By MPP Bobbi Ann Brady
Since being first elected in 2022, I’ve heard plenty of concerns from you about trucking accidents. So, it was gratifying the Auditor General of Ontario’s (Shelley Spence) latest round of Special Reports, released May 12th, contained within it a full report entitled Large Commercial Truck Driver Licensing. And looking at her report and poking around the media for their take, her findings were unnerving.
The Auditor General’s report finds Ontario’s oversight on the training and licensing of commercial truck drivers is falling short, resulting in a concerning number of unqualified drivers on the road. She emphasized various issues, revealing some career colleges are skimping on both training hours and essential skill development, all while facing minimal scrutiny from two provincial ministries.
Her findings showed six unregistered private career colleges were conducting driving tests and issuing training certificates, despite lacking required authorization. The Auditor General made 13 recommendations to improve the situation, to which the province has agreed.
To get a fix on training quality, last year, the Auditor sent undercover students to those six training providers for six-month programs. Turned out two of the private colleges provided only 59.5 and 81 hours of the 103.5 required training hours. Additionally, some students lacked instruction in crucial driving techniques such as making left turns at major intersections, reverse parking, and emergency stopping.
The Auditor qualified these findings cannot be blanketed across all of the province, but they serve as a red flag. But who among us hasn’t heard stories about this issue? Ms. Spence emphasized the need for regulatory controls to ensure students are receiving the necessary training. That’s on the government.
I’m not surprised that between 2019 and 2024, the Ministry of Colleges identified three registered private career colleges altering student training records; four lacking evidence of students completing required components; and, three failing to teach all mandated elements of the training program. Ms. Spence discovered that as of March 2025, 54 of the 216 registered private career colleges providing entry-level commercial truck training had never been inspected by the Ministry.
And like police services in the past who couldn’t or didn’t share information between themselves, her report pointed out the Ministry of Colleges does not have a process in place to regularly share inspection information with the Ministry of Transportation, which is responsible for enforcement.
Additionally, neither ministry monitored the training outcomes for commercial truck drivers, such as road test pass or fail rates, post-licensing driving infraction rates, or collision rates, according to the report. The report further revealed that truckers’ driving tests did not assess all highway maneuvers at highway speeds.
The Ministry of Colleges and Universities has recognized the failure to uphold the integrity of the post-secondary system is unacceptable.
In a separate development, some of my NDP colleagues took a road trip to the Manitoba border and back to highlight driving dangers, particularly in winter, and they attributed the problems on northern roads to training and licensing gaps, as well as infrastructure deficiencies.
Eighteen-wheelers are a critical part of our economy, keeping goods moving and shelves stocked, but they are also massive vehicles travelling our highways day and night. That is why government has a responsibility to ensure the safety not only of the drivers behind the wheel, but of every family sharing the road with them. The travelling public — parents driving back and forth to hockey arenas and soccer fields, shift workers commuting before sunrise, and people simply trying to get home safely at the end of the day — deserve confidence that our highways are safe. Road safety is not about choosing one over the other; it is about recognizing that everyone on our roadways has a right to make it home safely.
Bobbi Ann Brady is the MPP for Haldimand-Norfolk