Five examiners, three instructors charged in Ontario commercial driver exam fraud case
The eight people arrested for fraudulent activities linked to commercial driver examinations in Kingston, Ont., and the Greater Toronto Area, include five driving examiners and three driving instructors, according to the Ontario Provincial Police.
OPP official Gosia Puzio told trucknews.com, “The Ministry of Transportation [MTO] brought this matter to the OPP for investigation and provided ongoing support and cooperation.”
This was confirmed by Dakota Brasier, the MTO’s director of media relations.
Brasier said that the government has zero tolerance for fraud, particularly when it puts public safety at risk.
“Commercial driver licensing exists to ensure that only qualified, properly trained drivers are on our roads. Anyone who attempts to undermine that system through fraud or criminal activity will be held accountable to the full extent of the law,” Brasier said.
The eight accused face a combined 24 charges under the Criminal Code.
Brasier said the government took decisive action to hold those involved accountable and will continue working with law enforcement to protect Ontario’s driver examination system and keep roads safe.
OTA seeks stronger enforcement
The Ontario Trucking Association (OTA) said the arrests highlight what it described as widespread lawlessness undermining the trucking industry.
The association said it has urged Queen’s Park for months to strengthen enforcement and introduce new measures to address what it calls a truck safety crisis and restore compliance across the sector.
Ontario has seen a series of investigations, arrests and prosecutions in recent years involving fraudulent commercial driver examinations, licensing schemes and truck driving schools that bypass residency rules and mandatory entry-level training requirements, the OTA added.
“This latest case reinforces just how systemic, organized and widespread the lawlessness and corruption in trucking really is,” OTA president Stephen Laskowski said in a news release. “As a result, there is now a significant market for untrained, unprofessional and dangerous drivers sharing the road with the public.
“This is just the tip of the iceberg.”
Stephen Laskowski, OTA president
“Carriers that employ these drivers appear to have little fear of government reprisal, knowing that 80% of Ontario-based trucking companies have not been inspected and that poorly trained drivers can avoid detection because inspection stations are not open 24/7. This is just the tip of the iceberg.”
OTA chairman Mark Bylsma said a growing segment of the industry is increasingly unreliable when it comes to compliance.
“Some measures we have championed for years, and that the province has implemented, have not been nearly enough,” Bylsma said. “The government must restore public safety and clearly stand with compliant, responsible and lawful carriers and drivers to end this crisis.”
Driving school groups condemn fraud
Truck driving school associations also voiced support for actions aimed at preventing fraud and improving road safety.
Philip Fletcher, president of the Truck Training Schools Association of Ontario, said cracking down on rogue schools and examiners is necessary to restore confidence in the system.
“This is exactly the type of action required to hold people to account and give the public confidence that the system works for trained commercial drivers,” Fletcher said. “Legal repercussions must match the damage inflicted on our roads, and we hope that, if convictions are secured, sentencing will be strong enough to deter others.”
Narinder Singh Jaswal, president of the Ontario Commercial Truck Training Association, also condemned fraud linked to commercial driver examinations.
“Such actions endanger public safety and undermine trust in the licensing system,” Jaswal said. “We support the ongoing investigation and believe those responsible must be held accountable. We remain committed to ethical conduct, compliance and road safety.”
This story has been updated to include information provided by the Ontario Provincial Police.
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I attended a well known trucking school with multiple locations in Ontario. Their scheduling and sign off procedures look professional. The sad truth is, over a third the scheduling never happens. If you were scheduled for a session, they said it happened even if there was no roadworthy truck available. Unless a student records their own MELT trainings hours , these hours are being manipulated and misrepresented to the Drive Test Centers. If the investigators want to get to the bottom of this problem, they need to contact students for feed back or place a MTO mystery student into these schools to get the full corruption. I only had 13.5 hours BTW on the road before the school sent me for the test. Who uploaded 103.5 MELT hours to the test center? Fraud.
Oh, and I paid them $13000 for 260 hour course, 180 hours to be in truck training. They have a great website but a corrupt school. If MTO just drop in, they are not going get the depth of this problem.
And still we don’t know name these people. Why do we protect them ? Name them and their companies so we can protect ourselves on the highway and get away from these fraudsters.
Are they going to pull the licences or retest the students they passed or just look the other way? Our roads have become so unsafe over the years. MELT was supposed to make them safer but it seems they aren’t.
it sure is nice to see Ontario is cracking down but they got a long way to go yet to get things back to normal like the old days