Commercial trucker training and licensing problematic in Ontario: auditor general

Ontario is not effectively monitoring commercial truck driver training and licensing regimes, leading to many unqualified drivers on the roads, the province’s auditor general found in a special report released Tuesday.

Shelley Spence said her office has uncovered career colleges that have cut corners on training hours and skills, and found little oversight from two provincial ministries. She also found that six unregistered private career colleges that were investigated by the province were still booking tests and handing out driver training certificates despite not being allowed to do so.

The auditor filed 13 recommendations to the province, which has accepted all of them.

“We need to make sure as a government that we’re training people correctly,” Spence said, though she noted most truck drivers on the province’s roads are trained.

Commercial truck drivers account for a disproportionate number of fatalities on Ontario’s roads and the problem is especially acute in northern Ontario.

The auditor sent several people undercover as driving students at six training providers over six months last year. 

“We found that two private career colleges delivered 59.5 and 81 hours of the required minimum of 103.5 training hours,” Spence wrote in her report. “Two of our students were not taught key truck driving elements such as left turns at major intersections, reverse parking and emergency stopping.”

Spence cautioned that she cannot extrapolate the findings to the rest of the province, but it remains a cautionary tale.

“I will say that it is a problem and that putting controls in place, like we’re recommending, to ensure that students are actually getting the training required is what the ministries that have this oversight should be looking for.”

Spence noted that between 2019 and 2024, the Ministry of Colleges “found that three registered private career colleges had falsified or altered student training records, four did not have records to demonstrate that some or all of their students had completed the required (entry-level training) components, and three did not teach all of the required components.”

But the auditor general found the ministry’s inspection regime was lacking and, as of March 2025, had never inspected 54 of the 216 registered private career colleges offering entry-level commercial truck training.

She also found the ministry has no process to routinely share inspection information with the Ministry of Transportation, which enforces driving laws, thereby handcuffing potential enforcement action.

Neither ministry monitored training outcomes for commercial truck drivers, “such as road test pass or fail rates, post-licensing driving infraction rates or collision rates,” the report said.

Spence also found truckers’ driving tests did not assess all highway manoeuvres at highway speeds.

Issues have been addressed: minister

Many of the problems Spence outlined have been addressed, said Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria, including issues regarding several career colleges.

“I know many of those operators have been shut down,” Sarkaria said. “We have zero tolerance for any of those bad actors.”

He did say some of the auditor general’s findings were troubling. 

“We want to ensure that we’re doing anything and everything possible,” Sarkaria said.

He said his ministry and the Colleges Ministry have been conducting targeted enforcement of those schools. Sarkaria also said Ontario Provincial Police have charged several people, though he did not provide details on which schools were involved or what the charges were.

Spence also found that safety improves the longer drivers wait after getting their regular driver’s licence.

Sarkaria pointed to legislation passed last year that forces drivers to wait a mandatory six months after passing their general G driver’s licence before applying for a commercial driving licence. 

They’ve also made changes to require that drivers produce a valid work permit at a DriveTest centre as part of the licensing regime.

Failure to uphold the integrity of the post-secondary system is unacceptable, said the office of Nolan Quinn, minister of colleges and universities.

“We are working closely with the superintendent of career colleges to ensure her team visits all of the remaining career colleges offering Class-A truck driver training programs by the end of June,” said Bianca Giacoboni, Quinn’s spokesperson.

She said both ministers have pledged to strengthen oversight and “crack down on bad actors.”

Several New Democrats went on a recent road trip from Toronto to the Manitoba boundary and back along highways 17 and 11 to highlight driving dangers, especially in winter.

They cited training and licensing gaps as a major reason for the problems on northern roads, along with infrastructure gaps including few separated highways and a dearth of passing lanes.

New Democrat John Vanthof, who represents the northern riding of Timiskaming-Cochrane, thanked Spence for her team’s undercover work.

“To get a really good driver education costs between $15,000 and $20,000 in this province,” he said. “There’s really good truck driving schools that will do that, but when other schools are offering it for $3,900 or $5,000, you automatically know that they’re not providing the education.”

AG report ‘not surprising’: trucking association

The Ontario Trucking Association was also dismayed by Spence’s report.

“While the auditor general’s findings are chilling, they are, quite frankly, not surprising to those of us on the front lines,” Stephen Laskowski, the association’s CEO, said in a statement.

“For years, the Ontario Trucking Association has been warning about the lawlessness growing throughout our sector. Learning that some training providers are delivering barely 60 per cent of mandatory instruction and failing to teach basic skills is an insult to the public and thousands of professional truck drivers who take pride in doing the job safely and with integrity every day.”

Laskowski said he will be meeting Sarkaria in early June.

“We plan on highlighting the rot in our sector, implement solutions, and set hard timelines for change in the fleet and driver training community,” Laskowski said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 12, 2026.

Liam Casey, The Canadian Press