Service Ontario’s IRP delays hurting trucking companies
Bob Cousins is a worried man. He’s got a brand-new truck sitting in his yard outside Ottawa for the past couple of weeks, awaiting plates to begin working.
He’s making $3,200 a month in truck payments on an idle vehicle. If the truck was in service, he’d have been earning a profit of about $100 a day. “It quickly adds up,” he said.
Ontario has made changes to the administration of the international registration plan (IRP) leading to backlogs and delays. The IRP is a registration reciprocity agreement among 10 Canadian provinces, the 48 contiguous U.S. states, and the District of Columbia. It allows vehicles to travel between participating provinces and states with one licence plate and registration document.
As of March 3, Service Ontario began delivering IRP services on behalf on the Ministry of Transportation (MTO).
Earlier, Cousins, the CEO and owner of The C & C Group of Companies, had four trucks waiting for a week-and-half to get plates.
Before the transition, applications to register new trucks or renew existing ones were handled by a local IRP office, in about three to five business days, Cousins said.
Modernizing services
“This initiative is part of our government’s work to modernize services and make it easier for carriers to meet their vehicle registration needs in one convenient visit,” Matthew D’Amico, press secretary and issues manager from the office of Stephen Crawford, minister of public and business service delivery and procurement told TruckNews.com.
“We are offering a registration extension. Plates expiring between March 31 and May 31, will remain valid through June 30. Service Ontario is prioritizing urgent requests from carriers,” he added.
OTA working to resolve issue
The Ontario Trucking Association (OTA) is working with both the MTO and Service Ontario to resolve the issue quickly.
Geoff Wood, OTA’s senior vice-president, policy, said that the IRP issue is hurting the industry. “We are focusing on eliminating the backlog and getting trucks and drivers moving,” he said.
Meanwhile, Cousins is still awaiting an answer. He’s got a driver waiting and work lined up. “They [Service Ontario] don’t answer the phone. It’s all by email, and they are bouncing back. It’s a living nightmare for the trucking industry,” he said.
He’s got renewals on 142 trucks coming up in October. Last year, he had all his stickers in a week. Thinking about it this year, he said, “I’m petrified!”
Have your say
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I’ve been waiting for almost 3 weeks for a simple plate transfer, why exactly does the government need to complicate everything to the point were nothing works ? Why can’t we just run all the taxes thru IFTA, eliminate IRP altogether and run a simple Provincial or better yet single Canadian License plate registration system.
Super informative article Leo. Can’t see that you did a whole lot of research on this topic.
Any chance you might have left some pertinent information out? Like, if you use the PRIO system you can get your plates much quicker than you can with the new Service Ontario process.
How about what might be at the root of the problem? Is Service Ontario understaffed? Did Service Ontario not train their staff? Did they acquire software that doesn’t actually work?
So much frustrated! 110 truck renewal application sent on March 15th. April 30th was the renewal. still no Answer. New 10 trucks was parked in my yard for more than a month. Company couldn’t put the truck on the road because of the plates. IRP or MTO doesn’t help anything over the phone. When you change a system you should have enough back up. I am still waiting for 7 plates and that’s also for a month now.
How a business will survive with these kind of mess? Nobody helps! When we call they say send an email to us.
This whole mess is our government in action. We the truck owners are the only ones that care about this issue. I don’t believe that adequate training or preparation was done by our Ontario government. I went to our first appointment so i could see first hand what was happening. We now have to go to downtown Hamilton to the Service Ontario office that now serves our area. We had a 9 am appt so i went early because this was a learning experience and i wanted to be able to tell the others in my office the procedure, the parking availability etc. I have not been in downtown Hamilton in probably 10 yrs and i was reminded why. As a non drug user i did not fit in well in that community. I found a parking lot. I paid for extra time assuming a possible delay. Good thing. The address is 125 King st but the building has 119 on it but an officer guided me to it. Upstairs to the 4th floor and sat on the bench. It was 8.45. At 8.55 i got up and placed my package on the counter and a worker saw me and asked if i had an appt. Yes, 9.00. She checked and said 9.30 was the first one but i had the name of the person who gave us the appt. They said no problem and said they would look after me. The two transactions took 40 minutes and our previous IRP office would have done it in 5-10 mins. Apparently those workers are now based out of 125 King but i understood that they are not allowed out on the counter to help process appointments. The worker who looked after me was very apologetic and cooperative but really could not have helped me without a supervisor? that guided her through the process. She said to me that i must have been wondering what was happening and i told her i was actually thinking to myself that i was glad i paid for extra parking.
This is just another example of our government at work. Obviously nobody had a clue what they were doing when they set up this change. So many of us are affected financially and they don’t care. BUT WE DO.
It is taking well in excess of 30 days to IRP register a new truck. It takes days and sometimes weeks to get over dimensional permits. It takes weeks and months to register and set up to be an inspection station under the new DriveOn program. It takes most of a day standing in line to renew a lost plate or do something as simple as the written test to renew a driver’s license. All of this is totally unacceptable and costs our industry and ultimately the consumer, millions of dollars annually and the correction to all of it should be the single biggest priority of both the government as well as the OTA and the CTA.
Typical government crap. Must have to do with the PC government. Ford has to go. He’s not doing too much good for the province. He’s all talking, no action.
I submitted a request for new IRP plates for a newly purchased truck on March 19th. Shockingly, I didn’t receive a fee notice until April 25th—more than five weeks later. During that time, I contacted IRP Web Processing, my local Member of Parliament, and the Ontario Minister of Transportation. Despite multiple attempts to follow up, I received little to no meaningful correspondence from any of them.
This delay has had serious operational and financial consequences. The truck in question was purchased to replace a unit that had been written off and currently represents 25% of our operating fleet. While waiting for the plates, we were forced to make two lease payments on an immobilized asset, and rent a temporary tractor at a cost of more than $7,500—just to keep up with our obligations.
In an industry where time is money, and reliability is everything, delays like these are more than inconvenient—they’re detrimental. This kind of government inefficiency places an unfair burden on small carriers that are already navigating tight margins and complex regulations. If we’re expected to meet our obligations, government services must do the same.
Oh the irony! As I sit and read this article from my seat in the Service Ontario office awaiting my turn for my appointment that was an hour ago. The poor fella from Ajax ahead of me has been here 2.5 hours. There doesn’t seem to be any sense of urgency for our time or a desire to be helpful.
Christa will fix all these and other issues in Transportation business in Canada.
I bought a new truck April 1st, submitted documents for transfer of plates from old truck on April 7th, didn’t get it completed till April 29th. Many phone calls and emails, to service ontario, mostly unanswered. Same with MPPs, Laurie Scott’s, Prabmeet Sarkharia Stephen Crawford, Doug Fords office, basically told just going to have to wait, totally disregard the fact that payment, insurance and plates cost $5000 for the lost month ,not to mention $15000 lost revenue. The only MPP to actually reach out by phone 3 tines was the NDP transportation critics, Jennifer French. This is a disgrace, the Ford government should be paying compensation.
Needs to be revamped back to a separate IRP office. Obviously the Government is trying to save money by getting rid of the original IRP offices. However, the staff did not have the proper vetting when trained to handle IRP plates. They’re a bunch of incompetent moron during these difficult fianacial times only helping the amalgamation of problems in the practical working field of trucking.
This is completely normal. AB is always 2-3 weeks for a new plate. Renewals are simple, assuming the carrier starts the process, before the week before they expire.