Ford, Sarkaria commit to address fake Trucking schools
Questions on how international students get commercial licenses
It appears that the Trucking industry’s calls for investigation of fake Trucking schools has been heard by Premier Doug Ford, and Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria.
“There’s no lying on applications, or we need to deal with it,” Ford replied to a reporter’s question in a press conference on September 3rd in Brampton. The question touched on international students obtaining commercial Trucking licenses; drivers using false information to get their licenses; and fake Trucking schools.
“It’s very simple. And I know the Minister is doing a great job. I’ve talked to him about the driving schools 100 times, about 100 times and or 101 times. But I’ll pass it over to the Minister. He’s quite familiar with this,” said Ford as he stepped aside from the podium to allow Sarkaria to answer.
“Thank you for the question that obviously are major issues, ensuring that safety on our highways and something that we are absolutely going to be taking very seriously, reviewing all of our commercial licensing as well. And I know you’ve brought this up in the past as well before,” Sarkaria told the press conference.
“First and foremost, we want to make sure from the comments with respect to any individuals involved on whether it be Service Ontario or drive test in any criminal manner that will be investigated fully, and we will cooperate with if it’s the police, our own internal ministry to ensure that any sort of fraud is handled immediately.”
Road Warrior News has published numerous articles since 2021 dealing with fraud and cheating in the Truck training and testing industry, including fake documents, questionable test results, and accusations of driver examiners taking cash payments to pass unqualified drivers.
Philip Fletcher, president of the Truck Training Schools Association of Ontario (TTSAO) told Road Warrior News that he personally had to deliver a “cease and desist” letter to a school which was using the TTSAO’s logo on its graduation certificates.
“Responsible, legitimate training and testing organizations are very happy to hear Ford’s promise that Ontario will look into the scourge of fake Trucking schools, counterfeit documents, and all of the other elements which are allowing unqualified drivers to drive commercial vehicles,” says Fletcher.
“We have assembled a group of industry professionals who are very serious about the credibility of Ontario’s commercial vehicle training and testing programs. This group met regularly over the summer. We are preparing for discussion this fall with the Ministry of Transportation as it reviews the Entry Level Standards for Truckers.
“In addition,” Fletcher adds, “we plan to offer suggestions on how Ontario can work with the Trucking industry to develop mechanisms within law enforcement and the justice system to identify, charge and stop individuals involved in Truck training and testing fraud.”
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Full transcript of remarks
Reporter: My next question is for Minister Sarkaria and Premier Ford can also comment on that.
Ontario is the only province where a visitor can take a commercial truck driving license, and we can’t say nobody knows it. Everybody knows that.
Why can’t we ban that visitor? Because many of the accidents we see on the highways, this may be one of the cause that untrained drivers are on our highways and also in the Service Ontario and where the driving license centers are there many and many fraudulent people are operating, adding fake experiences, making dummy driver licenses.
And we, personally, we reported this to police.
Also gave the names of the those people, those who are doing this. So, we need a legislation on this, also that these fraudulent people and these visitors, how can they drive commercial trucks on our highways? This is a biggest road safety issue.
Premier Doug Ford: Thank you so much. I think it’s a real skill set to be able to drive one of those tractor trailers, and you’re, you know, they’re big, big pieces of equipment, and you have to be qualified. It has to be legal.
There’s no lying on applications, or we need to deal with it. It’s very simple. And I know the Minister is doing a great job. I’ve talked to him about the driving schools 100 times, about 100 times and or 101 times. But I’ll pass it over to the Minister. He’s quite familiar with this.
Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria: Thank you for the question that obviously are major issues, ensuring that safety on our highways and something that we are absolutely going to be taking very seriously reviewing all of our commercial licensing as well. And I know you’ve brought this up in the past as well before.
First and foremost, we want to make sure from the comments with respect to any individuals involved on whether it be Service Ontario or drive test in any criminal manner that will be investigated fully, and we will cooperate with if it’s the police, our own internal ministry to ensure that any sort of fraud is handled immediately.
Visitors in this province would be illegal to drive without a work permit. So absolutely, if there’s any loopholes there, we’ll definitely be fixing those and making sure that that should not happen and cannot happen, and we will leave no stone unturned in ensuring that where that is occurring, it is investigated, and that we also come down very hard on that or move forward on legislation that would close that gap or restrict that from happening further in the province.
So, I will take that back and continue to work with our team to have a resolution very shortly. Thank you.
