Private Motor Truck Council of Canada (PMTC) president Mike Millian can identify a long list of changes that would improve safety, fairness, and professionalism in trucking. Stronger compliance audits, better enforcement, oversight for trucking schools, and a unified system to monitor carriers across all provinces are among them.

While the need to address employee misclassification, referred to as Driver Inc. by many (employed truck drivers who are misclassified as independent contractors), is on the list, it’s not the trucking industry’s only pressing issue, he said during the group’s transportation summit in Mississauga, Ont. Millian commented that the industry had to drop the name “Driver Inc” altogether and refer to the issue as misclassification.

“Industry gave it a name, [but] we don’t need a name…Plain and simple, it’s misclassification, or compliant versus noncompliant,” he said, adding that governments, too, have said they no longer want to use that term. He added that the conversation must shift from terminology to enforcement and compliance instead.

“We have a lot of rules and regulations,” he said. “If you have a rule and regulation and nobody enforces them … excuse my French, but the hell’s the point?”

Such enforcement needs to be a priority from the highway to fleet offices and paperwork, he added.

“There’s way too many satisfactory [ratings] on audited carriers. There are over 80% of the carriers that are satisfactory unaudited, which means nobody’s ever looked at their files.”

PMTC is proposing a mandatory third-party audit system, approved and overseen by the government, to address this. The idea is that the carriers would be audited every two years, and new carriers would undergo an initial audit within their first 12 months of operation.

The audits would be funded by carriers themselves, with a fee structure based on fleet size. Millian argued that the system would create a fair, competitive environment. “If you’re a compliant carrier, you should be happy with it because the people that you’re bidding against, who are undercutting your rates—if they’re audited the same as you are, they’re going to be thrown out the door, and the non-compliant carriers are going to have a harder time competing and staying in.”

Training gaps

The lack of qualified drivers entering the workforce poses a challenge, too. According to PMTC’s annual survey, 76% of private fleet owners cited driver recruitment as their top issue. That’s down from 94% in 2022, but the quality of applicants remains a concern.

Private fleets are now investing in mentorship programs to bridge skill gaps, a shift from the past when they primarily hired experienced drivers, he said, suggesting such programs help reduce turnover rates. In 2023, a PMTC survey found that the average turnover rate among its members was 9.4%. This year it rose to 12.7%. Of that, just under 40% involved non-controlled turnover, which includes retirement, death, or termination due to severe offenses.

Millian also added that mentorship programs help retain drivers and reduce accidents. While some fleets are afraid to put in the time and resources to train drivers who might leave, having newbies on board without mentors will be costlier in the long run, he said.

“Most accidents happen within the first 12 months,” he added. “[The rate] is probably even higher the first three to six months.”

Don’t blame it all on MELT

When it comes to the issue of unqualified drivers, many people tend to blame gaps in Mandatory Entry-Level Training (MELT). But Millian disagrees with blaming MELT alone.

“MELT was not brought in as a bar. It was brought in as a floor. It was never meant to give you an experienced, qualified driver… It’s called entry-level training,” he said. “You don’t take a doctor out of medical school, throw them on the floor and say, ‘Somebody came in, they need open heart surgery. Good luck.’ You train them to go on board. You have to do the same drivers.”

But while early employers share some of the blame for drivers who lack basic driving skills after two or three years of experience, the issues can also be rooted in the explosion of truck driving schools, he said. A few days ago he heard in a meeting that there are now about 280 truck driving schools in Ontario, up from 80 when MELT was introduced.

In contrast, the province has just eight auditors overseeing 600 private career colleges.

“Trucking is not their expertise,” he said.

Jurisdiction shopping

Inconsistencies exist in how carriers are regulated across provinces, too. The absence of a centralized system to monitor safety and compliance allows some carriers to exploit loopholes, he said, noting there’s a “massive issue” with “jurisdiction shopping”.

“We need what they have in the U.S.,” Millian said, referring to a centralized national system to track carrier safety and compliance. In Canada, fleet approval depends on the province where they plate the vehicles. Carriers operating in Ontario must apply for a CVOR (Commercial Vehicle Operator’s Registration), while those in Alberta or Nova Scotia apply for NSC (National Safety Code) numbers. There is no one system that links provincial records. The jurisdictions also use different systems to keep track of safety records. For example, Ontario uses a percentage-based system, while Alberta employs risk-factor scoring, expressed in numbers.

If a carrier has multiple operating authorities and one has a bad record, the others may look fine, making it harder for shippers to get a complete picture, Millian said.

He added that sometimes carriers exploit these gaps by registering fleets in provinces with cheaper insurance or more lenient rules, citing the example of a carrier that’s registered over 200 operating authorities in Nova Scotia despite having no trucks in the province.

The consequences are unsafe, non-compliant carriers bypassing enforcement. Millian referred to one of the carriers that moved its fleet to Alberta and continued operating after being shut down in B.C. for safety violations.

Finally, Millian addressed the efforts to designate trucking as a Red Seal trade, saying it is needed to professionalize the industry and raise entry standards.

“We need to raise the bar so it’s harder for bad actors to get in,” he said.