The committee was studying road safety and the regulation of the trucking industry, hearing from survivors and family members of victims of truck accidents, as well as from advocacy groups, a labour service organization, and a foundation focused on human trafficking.
Claudia Boucher, a survivor of a September 2025 crash where a truck hit her car while she was stopped behind a school bus, described the lack of a criminal investigation and the failure to seize the truck’s dashcam. She called for the seizure of passports and driver’s licenses after serious accidents, for companies like Safex to be investigated, and for harmonized rules across provinces, noting that the driver was likely an illegal worker under the Driver Inc. model.
Nathalie Poulin, whose daughter was killed in December 2024 when a truck driver ignored multiple signs and lost control on a hill, argued that road safety is treated as an administrative detail and that there is a collective failure to protect the public. She recommended creating a national driver’s licence registry, sending inspection squads to companies after fatal accidents to check trucks and driver qualifications, and suspending licences during investigations, adding that the driver involved in her daughter’s death is still driving.
Mélanie Séguin, whose stepdaughter and grandson were killed in a 2022 pileup caused by a distracted truck driver who then fled the country, called for changes to allow passport seizure after fatal accidents and for a single Canada-wide highway safety law. She noted that the driver had prior criminal charges in Ontario and that his work permit was renewed despite those charges, and she disagreed with the idea that the Driver Inc. model is not linked to these tragedies.
Carmela Palkowski, Franca Pisani, and Amanda Corbett of the Caledon Community Road Safety Advocacy Group described a public safety crisis in their community, with illegal truck yards, unqualified drivers, and fatal accidents such as the death of a 23-year-old woman after a truck ran a red light. They recommended a national commercial driver safety registry, mandatory Criminal Code consideration for fatal accidents involving commercial drivers, a T5018 reporting system for cross-auditing payments in trucking, and stronger fines and enforcement at all levels of government, noting that the Ontario government has not responded to their requests.
Navneet Aujla of Labour Community Services of Peel, representing Justice for Truck Drivers, argued that Driver Inc. is just one part of a broader problem of weak enforcement and outdated laws that allow wage theft and exploitation. She said that 83 drivers she represents are owed nearly $700,000 in unpaid wages but cannot enforce rulings, and she called for a system-wide review of the trucking industry, enforcement through labour standards rather than tax mechanisms, and meaningful penalties for employers, noting that it takes two to three years to resolve a complaint under the Canada Labour Code.
Janet Campbell of the Joy Smith Foundation explained that the combination of misclassification and immigration dependency in trucking can create conditions that meet international thresholds for forced labour, including debt bondage, threats, and wage theft. She recommended cross-agency collaboration and training on forced labour indicators so that cases can be elevated for criminal assessment, and she noted that bad actors use the fringes of legitimate immigration pathways to stay in plain sight.
The committee debated a motion to invite the Minister of Transport to appear, with some members expressing frustration that the study had been delayed, and agreed to consider the matter at a future meeting.
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