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A truck crosses the Ambassador Bridge border crossing between Windsor and Detroit.GEOFF ROBINS/AFP/Getty Images
Private career colleges in Ontario are accrediting aspiring commercial truck drivers who have not completed minimum training requirements, in some cases altering student records to falsify their qualifications, according to a new report from the Auditor-General’s office.
The provincial auditor analyzed the province’s enforcement records and found that some ministry-approved private career colleges could not produce records demonstrating their students had completed the required training components to become a truck driver. It also found some private colleges employed unqualified instructors and instructed students to sign off on training hours that were never delivered.
The findings echo calls for stricter licensing oversight from industry experts, who have long warned that lax training in the trucking sector is undermining road safety.
Ontario Trucking Association president Stephen Laskowski said the contents of the report are “chilling,” but added, “They are, quite frankly, not surprising to those of us on the front lines.”
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, according to Auditor-General Shelley Spence’s report, released Tuesday. Driving violations such as failing to keep proper maintenance logs have also spiked in recent years, Ms. Spence’s report noted.
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Ontario Auditor-General Shelley Spence’s office found that some ministry-approved colleges were unable to produce records showing their students had completed the necessary training to become a truck driver.Sammy Kogan/The Canadian Press
In addition to mandatory entry-level training courses, drivers must complete their licensing by taking a road test. But the Auditor-General’s report also found significant flaws with Ontario’s testing regime. In some cases, unregistered private career colleges not subject to provincial oversight successfully booked students to complete road tests.
Some training colleges also booked students’ road tests at specific centres where exams involved easier turns and reversal testing, as well as lower-speed-limit highways – pointing to inconsistent testing practices that undermine road safety, the report said.
An analysis of Ontario Ministry of Transportation (MTO) data found drivers who travelled more than 50 kilometres from their home to complete road tests had higher at-fault collision rates postlicensing.
“Ontarians expect that licensed truck drivers have the mandatory training and experience required to safely operate their vehicles on our roadway,” the report said.
Drivers of large trucks account for more than 70 per cent of all commercial vehicle operators in Ontario. Truck driver training in the province is provided through two forums: at a business or a public community college that is approved under the MTO’s driver certification program, or a private career college that is registered with the Ministry of Colleges, Universities, Research Excellence and Security, or MCURES.
The provincial auditor focused largely on the latter, enrolling students at five private colleges between June and December, 2025, to identify potential training gaps. The colleges were not identified in the report.
Two of the colleges offered less than the minimum required 103.5 training hours, the report said. One undercover student, for example, was offered 20 hours of one‐on‐one lessons in a truck, instead of the necessary 50 hours. Other students were not taught all the required elements of truck driving, such as left turns at major intersections and emergency stopping.
“Providing proper training is expensive, and our students observed that it is relatively easy for private career colleges to take shortcuts,” the report said.
Truck Training Schools Association of Ontario president Philip Fletcher said the Auditor-General’s report illustrates the need for better enforcement and stronger training guidelines: His organization sees 200 hours of training as the gold standard. The COVID-19 pandemic ushered in an “explosion” of new truck driving schools, he added, but inspections remained underresourced.
MCURES employs eight inspectors covering all 595 registered private career colleges, Ms. Spence’s report noted.
Narinderpal Jaswal, president of the Ontario Commercial Truck Training Association, which represents more than 30 truck driving schools including privately run colleges, acknowledged that some schools “are not delivering the level of education and professionalism expected.” However, the solution to road safety issues lies in “strengthening the actual road test process,” Mr. Jaswal said.
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Commercial truck driver training is the largest and fastest-growing vocational program offered by private career colleges in Ontario, the study noted. These colleges are inspected by MCURES, which can issue compliance orders and revocation of program approvals. However, around a quarter of accredited private colleges had never been inspected as of March, 2025, the provincial auditor wrote, and MCURES does not routinely share inspection information with the MTO.
Students who complete driver training at private colleges must then complete road exams at DriveTest centres, which are run by a third-party provider for the MTO.
DriveTest staff are unable to verify whether exam bookings are coming from authorized colleges, the Auditor-General’s office found. The report said that 29 schools that had never registered with MCURES had successfully booked more than 3,200 road tests. Another 11 private colleges had booked exams despite expired, suspended or revoked registrations.
“For years, the Ford government has been warned about rampant fraud in commercial truck driver training and licensing,” NDP Leader Marit Stiles said in a statement. “We have heard heartbreaking stories from families about losing loved ones on Northern highways. And yet, this government continues to ignore reality.”
Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria said in a Tuesday press conference that the provincial government has already introduced numerous measures to strengthen truck driver licensing. These include proposed legislation to implement mandatory wait periods between obtaining a G licence for cars, vans and small trucks and a commercial vehicle licence. (MTO data show drivers who waited longer to get their truck licences had fewer accidents.)
Speaking at a separate announcement Tuesday, Premier Doug Ford said the government is committed to shutting down non-compliant trucking schools.
“If we find one training school that is not going by the guidelines, not training the truck drivers, they’re done. They’re gone. You won’t hear of them any more,” he said.
Driving infractions amongst commercial truck drivers have increased in recent years, according to the Auditor-General’s analysis of MTO data. Between 2020 and 2024, the number of violations such as not keeping proper maintenance logs jumped by 108 per cent.
However, neither the Transportation Ministry nor MCURES monitor training schools’ outcomes, such as road-test failure rates or postlicensing driving infractions, the auditor found.
“This information can help ministries to better target their audit, inspection and investigation efforts to those providers with poorer outcomes.”
The report made numerous recommendations to both the MTO and MCURES to improve oversight and enforcement, including better information-sharing arrangements and a greater number of unannounced inspections of training schools. Both ministries have agreed to all 13 recommendations made in the report.
With reports from Jeff Gray and Laura Stone
