Transportation Minister to Meet with OTA and Stakeholders to Restore Truck Safety in Ontario

Source: Ontario Truck Safety Coalition

Toronto — The Ontario Truck Safety Coalition has confirmed that the Minister of Transportation for Ontario will be meeting with coalition members and key industry stakeholders in the coming days to discuss concrete solutions to restore and improve truck safety across the province.

This meeting comes amid growing concerns about training gaps, compliance failures, and illegal operations within the commercial trucking industry. The coalition welcomed the Minister’s openness and stated it will provide a public update soon regarding the government’s response and next steps.

The Coalition’s main proposals include:

• 24/7 enforcement scale operations across Ontario, involving both provincial and federal agencies to combat misclassification, WSIB abuse, tax fraud, human trafficking, and drug smuggling;

• Eliminating the “satisfactory/unaudited” status, which has become a loophole for unsafe carriers involved in illegal practices;

• Stronger enforcement of federal labour and tax rules, especially those outlined in the recent federal budget;

• Enhanced truck driver training and licensing standards, and tougher oversight for those who disregard them;

• Better control and accountability in issuing Safety Fitness Certificates;

• Greater oversight of temporary staffing agencies;

• Crackdowns on the abuse and exploitation of foreign students, temporary foreign workers, and permanent residents in the trucking industry;

• And improvements to Ontario’s commercial insurance regime to ensure fairness and stability.

This high-level meeting represents a critical moment for truck safety reform in Ontario, as government and industry leaders confront long-standing challenges that have put public safety and the industry’s integrity at risk.