CTA president joins CBC Radio callers who say aspects of government is complicit in supporting Driver Inc
In the aftermath of the CBC News feature on Driver Inc, which underscored the urgent need to tackle the underground economy in the Canadian trucking industry, CBC Radio delved further into the issue this week.
CBC Radio’s Ontario Today program invited CTA president Stephen Laskowski as a guest to discuss the growing crisis and take questions from callers during the hour-long program.
The program kicked off with CBC reporter Robyn Miller who gave a synopsis of her expose aired last week, which has since garnered nearly half a million views on Youtube and X combined, as well as an additional television audience of about 700,000 from CBC’s The National.
Laskowski then explained to host Stu Mills how misclassification, tax avoidance, labour abuse and erosion of safety standards is out of control in the Canadian trucking industry – and the federal government’s unwillingness to take the problem seriously and provide meaningful enforcement.
Callers were unanimously disparaging of the Driver Inc scheme. Drivers told of their experiences with labour abuse, withheld payments, poor training and unsafe equipment – one caller even compared it to “modern day slavery.”
Upon hearing these anecdotes, host Mills likened aspects of the scheme to “human trafficking.”
One company owner from Brampton who says he’s struggling to compete with Driver Inc carriers decried the mixed messages and the lack of intervention from all levels of government. He said elected officials from all three major parties and the City of Brampton once attended an event in support of Driver Inc proponents, obscuring the illegality of the scheme for many businesses.
“They were talking for the Driver Inc model and … there were representatives from all spectrums of the government .. and they were all showing support for the Driver Inc model saying we support you, we stand by you.”
“The law should be uniform and enforced strictly across the board,” he said.
The program also heard from Navi Aujla, service director with the Labour Community Services of Peel who has helped drivers file labour complaints.
She says the Driver Inc model and the illicit behaviour that stems from it has been “normalized for so long” because the “government has allowed it to continue.”
‘It’s wild to see how little the laws are being enforced in trucking.”
Listen to the full program here.