Transport Committee on Nov. 6th, 2025

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

Mr. Chair, I'm going to take some of my time here.

Secretary, I asked you a very simple question.

If this budget were to pass tomorrow—probably not with the support of the Conservative Party, but if it did pass—are we talking one year, two years, three years or the four years you have been talking about? Can you not answer a simple question on something that is directly under your responsibility?

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Kennebecasis, NB]

The first step is to pass the budget. The next step is for us to take that and go through the process. I would say soon after.... If you want to pin me down to an actual month or day, I'm not going to do that. The first step for us is to pass budget 2025. I'm hoping the members on your side will actually support the budget. There are a lot of great measures in the budget. It's a generational budget. We don't hear a lot of positive comments from your side about that.

The first step is that this measure is in budget 2025. For me—

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

The Atlantic Provinces Trucking Association came here. I asked them specifically if you had spoken to them about this. They had not heard from you. We have had every single trucking association, including the Canadian Trucking Alliance, which represents the trucking industry right across Canada, from coast to coast to coast. Their number one ask was this.

If you can't give us a date, sir, why would we want to support a budget if you can't even say with any sense that within four years you can get this done.

I think it falls on you, sir, to be able to give us at least a date within the next four years.

When will this collection happen? Tell it to the Canadian Trucking Alliance and all the trucking firms that came in, when you're going to be doing your job.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Kennebecasis, NB]

We are committed to making this happen. Step one is to pass the budget, which clearly your party has a lot of hesitation to do. This is puzzling to me. That's what we see on the other side. I think my record shows.... I have a business background before politics. I'm a man of action. I want results. I believe in accountability. I come from that environment. We will endeavour to make this happen as soon as we can.

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

I'm really glad that someone knows how to sign the front end of a cheque and not just the backside. It's important in government to have all of those perspectives in there.

I will say that if I were looking to hire a firm that couldn't tell me if it would take my money and was unable to give me a firm date on when it would start working and getting those results, when I gave it a four-year window to do so, that would not be a firm I'd want to do business with.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Albas.

Mr. Lauzon, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Stéphane Lauzon, Liberal, Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank the Secretary of State and the officials for being here today. It's a pleasure to have them here to discuss this issue that is very important to us all.

Mr. Secretary of State, you spoke a lot about the Income Tax Act and the importance of applying it properly. Mr. Albas asked a pretty important question about how and when the government is going to amend this legislation.

For the benefit of this committee, can you clarify your thoughts on how this legislation will directly affect businesses?

Based on your experience in the transportation sector, how do you think this legislation, which we are going to amend soon or later, will improve the income of businesses and the well-being of employees who drive trucks?

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Kennebecasis, NB]

Thank you very much for the question. It's great to see you.

We, as a government, and I, as secretary of state, recognize that this has been an issue. The trucking industry is of vital importance to our economy, our supply chain and our distribution. The fact is that a situation has developed that has treated companies that play by the rules unfairly and has put them at a competitive disadvantage. You could argue that sometimes, it's up to a 20-cent-per-mile or 30-cent-per-mile disadvantage. We need to act and we need to correct that.

If our trucking industry is not healthy, supply chain-wise, we're not getting products competitively from coast to coast to coast and from north and south. I look at it as two things.

As a company that ships products using trucking companies that play by the rules, I would get such-and-such a price per pound to ship products. My competitor, which may be using a trucking company that uses Drivers Inc., is getting a cheaper price. Company to company, they're shipping their products at a competitive disadvantage. That's number one.

Number two, the trucking companies that compete and play by the rules, that pay their employees and deduct CPP, EI and benefits, etc., versus those that do the PSP—they just pay an amount of money and don't make deductions—are not competitive. We need to correct that as a government.

As I said to the member earlier, I'm not about the past and about why we didn't do this or that. Here we are now. We're a new government with a new Prime Minister and a new mandate and we're taking action to correct this problem once and for all.

There's $77.6 million over four years and $19.2 million each year after that to ramp up enforcement and make sure that the moratorium is lifted. That's a great thing. The member asked when it would be. You know what? It will be soon after we pass this budget. I'm driven; I'm a man of action. We will get this done, but the first step is to pass the budget. The member previously said to me, “You can't commit to this". My comment back is that they can't seem to commit to whether or not they're going to support our budget.

We want to make sure that we level the playing field. We want to make sure that people who abide by the rules are treated fairly and are competitive, and that bad actors are caught, because there's also a public safety issue on our highways. We want to make sure that our highways and roads are safe. We want to make sure that people are trained, have the support they need and the equipment they need. What's been developing, sadly, over several years has been the opposite. We have bad players and untrained drivers, so we need to fix that. We're coming forth with these measures in this budget.

I thank transportation for taking this issue on. We have a solution, and I expect all parties in the House to support it.

Thank you.

[Stéphane Lauzon, Liberal, Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation, QC]

You talked about compliance issues. You also mentioned another element, which is the transmission of information.

In your opinion, how important is the transmission of information to solving the problem associated with the “Driver Inc.” model?

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Kennebecasis, NB]

Number one, we want to lift the moratorium, and we do want to share information between ESDC and CRA to make sure that we can identify and catch people who aren't playing by the rules. Again, the first step is to pass what's in the budget. We have committed to that. We have identified the problem. I was put in this position to act, to identify problems and to find solutions for them.

[Stéphane Lauzon, Liberal, Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation, QC]

Do you have many files—

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Unfortunately, your time is up, Mr. Lauzon.

Thank you, Mr. Secretary of State.

Mr. Barsalou‑Duval, you have the floor for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Secretary of State, thank you for being with us today. We have been looking forward to it for a long time.

Representatives of trucking associations have mentioned to the committee, but also outside this committee, that associations have been fighting for a very long time—since 2018—for the government to act on the Driver Inc. truckers issue.

However, it so happens that you have just added measures regarding the famous T4A slips. It also so happens that we just did a study at the committee and that we've been hounding you for two months on the issue of Driver Inc. truckers.

I assume there's not necessarily a lot of chance in the timing of the announcement of the T4A slips, but we're still not going to complain about it.

We had proposed 10 solutions to the government to solve the problem related to the “Driver Inc.” model. You picked one.

Why didn't you go with the other nine?

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Kennebecasis, NB]

Thank you for that.

I also want to congratulate the Bloc. I know this part was one of the solutions you proposed.

We want to move one step at a time, and to us, the first step is to lift the moratorium that came in, I believe, under the Harper government in 2011. I believe in basically taking this one step at a time, and I think that—

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

I appreciate that.

You're saying you're starting with that measure, and that's fine. That's a first step.

Do you have a plan for the next steps? Can we expect another one of those 10 measures to be put in place?

I can give you some examples. One of the solutions we proposed is that the Canada Revenue Agency, or CRA, and Employment and Social Development Canada, or ESDC, conduct joint and systematic audits for any new business with no employees in the trucking sector. Not only would that information be shared with ESDC and CRA, but it would also be shared with provincial authorities.

Is that something your government is committed to doing?

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Kennebecasis, NB]

We will look at different options moving forward. There are obviously privacy issues that we want to respect with regard to Canadians.

I'm satisfied that we are taking the right steps right now, and the first step is to allocate money in the budget, which is for $77.6 million over four years, not—

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

Do you agree that the implementation of the T4A slip measure and the supplementary estimates alone will not solve the problem related to the “Driver Inc.” model?

Do you think that will solve everything?

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Kennebecasis, NB]

I think the witnesses you've had so far are very supportive of our move in budget 2025. The CEO or the president of the CTA is very supportive, and they spoke publicly of the moves we're making in budget 2025.

I live by an adage that to stand still is to go backwards, so we're always going to look for ways to move forward. We're always going to look for ways to improve—

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

I understand that they said they agreed with that, but—

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Kennebecasis, NB]

—and I think that, in the budget, what we're doing—

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

Mr. Secretary of State, it isn't just the Bloc Québécois that is proposing these 10 measures, it's all the industry representatives who took part in our press conference. They too were calling for the nine other measures, which you haven't committed to implementing.

You mentioned that you're going to have more funding to address this issue, which is very good news.

Let's take the example of ESDC, which has received $26 million since 2022. Only 17 administrative monetary penalties have been issued in the trucking sector, and 75% of those 17 have not been paid.

What kind of result can we expect from you?

Can we expect more ambitious results than we've seen so far?

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Kennebecasis, NB]

I'm very confident and very comfortable in the work that the CRA is doing. Since 2014, the CRA has conducted 45,000 compliance actions related to businesses in the trucking industry, representing a fiscal impact of $1.7 billion. Actually, to come up to 2022, it has done 14,000 compliance actions, with a fiscal impact of $784 million.

Just to deviate a bit, I think you'll look at the progress that the CRA is making on our 100-day plan with respect to responses to Canadians. I'm very confident and comfortable that CRA has the tools it needs. Obviously, it's a work in progress, a moving target, but—

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

You say that you are satisfied with the work that has been done, Mr. Secretary of State, but—

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Kennebecasis, NB]

—I'm very comfortable that we have what we need to—

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

The Canada Revenue Agency website has a directory of enforcement notifications. This provides information on companies that have been prosecuted and convicted of tax fraud.

Can you tell me how many companies in the trucking industry have been convicted of tax fraud in the last five years?