NBC says it’s owed $9M by Light Speed, warns of driver walkouts and stranded equipment
Light Speed Logistics’ deepening financial crisis has reached a breaking point, according to a newly filed affidavit describing a carrier on the verge of operational collapse — with unpaid drivers threatening to abandon trucks, trailers and perishable freight across North America.
Rocky View, Alta.-based Light Speed Logistics was the 37th largest for-hire fleet in Canada in 2025 according to the Today’s Trucking Top 100 list with 330 tractors and 850 trailers.
National Bank of Canada (NBC), owed more than US$9 million, filed the affidavit Dec. 4 as part of its request to have Ernst & Young appointed as a limited receiver over the equipment the bank financed. The filing outlines a trucking company that can no longer meet basic payroll obligations and is rapidly losing control of its fleet.
According to correspondence and financial information included in the affidavit, Light Speed told lenders it is carrying nine months of unpaid wages ($2.8 million), along with outstanding CRA source deductions ($500,000), and is facing a growing labor backlash.
Mechanics, dispatchers and safety staff have begun refusing work, and drivers — many of whom have not been paid since March — are warning they may leave equipment where it sits, the affidavit indicates.
The company also warned that if drivers walk off the job, some may disable tracking systems or shut off refrigeration units, leaving temperature-sensitive cargo to spoil. An impending loss of access to Loadlink load boards could strand additional trucks across the United States, the affidavit adds.
Light Speed acknowledged repair facilities across Canada and the United States are also refusing service, the affidavit says.
NBC argues that the situation places its collateral at “immediate and significant risk” and that Light Speed lacks the funding and operational capacity to retrieve or safeguard equipment spread across Canada and the United States.
CIBC sought and received a receivership order earlier in the week and has indicated the company overstated accounts receivable by at least $9 million through years of misrepresentation. And MNP has been appointed receiver on behalf of lender BDC.
The bank has since halted all operational financing, including payroll and fuel, leaving the carrier unable to continue normal operations. The NBC affidavit suggests that without CIBC’s ongoing funding of fuel and payroll, the fleet cannot continue operating and that it believes Light Speed has no remaining equity in the business.
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9 months? If they quit they lose their work visa since they are sponsored by the company. Other members of their families earning enough to keep the truck driver going and keep that visa intact?? Is this accurate? Acceptable?
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Here! Here!
I do not understand that the lenders have allowed this to go on for such a long time.
As well, I find it difficult to believe that drivers, both company and brokers, have been working since March, WITHOUT PAY!
There has to be more to this story.
You can bet that the upper executives have been cashing their pay checks.
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My guess is the drivers are threatened with being shipped back to their country of origin if they dont just keep their mouths shut and keep driving. A lot of our industry are using slave labour as drivers
‘many of whom have not been paid since March’
Huh!?!?! Who does that? How can an employee not get paid for months? I’m calling HOOEY on this report because this cannot be accurate. How does a lender go that deep?
More evidence of our industry just in shambles.
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LMIA and Driver Inc.
Imagine working since March and not being paid! How stupid do you have to be to keep showing up month after month!
Why would anyone keep working for this or any company without pay for 9 months?? These employees need to give their head a shake.
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So they can keep their Visa to work and live in Canada
It’s interesting that CIBC in their filing said that the carrier overstated their accounts receivables by million that’s fraud and deserves investigation by the police and charges were appropriate. I’m not sure if I have any sympathy for the drivers if they were using driver Inc sorry but not sorry it’s not legal and never was, meanwhile in Ottawa Mark Carney’s New buddy is lobbying to make it legal or at the very least sweep it under the carpet…. it’s time the OTA did a full court press like they did with speed limiters with full page ads in the media pointing out the lost tax revenues and the cost to the rest of of hurting tax payers enough of this bs
I’m amazed that light speed stayed in business this long, with all the accidents they have had, and screwing the drivers pay,and I personally wouldn’t have stayed if they bounced one paycheck, I would have left their equipment exactly where it was after I didn’t get paid.
Their are many trucking company’s here in the U.S. thar have hindues being paid .20 to .30 cents per mile and their happy about it. That hurts the United states economy so so bad but people are trying to stop president Trump from solving the injustice to us U.S. truck drivers and legitimate trucking companies try to make an honest living!!!!!!
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Very few Hindues are involved, mostly Punjabi. Your US comments are unwelcome in Canada
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We are an international industry. Trucking between US and Canada has solidified our relationship to our American counterparts. Take a chill pill, all comments are welcome within this industry.
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Not paid since March???? Bye in April. I worked for an outfit like this. Got all my money, one of the last to do so.
Grew too big, too fast in an industry where some companies hire NEW drivers, pay them minimum wages and cut rates that good companies can’t compete with. Minimum wage laws in trucking is the only answer!
I believe this is just the tip of the iceberg, Rates have been getting undercut.I work for a major carrier in Saskatchewan, I have done really well over the years.As I finish out 2025 my yearly income is down over 40000 dollars.I am a company driver.Road expenses have increased to the point of being just stupid.I am really questioning the validity of being an over the road driver anymore. Why be gone from home and sacrifice my life,I see a big problem in this industry is the new group of drivers,untrained,don’t care about anyone else.outright break the laws,haul illegal, look at a lot of the major drug busts ,illegal cigarettes.whose involved.The government doesn’t care,the insurance industry doesn’t seem to care.There should be a major outcry.So I think this light speed failure is just the start of it,Personally I hope more and more of them fail.Im Sorry but I was born and raised in Canada,I’m not going to work for nothing.I find it hard to really express my feelings, I know that more and more people’s eyes are starting to finally open up,all one can do is hope that things turn around .
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I’ve seen the same. As a logistics professional since 1990, I ensure that I stay out of the of a Semi today, a decade ago, I did not see a truck & trailer as a missile…today I do
Why would the bank and the local government to go since March without acting? Who works for 8 months without pay? Failure of multiple systems…
Well then I guess NBC you can do something about the rates we get paid within the trucking industry then you can complain. We owner operators are suffering just like you becuase of those you have supported in the past to run our government. Now you know how we out here feel and the struggle we have to support our families on the toilet rates we get paid versus the fuel and maintenance prices we have to pay. Now the ball is in your court. If you want to talk to an honest person then contact me or any other small owner operator and they will give you the truth about what is really happening out here in this industry. But it seems like you guys in the media dont want to hear the truth. You only want to sugar coat everything. This is the real story.
To those questioning the length of time drivers reportedly went without pay, if these are foreign workers here under an LMIA they can’t work at another company. They are stuck. They can leave the country or hope the excuses they are being fed are true and they will eventually be made whole.
Sadly, government and trucking association’s attempts to curtail their own creations, have produced the perfect storm to turn what were once enviable careers, into an industry wide free for all, with only a select few carriers and drivers surviving professional obscurity.
I’ve been in a trucking industry for 47 years. There’s a lot of these Indian companies cooking their books. It will catch up with them. There will be another dozen more. Cooking the books is not the way to go and not paying drivers telling their bank manager there making all this money so they can borrow more towards the company when there’s nothing on the books. All these owners that run this company should be put in jail. They’re running a cooker business time to stop at all. Cutting the rates does not get you anywhere at the end. What happens you end up going bankrupt. Since the government de regulated, a trucking industry, the trucking industry went down in a deep hole and that will not change. Very sad. I’m glad I’m out of it now. Take care.
Seems the Trucking industry is in a state of decadence…As a new graduate of a melt program I’m unable to find work in this industry even though I meet or exceed all the requirements except for experience which everyone seems to require along with a list of other things which seems kinda funny for an industry which has a supposed driver shortage which I’ve come to learn is just a myth because if it was true it wouldn’t be so difficult to get a job..I was lured into this field because of a bunch of bunch of baloney that a large trucking school whose whole catch is the so called shortage of drivers and their motto “we train we employ”…which turned out to be nothing more then just a clever marketing gimmick preying upon those like me who has wasted my Better Jobs Ontario grant on this when i would’ve been better off learning a real skill like welding or something like that… because now I’m still unemployed and out of luck .. I’m writing this with the hope that you will do a story exposing this …
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You obviously passed the English test you should be first in line.
This is only possible in Canada, and am not racist, but let’s be honest here. Who destroyed trucking in Canada?! India and cheap people who think they know how to drive. And who wud work with out payment? Again only india will do this, because they will rather drive for nothing than organization of protest and strike. Also truckers, with whom you going to organize anything, when India will work for nothing rather than stopping trucks. Till all this don’t change, trucking in Canada is f*****. And all this years on the road, I never seen normal guy driving for them. And am glad they will go bust, they don’t deserve better
I can’t blame the truckers for leaving. A man or woman has to eat and support their families. No pay no work….
That’s what happens when you offer rates so low you can’t cover your overhead, this whole industry needs an overhaul, you can’t pay $250K for a tractor and expect to maintain it fuel it and make the payments for what they run for, let alone raise a family.
There was a time when you could make a great living with a truck, now it’s a race to the bottom.
I’ve been nearly run off QE2 by unqualified drivers who drive a 50,000 lb missile above the speed limit.
Recently 5 trailers jackknifed at Didsbury 582 interchange… How do 5 rigs end off the road after freezing rain ?
It is obvious… Stupidity… Believe it or not, in my rear view mirror there were approximately 20 4WD pickups and SUVs behind me, we were traveling at between 70 & 80 kph…
During a shoulder check , the idiot driving the missile pulled out and passed us at 110 kph … With no regard for the lives of those in the 20 passenger vehicles …
The majority of the problems are caused by temporary foreign workers …. and run by unscrupulous directors, also from the same region .
Thanks James and trucknews.com for continuing to bring this to the forefront.
These drivers are being treated as slaves, this is beyond driver inc. its human trafficking and should be treated as such. If we think this is isolated to Lightspeed logistics we are being naive. Until such time as our country looks at these as criminal enterprises this will never end.
We all need to think twice when judging the driver for being complicite, they too are victims and we need to do better as Canadians to protect them from these scumbags.
The company hired east indian drivers on temporary work visas. They cannot quit job without triggering visa cancellation. This is I bet, an east indian owned company. These immigrants don’t do business like us in north america. They do not care about anything, even laws, just so they can squeeze as much money as posssible.
Its simple I know where the funds went but certain authorities wont go there like I would
If Light Speed is allowed to resurrect itself like the Pride Group, the Legal system can be declared corrupt and on the take. There should be no reasonable way that this would be allowed.
There is a Segment of our society that does not believe in law and order and it needs to be discussed openly, if it is ever to be changed. A lot of people including Drivers have been hurt from this illicit and corrupt behavior.
Insurance claims, every time one of those trucks hit the rubbarb someone has to pay, plus under cutting prices on loads that can’t meet the final costs, not only are they the ones in bad financial position, I bet there are a lot of other companies that you see in the ditch’s and rock cuts and in head in collisions on the verge of collapsing also, the insurance claims can lead to thousands of dollars, all these fly by night companies come to a sudden end sooner or later.
This looks like a sh!t show of substantial proportion. The lack of lender due diligence and oversight, on top of corporate malfeasance, has enabled Light Speed to deteriorate to the point of equipment abandonment and systemic failure. Many questions here. Why would drivers work without pay for months? Driver Inc at play? Would regular payroll drivers hang around that long? Why were shippers/brokers still using Light Speed? There is plenty of capacity available. Were the rates too cheap to pass up? There is no mention of the principals of Light Speed. I would expect their nests are well feathered, and if recent past events are any indication, they are poised to pick up the pieces (steeply discounted, of course). Judicial rulings have paved the way for this business model to play out time and again. Almost everyone involved in these fiascos is getting what they deserve. Opportunistic lenders, short sighted customers, enabling employees, and mendacious ownership all are deservedly suffering from the lack of ethical and responsible behavior and decision making all around.