Transport Committee on Oct. 28th, 2025

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan Lake West—South Kelowna, BC]

Make it very short, please.

[Maximilien Roy]

Sure thing.

Fraud is really an issue when it comes to insurance. If there are many people defrauding the system, then it increases premiums for everyone. If we could find a way to share information through a centralized database, then we could pinpoint the identified fraudulent actors. We could reduce premiums for all those who are insured. For us, having a centralized national database would be a pretty good way to share that information.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan Lake West—South Kelowna, BC]

That's excellent to know.

In regard to uniform facility underwriting rules, can you maybe tell the committee what facility underwriting is, why it differs from the usual type of insurance and why that may be causing problems on the roads?

[Cecilia Omole]

If I understand your question correctly, it pertains to Facility Association, which is meant to be kind of an insurer of last resort for those really high-risk drivers. I'm unable to comment specifically on the underwriting criteria they use or the process, but generally speaking, it's the highest-risk drivers who would fall under Facility Association. We don't like to encourage that. They always want to be the last resort. They would like to have these individuals in the regular insurance market. It's generally kind of a last resort.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan Lake West—South Kelowna, BC]

There seems to be an issue, though, where there's either no insurance or there are different types of insurance. Every province has their own rules. As the Insurance Bureau of Canada, what do you think are some of the things your industry needs to tackle when it comes to document fraud or location verification and those kinds of things, in addition to facility insurance and when it's appropriate and when it's not?

[Cecilia Omole]

Certainly, when it comes to underwriting criteria, each of our members will have their own perspective and their own approach. We wouldn't be able to comment generally and say that this is what the insurance industry does as it pertains to underwriting. However, as it refers to fraud, certainly they would want to look into having the best-quality information. Of course, a lot of that information comes from the actual client or the insured. If they're acting in a fraudulent way, then the onus is on the insurer to not underwrite that risk.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan Lake West—South Kelowna, BC]

I do think that your organization has done some excellent work, but I do think this is an area.... If you have any information or further opinions that you could put in writing to the committee, I would appreciate it.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you, Mr. Albas.

Ms. Nguyen, the floor is now yours. You have five minutes, please.

[Chi Nguyen, Liberal, Spadina—Harbourfront, ON]

Thank you very much.

Thank you to the witnesses for joining us today to give us some more perspectives on this really important conversation.

I have just a general question. If a truck driver is properly licensed and operating within the bounds of the law, how does that affect their insurability and risk profile? Do you have specific concerns as to whether or not they're classified as “Driver Inc.”, and the model in general itself?

That's a question for the Insurance Bureau folks.

[Cecilia Omole]

As it pertains to the factors that influence the insurance, a number of variables are at play. It comes from specifically the driving history. Are they a safe driver? Have they had a lot of accidents? What type of training have they received? What type of vehicle are they operating? What types of goods and services are they dealing with? Are they transporting dangerous goods? Are they transporting consumable goods, such as fruit? There are different levels of risk. That will help inform the insurer as it pertains to developing a risk profile for the truck driver. Those are just some of the variables.

Of course, for our members, each company will have its own approach to underwriting. We would not be able to to comment generally about how insurers do it. Each company does it differently. Generally speaking, a broad number of variables would influence that risk.

[Chi Nguyen, Liberal, Spadina—Harbourfront, ON]

I have another question that I want to ask. I understand that over the last decade or so, the cost of the equipment has gone up quite a bit. I'm curious to know whether that has affected premium costs as well.

[Cecilia Omole]

Certainly, if we look at today's economic circumstances, the variables of U.S. trade pressures, tariffs, inflation, labour mobility and unemployment all influence pricing. When we're talking about premium pressures, all those variables would have an impact. The degree to which they will influence the premium varies, but certainly those factors will have an influence.

[Chi Nguyen, Liberal, Spadina—Harbourfront, ON]

Can you speak a little bit more about what else we can be doing on the fraud front to ensure that we are weeding out bad actors?

[Cecilia Omole]

Really, when it comes to fraud, one of our public policy recommendations is to create a centralized national database, one that would reach across each jurisdiction. It can't work in just one area because, as we all know, trucks travel across Canada and oftentimes will travel to the United States, for example. We need to be able to capture that information in one repository that can be shared across jurisdictions so that insurers have the best quality of information for underwriting.

[Chi Nguyen, Liberal, Spadina—Harbourfront, ON]

It sounds like a lot more collaboration and coordination of datasets, etc., would be very useful at this point.

My last question.... I don't know that I have another question. I think I might be done.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you.

Before I move on, do I have the consent of the committee to ask a follow-up question on what Ms. Nguyen was speaking about?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

It actually builds on what Mr. Barsalou-Duval was speaking to earlier as well.

Thank you, colleagues.

I'm looking forward to getting the data cross-referenced with regard to increased traffic and increased insurance claims. That's going to be important for us, because then we can say whether or not there is something that needs to be addressed here. We know that truck traffic has increased over the last decade or the last two decades, and we're really trying to see what the increased cost is compared to how many trucks are on the road.

In addition to that, I'm going to build on what you were speaking to. Costs have gone up with regard to replacement costs for trucks. A Volvo truck once cost $120,000. Now it costs a quarter of a million dollars over the last decade, let's say. You also have theft and you also have fraud and all those kinds of things.

Would you be able to provide this committee—because you're a numbers-based industry, we know you have this information—with a breakdown of how many of those increased costs you referred to in your opening remarks with regard to a 180% increase in the cost of claims, I think it was, are attributable to increased accidents on a per capita basis?

Also, there are the increases in costs in replacing products and increases in fraud. Would you be able to do a breakdown of that for us so that we can actually look into what costs are attributable to the Driver Inc. model that we're addressing here today? Would you be able to provide the committee with that?

[Cecilia Omole]

We are challenged as it pertains to data aggregation and data breakdown. What we generally have, when it comes to claims cost and claims count, is that they are aggregated across a few regions. I mentioned Ontario, Alberta and the Atlantic region collectively.

With regard to replacement costs, we do leverage information from Statistics Canada to do a monthly inflation report, so we do have a sense of replacement cost pressures for commercial vehicles. However, as it pertains to a per capita breakdown, I don't believe we would have that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much.

Thanks for your indulgence, colleagues. I appreciate it very much.

Mr. Barsalou‑Duval, you have two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I am going to ask the Insurance Bureau of Canada representatives my question.

Earlier, we mentioned the possibility of having a Canada-wide insurance registry, because roadside inspectors tell us they are unable to find out whether the proof of insurance they are given is valid or not. I assume that this kind of registry would allow for access to all provinces.

However, there is still the whole question of people who are not insured at all. How often do you hear about this? Is it common practice or not? Is there a way of counting the number of cases?

[Cecilia Omole]

Yes, this is actually something that's recently come to our attention. In fact, I will be speaking with my Quebec counterparts later this week. Unfortunately, I don't have any specific data or details about it, but it is certainly something that we are examining at this time.

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

Thank you.

I am now going to turn to Mr. Richardson of the Professional Truck Training Alliance of Canada.

Standard 16 in the NSC, the federal government's National Safety Code, requires at least 100 hours of training. Witnesses we have heard in the committee have told us that in their opinion, even the 100 hours of training in the NSC is not adequate.

Do you agree with that statement?

[Kim Richardson]

I would agree that, in some cases, it's not adequate enough training. I think what needs to be considered is what's happening to the individual once they're licensed and they enter the industry, and what the finishing program or ongoing education looks like from the private and for-hire carrier perspective or where they go to work.

The hours in truck, in yard and in class do vary across the provinces, and we've seen some provinces that are just implementing mandatory entry-level training now—

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

I have to interrupt you because I don't have a lot of time left.

Mr. Cadieux, not so long ago, we had an opportunity to participate in a press conference together to call for changes in the industry. We stressed ten recommendations.

If you could prioritize only one of those recommendations, which one would it be?