver was at fault, and a truck’s size can make the consequences of any crash particularly severe.
Transport Canada’s broader road-safety analysis has also highlighted the disproportionate consequences of collisions involving commercial vehicles, while cautioning that police collision records have limitations when identifying causes. Fatigue, driver actions, vehicle condition, highway design and the behaviour of other motorists can all be relevant. The audit therefore should not be read as proof that missing classroom hours caused a particular crash. It is evidence that the training and licensing safeguards meant to reduce risk were not always operating as intended. That distinction is crucial to a credible public-safety debate.
Foreign-Worker Hiring Grew, but the Numbers Need Context
The Canadian Press reported that approved truck-driver positions under the federal Temporary Foreign Worker Program rose from 1,584 in 2018 to 8,101 in 2024, before declining in 2025. Federal briefing records independently confirm the 8,101 approvals in 2024 and show 3,526 approved positions during the first nine months of 2025. These are approved positions associated with Labour Market Impact Assessments, not a count of drivers who actually entered Canada or started work.
Carriers and industry groups point to long absences from home, difficult schedules and challenges attracting younger workers as reasons international recruitment remains important. The Canadian Trucking Alliance has argued that immigration can help keep freight moving, but employers accessing overseas labour need stronger screening. None of these figures demonstrates that foreign-trained drivers are inherently less safe. Ontario’s undercover audit identified deficiencies in providers and oversight, not a nationality responsible for them. Confusing those issues would miss the institutions that control training, hiring and compliance.
Some Recruited Drivers May Be Afraid to Report Problems
Temporary foreign workers hired through the federal program generally receive employer-specific work permits. Federal guidance says they have the same workplace rights as other workers, but changing employers usually requires new authorization. For a driver who has invested heavily in establishing a life in Canada, the prospect of losing a job or facing immigration complications can make a dispute over unpaid time or unsafe instructions feel especially high stakes.
Teamsters Canada representatives have warned that vulnerable newcomers may hesitate to challenge exploitative employers. Those concerns are allegations about the behaviour of some businesses, not a description of all foreign-worker arrangements. Ottawa prohibits employers from forcing temporary foreign workers to perform unsafe work or punishing them for reporting mistreatment. Workers can report suspected abuse confidentially to Service Canada, and those experiencing or at risk of workplace abuse may qualify for a temporary open work permit. Effective protection depends on whether a driver knows those options exist and can use them without intimidation.
Driver Inc. Turns Labour Enforcement Into a Safety Issue
Another major concern is the so-called Driver Inc. arrangement, in which drivers may be classified as independent contractors even when they function like regular employees. Genuine owner-operators are a legitimate part of trucking. The problem arises when incorporation is used to avoid obligations such as overtime pay, vacation benefits and payroll contributions. Federal rules prohibit intentional employee misclassification, and the Temporary Foreign Worker Program does not permit a worker hired through a positive employer Labour Market Impact Assessment to substitute self-employment for the required employment relationship.
This is more than a dispute over tax paperwork. Employment and Social Development Canada says misclassified drivers can lose important protections, including occupational health and safety safeguards. A federal briefing recorded more than 983 payment orders totalling over $5.9 million in unpaid wages and related amounts in the road transportation sector between April 2024 and February 9, 2026. These orders are not all necessarily Driver Inc. cases. Together, they show that labour compliance is a significant regulatory issue with consequences for drivers and responsible carriers.
Provinces Are Moving Toward Different Training Reforms
Governments are responding, although their approaches differ. Ontario announced in September that it was developing a standardized entry-level truck curriculum, with possible additions covering fatigue, northern and remote driving, human trafficking awareness and air brakes. It also set a six-month Class G holding requirement before a full Class A road test, effective January 1, 2027. The curriculum was still under development as of the announcement, so its benefits cannot yet be judged from real-world results.
Quebec made Class 1 training mandatory in December 2025, offering a 125-hour road-safety program or a longer vocational diploma route. Alberta replaced its earlier mandatory entry-level scheme with a staged learning pathway in April 2025; drivers initially receive a licence restricted to Alberta before completing further competency training for interprovincial driving. Nova Scotia formally committed in June 2026 to implementing commercial-driver entry-level training. These measures show movement, but the Ontario audit provides a warning: rules written on paper are only useful when delivered and enforced.
The Next Test Is Whether Carriers Face Real Accountability
The Canadian Trucking Alliance is pushing for a mandatory trusted-employer approach to international recruitment. Under its proposal, carriers would need demonstrated safety and labour compliance before accessing those hiring channels. That is an industry recommendation, not an established nationwide program. The alliance argues that employers who invest in safe vehicles and fair treatment should not be undercut by operators using fraudulent recruiting or employment arrangements. Trucking advocates also want stronger school inspections and penalties that cannot simply be absorbed as business expenses.
A durable response would connect the pieces regulators currently handle separately: school attendance records, instructor qualifications, consistent road tests, carrier safety histories and worker complaints. Transport Canada’s National Safety Code already establishes a common foundation for commercial-vehicle oversight, but implementation depends heavily on provinces and territories. Better enforcement would protect Canadian-born and foreign-born drivers alike, while giving the public greater confidence in trucks sharing the road. The challenge is not merely issuing tougher promises. It is proving, through repeated checks, that every licence and every carrier meets the standards Canadians expect.
