When he signed on for his Class 1 (CDL) training, Karan Singh took the first steps toward what he believed was a reliable pathway to the Canadian middle class. He was prepared for the hard work, the long hours and the time away from home. What he didn’t expect was to work for free.

Regrettably, he’s not alone. He’s one of hundreds of drivers abused and taken advantage of by unscrupulous operators getting rich on the backs of misclassified drivers. These individuals are unable to avail themselves of the protections offered by the Canada Labour Code because they are not employees in the traditional sense.

We often focus on how the Driver Inc. business model – company drivers being asked to incorporate and bill the company as independent contractors — plays hell with the market, but there’s a human side to this too. Driver Inc. chews up and spits out drivers by the boatload — with apparent impunity.

Singh’s troubles began the day he passed his Ministry of Transportation of Ontario (MTO) driving test. He set out looking for work with his freshly minted Class A/Z license and soon discovered he was unemployable.

“I tried for four months to hire on with one of those big-name carriers, but with no experience, they would not hire me,” he told trucknews.com. “They ask you how much experience you have, and if you say anything less than two years, they just hang up the phone. How are you going to get experience if nobody hires you?”

The two-year experience quandary has been an issue for decades and remains a problem. With few exceptions, carriers lacking formal driver training and finishing programs can’t get buy-in from the insurance companies to take on inexperienced drivers.

So, how is it then that bottom-feeder Driver Inc. carriers can hire drivers while name-brand outfits cannot?

The way Singh explained it, if the business is registered in certain Canadian jurisdictions they are able to pool their resources among several companies to buy group insurance, and then pay a premium per driver (estimated at a few thousand dollars) for coverage of the new hires.

That may seem like a lot, but one industry insider told us they more than make that up through selling LMIAs (Labour Market Impact Assessments) or by simply not paying the drivers, shorting their pay, or making illegal deductions.

“I don’t think the big carriers want to pay that premium, so they don’t bother with new drivers,” Singh suggested.

Singh was told by the first carrier he worked for that he would have to work one week with no wages to cover his “training costs” while running in a team operation. He was paid just $500 for his second week on the job.

“On top of that, they told me that whatever money I make in my first paycheck, they will hold it as a security deposit and will not give it to me until I leave the company,” he said. “After three months I left the company.”

Captive drivers

Singh is a permanent resident of Canada, soon to become a citizen, he says. He is not working under an LMIA, so he has less to fear than some of his indentured contemporaries.

“I know many drivers who have paid thousands of dollars to a carrier under an LMIA, and many more drivers working toward permanent resident status who are reluctant to fight for lost wages because it could affect their permanent resident status,” he said. “All of this makes drivers much more vulnerable because most drivers are scared to raise their voice, to come out, or to leave reviews about the companies. They are scared.”

And that plays right into the hands of dirtbag freight haulers. They get away with it because they know they can.

Singh has in his possession a judgment against his former “employer,” and payment order for nearly $40,000. He doesn’t believe he will ever collect it. He went to the Labour Program and filed a complaint in 2022. After a three-year investigation he was awarded a payment order in May 2025.

Singh is likely an anomaly in that he took his case to the Labour Program. He speaks at various events and has says he has met hundreds of drivers with similar tales to tell. Stolen wages, late pay, illegal deductions, etc. After a month, they quit and move on. They cut their losses because they know there’s little chance of recovering those earnings.

“What’s the point?” he asks. “I have a legal payment order against the company director, but he still refuses to even acknowledge me as an employee. He still refuses to pay me.”

Singh lamented, “He has a Tesla Cybertruck. His wife has a Tesla. His children go to private school. He is living a life of luxury while exploiting drivers. What makes my blood boil is that this guy, he has every luxury in his life, and yet he chooses to exploit Canadian truck drivers because he can.”

Singh says this individual has already bankrupted his company, transferred everything into his wife’s name and moved the business to another province…because he can.   

“The law is with the companies,” Singh decries. “They can do whatever they want, and few drivers will ever even complain.”

Cloak of secrecy

Singh’s money troubles began with his first driving job, and they continued with subsequent gigs. Growing increasingly frustrated with trying to collect money he had legitimately earned, he turned to Labour Community Services of Peel (LCSP), a non-profit organization providing free legal support around employment law issues. LCSP is based in Brampton, Ont. 

Navi Aujla, LCSP’s executive director, soon opened his eyes to the magnitude of the problem.

In February, LCSP released a report called Running on Empty: Truck Drivers in Canada are Underpaid and Overworked. Data in the report was derived from survey of over 400 drivers and owner-operators.

“When you look at the wage theft numbers, 70% of drivers responding had faced some sort of wage theft where they were not paid for work they had done,” Aujla told me during a podcast interview. “The average amount was $10,000. That’s hundreds of thousands of dollars every year that drivers are not getting paid for work that they’re doing.”

Aujla said her office gets dozens of calls every week from drivers reporting wage theft and other forms of abuse. It seems commonplace, which begs the question, how are companies able to get away with it?

“It’s become an industry-wide model,” she said. “Misclassification has become normalized. It’s normal industry practice.”

As a new entrant to the industry, Singh admits he wasn’t aware how the business worked. He had heard from fellow workers in similar straits, but he had no idea of the scope of the problem.

“If I had received even a pamphlet saying this is misclassification — drivers beware some companies might try to exploit you — I might not have lost thousands of dollars learning the hard way,” he said. “There’s a lack of education here. When my paychecks got delayed, when I was getting bounced checks, I never thought that in a country like Canada, I would never see my wages again.”

Few protections for misclassified workers

As far back as the mid-aughts, reporting on another labor issue, this reporter learned that the vast majority of inquiries to Canada’s Labour Program come from the trucking industry. Aujla said that it hasn’t changed in 2026.

“The majority of calls we’ve been getting over the last few years have been from federally regulated truck drivers facing tons of labor violations, including wage theft, illegal deductions, and misclassification,” she observed.

Unlike traditional employee drivers, there are few protections under the Canada Labour Code for drivers working under contractor agreements such as Driver Inc.

According to Aujla, misclassified workers can receive some protection through the Canada Labour Code if they show they were misclassified. If that’s the case, and under the law they should have been an employee, then they proceed with the claim.

“A worker who was misclassified can file for everything they should have received, like wages owed, illegal deductions, vacation pay, holiday pay, all of it,” she points out. “The problem is, there are few, if any, fines levied against the company, and when a payment order is issued, they have very little collection power.”

In Singh’s case, the investigation took almost three years, and with a legal payment order in hand, he’ll probably never see his money.

“Most companies just ignore the payment orders,” she said. “They get away and nothing happens to them. And it’s super easy for them to close the company and then open another one.”

Double Jeopardy from CRA

While Aujla is happy to see Canada Revenue Agency stepping up enforcement of Driver Inc., she says some drivers are being blindsided because they don’t know their rights, and they weren’t aware that how they are being paid isn’t strictly legal.

“Some drivers are now getting letters. They are shocked to learn they were doing something wrong, but they’re not getting their rights at the same time,” she explained. “They might get dinged for all the taxes they didn’t know they were paying incorrectly, and while no one is guaranteeing they’re going to get the vacation pay, holiday pay, lost wages, etc., they’re entitled to, they might have to pay back thousands in taxes.”

Some might say that’s as it should be, but it’ll be a tough row to hoe for drivers like Singh, who never saw the money they earned in the first place.

We can point to driver misclassification and the Driver Inc. business model as a disruptive influence on this industry, but there’s a human side to this. Drivers, who don’t know any better when they start out and are told this is the way it’s done.

“These companies are clever,” Singh reflected. “They are not going to tell you your rights. They are going to do whatever benefits them. This has been going on for so long that even my friends who have been in this industry for a year or two tell me this is the right way to do it. I think there is a lack of education here. I think there should be a proper training course on what is misclassification and what is not.”