How many more people have to die beneath the wheels of trucks piloted by poorly trained drivers working for sham companies before the government starts living up to its responsibility?

That question is for you, Doug Ford and your partners in neglect, Ontario Transport Minister, Prabmeet Singh Sarkaria, and Nolan Quinn, the minister of Universities, Research Excellence and Security — the ministry responsible for the administration of post-secondary education, including private career colleges in Ontario.

Ontario’s Auditor General recently released a scathing report on the state truck driver training and licensing in that province. I wasn’t terribly surprised by the AG’s findings. What shocked and angered me was that the data that produced those findings sat there in plain sight. If the AG could see it, why didn’t the senior leadership of those ministries see it too? More importantly, why was nothing done about it?

I would also address my question to Canada’s federal minister of transport, Steven MacKinnon, and the Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators (CCMTA).

CCMTA consists of representatives from Canada’s 14 provincial, federal and territorial governments. They have responsibility for the administration, regulation and control of motor vehicle transportation and highway safety in Canada.

Because of Canada’s constitutional structure, the federal government has little actual oversight of provincial trucking regulations. But there is an interprovincial component to this. Each province does not operate in a vacuum.

Truck fleets cross borders. Truck fleets do business in multiple jurisdictions. And as desperately as we need some level of interprovincial playing field upon which to weigh carrier performance, driver training standards, enforcement and business registrations, we’ll probably never see it.

CCMTA has a role to play

CCMTA, however, has a role to play here. It has some authority to facilitate some degree of cooperation and information-sharing between jurisdictions. For example, the problem of chameleon carriers relocating from one province to another could be resolved by establishing a national carrier safety database. Regulatory harmonization has been on the CCMTA table for years. But we’ve seen little in the way of concrete action.

I’ve attended more than a dozen CCMTA annual meetings, and I’ve heard all the excuses for why we can’t create such a database. The problems aren’t structural or constitutional — they can be overcome; it’s a lack of political will.

Just this week, we learned of another life taken by the driver of one of those chameleon carriers. Published reports say a truck driver ran a stop sign in Winnipeg and crashed into an SUV, killing its driver.

The carrier that the driver worked for, the CBC reports, had its Manitoba safety fitness certificate revoked in 2021, but remained in business after registering in Alberta.

In a story on CBC.ca, Manitoba Transportation Minister, Lisa Naylor, acknowledged the need for a national transportation database of truck operators. “That gap speaks to the need for the federal government to create a national database of truck operators for everybody’s safety,” said Naylor, the CBC wrote.

In the same story, Manitoba Trucking Association’s executive director, Aaron Dolyniuk told reporters that the lack of a federal database is hurting the trucking industry and the public. He indicated the problem is that the reporting around safety issues with companies is unique to each province, and [the provinces] are not working together.

Federal database needed

“Industry has been raising the alarm bells on this topic for many years. [The] public should be upset. We are upset. In our view, this accident is one that should not have happened, because this company should not exist,” Dolyniuk told CBC.

So, Minister Naylor, you are obviously aware of the problem. Why has your ministry not done anything to resolve it? Your inaction, and that of other equally aware ministers of transport across Canada, is jeopardizing the health and prosperity of the very industry that keeps Canada functioning, while turning a blind eye to the safety of the motoring public — and the other truck drivers who share their workplace with these lowlife reprobates.

And here’s a question for you, Devin Dreeshen, Alberta’s minister of transportation and economic corridors: How is it that so many fly-by-night trucking outfits, like the one previously mentioned, wind up registered in your province after fleeing some other province when their safety records catch up with them?

Legacy carriers, the old rules-based carriers, are losing the battle against this invasive species of carrier who, rather than play by the rules — ensuring their drivers are qualified and their equipment is properly maintained — actively seek out ways to scam the system and defeat the checks and balances that exist to protect the industry and the motoring public.

The old-order trucking industry does not have the legal tools or authority to fight this scourge alone. There’s not a single mechanism carriers can employ to combat the threat of these illegal and unscrupulous competitors except to demand action from our regulators and their political bosses.

More resources needed

As Dolyniuk noted, the responsible carriers and associations in the industry have been calling for greater oversight from regulators for a long time. Those calls have been ignored or punted down the field for some other administration to deal with.

So, here’s one more question for those with some regulatory or administrative authority over trucking: You acknowledge your ministries are understaffed. You claim you don’t have the budget to hire enough inspectors to police commercial driving schools or conduct compliance audits on motor carriers. Have you ever weighed the cost of adding additional staff against the societal cost of the highway closures resulting from the dozens of fatal crashes on our highways? Or, the cost of replacing equipment and merchandise destroyed in those crashes?

Have you ever considered the personal costs of burying loved ones killed in those crashes, or the cost of the long-term care required by those injured or maimed for life in such crashes?

I’d much rather see my tax dollars spent hiring additional enforcement personnel and auditors than pay for the aftermath of another fatal truck crash.  

The Americans are taking decisive action in truck safety. U.S. DOT Secretary Sean Duffy has called for several regulatory changes aimed at getting unsafe carriers and poorly trained drivers off the road. He has much the same problem we do. And he’s doing something about it.

I wish I could say the same for our ministers of transport and their senior leadership. Here’s one final question for you: how do you sleep at night?