A long-haul transport truck drives on the Macdonald-Cartier Bridge, as seen from Ottawa in September, 2025.Spencer Colby/The Canadian Press
A student hired by Ontario’s Auditor-General’s office to attend a private truck driving college revealed the shocking violations routinely taking place.
Classroom sessions were cut short, and the student had only 20 hours of one-on-one in-cab lessons, instead of the required 50. Instructors skipped basic safety essentials and parking manoeuvres, focusing only on material that would be on the road test. The student was then told to sign a form falsely declaring all the required hours had been completed, in case of an audit.
These incidents, captured in an Ontario Auditor-General report released last week, show the complete rot that has overtaken much of the province’s system for training truck drivers. The findings should send a chill through anyone who uses Ontario’s roads, as well as residents in other provinces, which have similar problems.
Ontario’s government is failing at its most basic duty of keeping the public safe. Poor truck driver training is putting the public at risk: Large commercial vehicles make up 3 per cent of commercial vehicles on Ontario roads, yet are involved in 12 per cent of fatal collisions.
Nolan Quinn, the Minister of Colleges, Universities, Research Excellence and Security, says the province is stepping up inspection of trucking schools. This is a welcome move, but more drastic action is required to shut down the ones that are dangerous and ensure that new ones don’t pop up.
Some Ontario private career colleges accrediting truck drivers without minimum training, A-G finds
The meticulous Auditor-General’s report reads more like a foreboding suspense film than a government document. Inspections showed some private colleges had falsified student training records, or had no records showing students completed the required training. Students in Brampton, Ont., were sent to Peterborough, Ont.’s, DriveTest Centre 160 km away, because they were told it was easier to pass at that location, as it only did one type of reverse parking.
The Ministry of Colleges employs just eight inspectors to look into all 595 registered private career colleges, which includes not just trucking schools but other institutions like hairdressing and culinary schools. Twenty-five per cent of private colleges offering truck driving training had never been inspected.
The consequences for breaking the rules are light. One college with an invalid registration continued to operate, and received just $6,500 in penalties. The Truck Training Schools Association of Ontario was disappointed last year, when two operators convicted of falsifying training records avoided jail time. Unregistered colleges have been able to book blocks of driving tests, and get training certificates for their students by working with certified colleges.
Both the Ministry of Colleges and Ministry of Transportation agreed to the Auditor-General’s recommendations, which include doing unannounced inspections, sharing more information between the ministries, and making commercial road tests (which are run by Serco Canada, a private sector service provider) consistent across the province.
Long-haul truckers susceptible to wage theft, survey shows
That hardly settles the issue though, especially given that many of these issues, including the government’s limited oversight of driving schools and road tests, were flagged in a previous Auditor-General report in 2023.
The public deserves to know more. Which colleges are breaking the rules, and will they be shut down? Will criminal charges be laid? Will drivers who trained at these dubious colleges be forced to take proper training and retake their road tests? What is being done to root out bribes to pass road tests, an alleged practice that has led to recent charges against examiners?
Given the depth of the problems, the government needs to take a broader look at the system. The timing is right, given that the existing contract for driving tests with Serco is set to expire in September.
Many trucking industry players are calling for truck driving to become a Red Seal occupation. Red Seal is Canada’s interprovincial standard for skilled trades, and it would ensure driver competency by having them follow a consistent, structured apprenticeship path with rigorous standards. Alberta has already started exploring this option, and other provinces should follow.
Every day that passes without reform, more unsafe truck drivers go onto the roads. The Ontario government needs to hit the brakes and act immediately to prevent further tragedies from happening.