Trucking industry experts are calling for a significant overhaul of Ontario’s oversight of commercial truck driver training in the wake of a scathing report from the province’s Auditor-General that raised concerns about shoddy enforcement.

In a recent letter sent to the Ontario transport ministry, the Private Motor Truck Council of Canada said the transportation regulator should have a bigger role in monitoring driving schools. The letter, obtained by The Globe and Mail, calls for more frequent inspections – an effort private industry would be open to funding, the letter said.

The industry intervention follows a rise in the number of private truck driving schools in Ontario, including some found to be operating without proper licensing, leading to concern about adequate training for those behind the wheels of large vehicles on the province’s roads.

The Auditor-General’s report, released in May, found some Ontario private career colleges had falsified truck driving students’ records, employed unqualified instructors and failed to comply with minimum instruction hours.

Around a quarter of the 216 private colleges offering truck driver training in the province had never been inspected by the Ministry of Colleges, Universities, Research Excellence and Security, the report found – noting the ministry employed just eight inspectors to audit all 595 private colleges in Ontario.

Currently, the colleges ministry is responsible for inspecting and enforcing curriculum requirements, instructor credentials, equipment regulations and other training standards at private career colleges that offer commercial driver programs.

But Kim Richardson, a senior advisor to the Professional Truck Training Alliance of Canada, told The Globe the Ministry of Transportation would be better placed to lead inspections of truck driving schools because its inspectors have a better understanding of the industry.

In response to questions from The Globe, Dayna Smockum, a spokesperson for the colleges ministry, said its inspectors have now blitzed all career colleges that were identified by the Auditor-General as having never been audited. She said the schools were either compliant or had closed down.

“We won’t hesitate to shut down truck driving training programs should they fail to uphold the integrity of our postsecondary system,” she said.

Ms. Smockum said the ministry accepted the recommendations contained in the Auditor-General’s report, which included calls for more robust inspections and improved information sharing between regulators.

However, the ministry did not detail the steps it has taken to address those recommendations. It did not respond to questions about whether it has increased its complement of inspectors or confirm whether it has started sharing the results of its inspections with the transport ministry – a gap the Auditor-General report said should be fixed.

Mike Millian, president of the Private Motor Truck Council of Canada, which represents companies with in-house commercial trucking fleets, said the colleges ministry has failed to “take any accountability.”

“The file needs to be taken from them, as far as I’m concerned,” he said in an interview.

Mr. Millian recently attended two roundtable meetings convened by industry stakeholders to discuss training standards with the provincial transport ministry, but said the ministry of colleges declined invitations to attend.

The ministry did not address The Globe’s request for comment on the meetings.

While large trucks represent about 3 per cent of all vehicles on provincial roads, they accounted for 12 per cent of all fatal collisions between 2019 and 2023, Auditor-General Shelley Spence’s report found. Driving violations in Ontario, such as drivers failing to keep proper maintenance logs, have also spiked in recent years.

As part of the research conducted for the May report, Ms. Spence’s office sent students undercover to five unnamed private colleges. The report found that some students were not taught the required elements of truck driving, including reverse parking and emergency stopping, and found two schools provided significantly less training than the mandatory 103.5 hours.

Commercial truck driver training has become the largest and fastest-growing vocational program offered by private career colleges in Ontario, according to the report.

Philip Fletcher, president of the Truck Training Schools Association of Ontario, said there are too few inspectors to tackle the explosion of private colleges.

“I think they really have to improve oversight,” he said.

When the colleges ministry identifies compliance issues at private colleges, it can revoke program approvals and issue fines ranging between $250 and $1,000 for first offences, the Auditor-General report said.

Mr. Millian said he believes the province’s penalties “need to be higher for people that are willingly breaking the rules.”

The ministry did not respond to questions from The Globe regarding the number of penalties issued to non-compliant schools over the past year, or whether it is considering increasing its maximum penalties.

Truck driving schools must also have a valid commercial vehicle operator’s registration profile with the transport ministry. Last year, the transport ministry established a training and oversight branch to audit training schools’ compliance with carrier requirements such as trip logs and hours-of-service records, which Mr. Millian praised as a positive step.

While the transport ministry can take enforcement actions against trucking companies and their drivers, it currently does not have direct access to training schools’ student records, the Auditor-General’s report noted.

The transport ministry’s efforts are also hampered by the fact that the colleges ministry does not share its school inspection results, said Mr. Millian.

Ms. Spence’s report also identified numerous issues with road tests, which aspiring truck drivers must complete after their mandatory training.

Road exams are booked by training schools and conducted at DriveTest centres, which are run by a third-party provider for the transport ministry.

DriveTest staff are unable to verify whether exam bookings come from authorized colleges, the Auditor-General’s office found. The report said that 29 schools that had never registered with the ministry of colleges had successfully booked more than 3,200 road tests. Another 11 private colleges had booked exams despite expired, suspended or revoked registrations.

In its recommendations to the transport ministry, the Private Motor Truck Council of Canada said the information gaps faced by road test administrators must be fixed. The letter calls for road test pass rates to be linked back to training schools and made available to the public.

As previously reported by The Globe, five employees of driver-licensing centres in Ontario were also charged earlier this year with allegedly accepting bribes to manipulate the results of commercial truck-driving tests.

The Professional Truck Training Alliance of Canada has also called for road test examiners to be equipped with body cameras, according to recommendations made to the transport ministry and obtained by The Globe.

In a statement, transportation ministry spokesperson Zareen Hossain said the ministry is currently leading a review of commercial driver testing and training, and is working with the colleges ministry to strengthen oversight.

“It is a priority of this government to ensure that commercial drivers are experienced and fully equipped to handle the responsibilities of operating large vehicles safely and professionally.”