Ontario Trucking Association (OTA) President Stephen Laskowski praised yesterday’s announcement by the Government of Ontario to strengthen oversight of the 25 percent of uninspected truck driver training schools identified in the auditor general’s report, but also urged a parallel effort to review trucking companies that already hired poorly-trained drivers and disregard safety rules. Shockingly, about 80 percent of trucking companies in Ontario have never undergone a safety inspection by the MTO.
“The Ontario government’s decision to launch inspections across all commercial driving schools is a landmark victory for highway safety, and the OTA commends Premier Ford and Minister Sarkaria for taking decisive action to addresses the critical oversight gaps exposed in the recent Auditor General’s report,” said Laskowski. “However, while we work to block the pipeline of uncertified drivers entering the workforce, we must also collaborate on a solution for the thousands of drivers who received substandard training and are already operating on our highways.
“To fully secure our roads, we must address the root cause of who is employing these operators. This issue is deeply tied to the illegal Driver Inc. underground business model, where predatory carriers misclassify employees as independent contractors to evade taxes, labour standards, and safety oversight. These are also the bad actors that threaten to put Ontario’s responsible and professional trucking fleets out of business. Right now, the lack of scrutiny allows ‘Driver Inc.’ fleets to exploit poorly trained operators without consequence.”
The OTA wants to work together with the MTO to urgently take the following actions:
· Deploy 24/7 truck inspection scales on major freight corridors like Highways 11 and 17;
· Eliminate the archaic “Satisfactory Unaudited” carrier status – which results in 80 percent of trucking companies in Ontario to go uninspected – and require proactive safety audits moving forward;
· Transition the standard commercial license and training framework to require drivers to be accredited based on the specific type of equipment they operate, such as tankers, flatbeds, or twin trailers.
“This is the only way to raise the bar of public safety, intercept poorly trained drivers already embedded in the system, and protect all families traveling on Ontario’s highways today before more harm is done,” said Laskowski.