Transport Committee on Oct. 21st, 2025

[Ritesh Kotak]

The short answer is yes. I think the circumvention of those protection mechanisms.... There's also the pressuring: “Look, we have a job opportunity for you, but you need to go and fill out these documents and incorporate.” There's also the issue that up to $30,000, there is no need to incorporate.

As an individual, if you don't understand labour and employment law and you don't get a contract or you don't go through it.... With a contract, there's a lot of information. There are probationary provisions in there. There are provisions around vacation. Most organizations have employee handbooks, which talk about the rights that an individual may have. All of that gets circumvented if you're an independent contractor.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Clarke, ON]

Thank you.

Getting to the classification, the CRA, among other government agencies, will classify.... There are Supreme Court decisions and there is legislation about this, but really, it is common sense: If it looks like a business and acts like a business, it's probably a business. I think of the traditional role of a truck driver working for a firm as being someone who is scheduled by them, someone who is potentially driving someone else's truck. If all of those circumstances are met, my reading of the legislation and of the Supreme Court decisions would be that this person would likely be classified as an employee.

Would you have a similar understanding?

[Ritesh Kotak]

I think it comes down to taking a common-sense, reasonable approach in some of these cases. The common adage is that if it looks like a duck and quacks, it's a duck. If the individual is acting as an employee—if the six items that I mentioned in my opening statement are met—then circumventing those and classifying the individual as an independent contractor, while there are legitimate situations for that, would not be appropriate.

I hope that answers your question.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Clarke, ON]

Thank you very much. You did a great job. I appreciate it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much.

Next we will go to Mr. Kelloway.

Mr. Kelloway, the floor is yours. You have six minutes, sir.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Sydney—Glace Bay, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's a pleasure to meet the three of you. We've had some really great testimony throughout this study, which is really important.

I'm going to try to get to all three of you. I'm going to start with Ms. Spence.

In terms of the audit you did, is that something you can provide to us? I know it's online, but I think it's very valuable information, so if you could provide that to us as part of your testimony, that would be really important.

I had a couple of questions about the timelines. Was that audit done in 2023?

[Shelley Spence]

It was done in 2019.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Sydney—Glace Bay, NS]

I'm curious whether there was any previous audit before that to juxtapose, to contrast and compare, or was that basically fresh data from that time?

[Shelley Spence]

That is an answer I don't have off the top of my head.

I've been the AG now for two years, and that would predate even 2019, but I do believe we did an audit of driver licensing for regular drivers in 2024, and I believe that audit had been done as well before 2019.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Sydney—Glace Bay, NS]

If that's something that can be sent to us for the study, I would greatly appreciate it. I think it would be interesting.

I have one quick question, and then I'll move on to Mr. Kotak.

In terms of the 19 recommendations.... Through this study, we have clearly delineated that there are provincial opportunities to strengthen things, such as training and regulatory frameworks, and then there's a fair amount on the CRA side. I'm curious. In the 19 recommendations, is there a breakdown between provincial and federal jurisdiction?

[Shelley Spence]

All of our recommendations would be addressed to the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario. They would basically be around what's in their regulation authority. None of them would have been federal.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Sydney—Glace Bay, NS]

Those would be under the domain of the province. Thanks very much. I really appreciate it.

Mr. Kotak, I'm going to shock you right now: I'm not a techy. It took me a while to understand what blockchain was, and five years ago, AI. Now we're learning a lot about it.

In your testimony, you talked about fairness and integrity and really focusing on those two pillars. I'm wondering about digital tools or platforms that could be implemented to better track employment practices in the trucking industry without breaching privacy. What are some of the things you could advise us on in using technology with respect to that balance, as you said?

[Ritesh Kotak]

Again, technology is just a tool. It's not there to replace; it's there to aid.

With artificial intelligence, machine learning and the emergence of tech, there are a few things that can be done and tools that can be implemented. Right off the bat, I would mention pattern recognition. I think that if individuals are, for example, spinning up corporations or making filings, we can get pretty close to using pattern recognition to identify individuals who are misusing the system.

As my friend mentioned, if you have this huge issue with limited resources, you need to know where to focus. It's kind of that flag to say, “Let's go ahead and prioritize these files versus some of the other files.” That would be the pattern recognition component.

Something as small as having an AI-based chatbot.... We're seeing this technology everywhere, where individuals, businesses included, are able to have a conversation with a bot to ask what to do in a situation—

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Sydney—Glace Bay, NS]

Mr. Kotak, I don't want to interrupt you, but when you say “AI chatbot”, can you explain that to people who are 55, like me? What does that mean? I think it's important to drill down in terms of recommendations. What are they?

If you could do that, it would be great.

[Ritesh Kotak]

Sure, I apologize.

We all have search queries. We'll go online, and we'll search for something. That's our input. It will get processed, and then there will be an output, which is the result. It's not very natural. It's not a natural conversation.

With technology now, you can have a very natural conversation with, essentially, an algorithm that can give you information—it is trained on accurate information that is being inputted by sources, in this case the Government of Canada and the provinces as well, based on jurisdiction—on what the individual's rights are and provide access to additional resources, pointing you toward the right place. Essentially, what you're trying to do is create an avenue for an individual to get their questions answered in a safe manner.

Privacy aside, there are analytics as well that could be gleaned from it. What types of questions are people asking? How often are they asking those questions? Can we get down to particular jurisdictions?

I know my time is up, but that would be a way to leverage the technology.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Sydney—Glace Bay, NS]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Mitton, in your opening testimony, you quoted a lot of different stats. I might have missed it, sir, but do you have information that you can share based on the stats that you shared with us today? There were a lot of stats that you brought up in terms of crime and correlation between different aspects—cause and effect. Can you submit any evidence to support your opening testimony?

I'd really appreciate it.

[Blaine Mitton]

Well, the evidence.... He was mentioning ChatGPT. You can go into a chat, and you can find all the crimes, the list of crimes and all of those things, which, quite frankly, I did for my presentation. You have copies of my original presentation, I believe, where I've spelled out all the different issues.

We talk about safety. We talk about crime. These are all associated with a segment of our society. It's sad to say, but we have to address those things as a society, and—

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Sydney—Glace Bay, NS]

I don't mean to interrupt you, sir, but if you could submit.... There were a lot of stats and a lot of correlation that, quite frankly, as a committee, I think we need to look into. Basically, I'm looking to ask you to show your work in terms everything you sourced today, in terms of correlation between certain groups and certain crimes. I think it's important for us to be very clear in terms of your testimony, and I want to make sure that we dig down deep into your testimony.

If you could submit that, it would be great. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Mitton, we'll make sure that you know how to submit that to the committee.

Now over to you, Mr. Barsalou‑Duval. You have six minutes.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Kotak and Mr. Mitton, we often hear truckers on the ground say that, when companies that use the Driver Inc. scheme are caught, it's only the small players, those who operate personal service businesses. It's sad because….

Mr. Chair, there seems to be a problem with the interpretation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

I'll stop the clock, Mr. Barsalou‑Duval.

Do you have an issue with translation, Mr. Mitton?

[Blaine Mitton]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

This might take a couple of minutes, but we're going to suspend until such time as your translation is fixed. I know that you have a special device that we need to ensure works properly.

The meeting is suspended to the call of the chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

I call this meeting back to order.

Mr. Barsalou‑Duval, over to you. You have five minutes and 40 seconds left.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My question is for Mr. Kotak and Mr. Mitton. It's about how you catch the people using the Driver Inc. scheme who are not the small players. In the case of the small players, it is quite easy: These are companies incorporated in the trucking sector that have no employees or trucks. The situation is clear and quite obvious.

How can the big shots, the ones who provide the work and are the actual employers, be found and caught?