MTO retests are steering student driver choices
It’s back to school time for some truck driver training facilities in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), while others are staring at empty driving seats.
For the past few years, legions of foreign students seeking to jumpstart their careers and improve their chances of immigrating to Canada used to flock to driving schools in the GTA.
School numbers mushroomed to 107 in 2024, according to Philip Fletcher, president of the Truck Training Schools Association of Ontario (TTSAO).
After the federal government tightened immigration policies, along with removing incentives in the LMIA (labor market impact assessment) program that was fueling abuse, the new driver pipeline has started drying up. This is especially true for schools dependent on them for business.
The GTA has always been a basement bargain price hub for aspiring truck drivers as schools dotting the landscape jostle for business. In some areas it seems there are more truck driving schools than Tim Hortons coffee shops.
Last fall there was a $3,000 Black Friday deal for the mandatory entry-level training (MELT) program. This year prices have inched a little higher.
School offers free air brake program, road tests
Social media is alive with deals seeking to attract students. An Etobicoke, Ont., school says it has reduced its fees from $4,500 to $3,499 for the MELT program on a truck with an automatic transmission. The icing on the cake is that the air brake portion and two road tests come free!
Also, ‘trucking school for sale’ posts are appearing on online buying and selling sites. One such ad offers a “Trucking school business with huge profit for sale.” It claims to be the busiest school in the whole city with 200-plus students a year. “1 mil plus revenue, 20k to 40k profit every month.” The “reason to sell is owner is moving to the U.S. and have (sic) more businesses.”
In these kinds of situations, it is fair to say caveat emptor – the Latin phrase that means “let the buyer beware.”
Business picks up at some schools
On the other side of the fence, are schools that are seeing student numbers improving from the doldrums of the past few months.
TTSAO’s Fletcher was mildly optimistic, saying there is a “marginal improvement and mild upturn,” and schools are in “a little better shape.” Mind you, there is no large uptake, but it’s looking better.
Indeed, things are looking better for Radek Rogowski, operations manager of Mississauga-based Richards Truck Driving School. He’s seen an increase in business in the past three months, and it’s certainly looking better than a year ago.
Surinder Batth, director, Global Truck Academy is also seeing is trucks and classrooms fill up with student drivers. He’s augmenting his business testing drivers for companies by performing road tests before they are hired and for post-incident evaluations.
These road tests are a lifeline for Jack Lochand, owner of Scarborough, Ont.-based Alpine Truck Driver Training. He’s been running the school for the past 24 years and noted that this has been its worst year.
As he dips into his savings to keep the business running, driver evaluations from trucking companies help pay some bills.
MTO retesting drivers
Prospective students have heard that the Ontario Ministry of Transportation is retesting commercial drivers, some years after they were issued a licence. During an audit of the test provider, the ministry discovered irregularities, a ministry letter obtained by trucknews.com stated.
The ministry smackdown seems to be having an impact. Aspiring truckers are heading to schools that have a reputation for providing proper training and are successful in graduating driver candidates.
The shady operators have a couple of options. They can keep driving down training prices and hope that desperate people will take the bait. Or they reach a point where they can put their businesses for sale and hope to find a buyer.
Either way, the MTO crackdown, current economic situation, immigration policies and market conditions are defining those who are sinking and those continuing to stay afloat.
Hopefully, the good guys sail into the sunset as the credits begin rolling.
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About time. Schools with a poor pass rate should be evaluated. In order to provide adequate training proper tuition is necessary and undercutting indicates something is missing .
I am a seasonal DZ driver and was on EI through the winter. I chose to upgrade to an A during my layoff time, so I can be employable during the winter months. So, I enrolled in a Trucking School in Ontario . Paid $12,595 +. It was supposed to be May 19- July 11, 8 weeks, 260 hours of training. It began on May 19/25 with 2 weeks of zoom classes. Then nothing. No call for 3 1/2 weeks. I finally got into a truck on June 25, only to be told to sit in a classroom chair in the back of the cab. Not secure or no seatbelt. This should have been my que. From this moment on it has been a fiasco. I only completed 13.5 hours in truck driving on the road and 26 hours in the yard. They told me my course was complete on August 8 and my drive test would be Aug 20, which I did not pass. My serious concerns are, who falsified my MELT hours to Drive Test Center of 103.5 hours for me to take the test. They now tell me for me to retake the drive test I need to pay this school $180/ hour for truck training time. I think they didn’t expect me to be keeping track in my own log the hours I was behind the wheel. They very rarely had more than one truck that was road worthy to use. I paid over $13,000 and have been going through a complaint process that is completely bonkers. I can’t say the school name due to ongoing investigations but it has over 40 locations in Ontario. I am wondering if anyone else that may be reading this has had a problem like this at their school. In the meantime, while this course stretched well into the end of August I have been replaced at my previous seasonal job. We are seriously seeing a systemic problem in the industry and training facilities. I thought I would share this as the industry needs to clean up.
Maybe we should retest all drivers in Ont that got a driver permit after shutting down the private testing company? That is fair should the test also be in English or French if a truck Bus driver?