Transport Committee on Jan. 28th, 2026

[Réjean Breton]

When we talk with our roadside assistance colleagues from other Canadian provinces, we find that the number of stored and abandoned vehicles is the same everywhere, proportionally. For example, in the maritimes, where there are fewer heavy vehicles associated with the Driver Inc. model, of course, there are fewer vehicles stored in impound lots.

I believe that from western Canada to the maritimes, Quebec and Ontario are major arteries of the road network on which many trucks associated with the Driver Inc. model operate, particularly on major roads like highways and the Trans-Canada.

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

What’s the source of these vehicles? Are they from a particular province?

[Réjean Breton]

Excuse me, are you talking about the source of the vehicles or the type of vehicle?

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

I mean the province the vehicles come from. Is there one province that stands out?

[Réjean Breton]

Okay.

What we notice when we tow Driver Inc. vehicles is that most, if not the vast majority, are registered in Ontario.

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

How many vehicles have been abandoned in your province?

[Réjean Breton]

Currently, in Quebec, 312 Driver Inc. trucks are in impound lots, which represents $3.8 million in bills submitted by towing companies. Of course, the figure of $3.8 million is higher today. However, there are companies that have not yet submitted their invoices to our office because they believe they’ll be paid within a few days or weeks. They hope to be.

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

We’ve heard many allusions to a race to the bottom. What are the results for your industry, particularly for small businesses operating in Quebec?

[Réjean Breton]

In Quebec, all towing companies are required to have a memorandum of understanding, essentially a contract, with a police force, giving them exclusivity to operate on the road network. However, since about 78% of the heavy vehicles that are towed are vehicles from the Driver Inc. model, you can imagine the financial burden they have to bear to manage this issue.

Many companies in Quebec are considering the possibility of not renewing their memorandum with the Sûreté du Québec, so they are not obligated to intervene. In short, they’ll choose their clientele. If they have to tow a vehicle from a reliable company or carrier, of course, they will intervene. If this is not the case and it’s a Driver Inc. vehicle, there may be undue pressure to intervene to clear the road network, and this would be done voluntarily. However, the contract does not state that they must work voluntarily to clear the road network at the request of the government.

So, if towing companies in Quebec decide not to renew their agreement, there will definitely be a road safety issue.

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

That’s tragic. It’s a bad situation, for sure.

In your opinion, are there solutions that could address this situation, such as a new federal approach or regulations for the industry in general? What specific change would be best, in your opinion?

[Réjean Breton]

In our opinion, aside from the recommendations I mentioned earlier, the federal government should have a partnership with, among others, the Insurance Bureau of Canada so we can do a check on the spot, promptly and at any time, to determine whether a heavy vehicle, regardless of its origin, may be insured. That’s the first thing that needs to be considered on the ground. As I mentioned earlier, volunteering at the request of the government represents an economic problem that we will no longer be able to face in a few months in Quebec.

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

I'm going to quickly ask a question in English. We've heard about facility insurance not being sufficient. Do you believe there needs to be a federal standard of insurance, as well as verification when a trucking company or an individual is transiting extraprovincially?

[Mike Burstall, Vice-President, Association des professionnels du dépannage du Québec]

I'll answer, because I'm bilingual.

Yes, he's asking that we be able to check the insurance or that the police officer or anybody on-site has the ability to check it right away.

The driver can cancel it tomorrow. He'll have insurance today—his pink slip is good, let's say—and tomorrow he can cancel it, so he's not insured.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you, Mr. Albas. Unfortunately, the time is up, sir.

Thank you to our witnesses for responding to those questions.

Next, we'll turn the floor over to Mr. Greaves.

Mr. Greaves, you have six minutes, sir.

[Will Greaves, Liberal, Victoria, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for being with us this evening.

My first question is for Mr. Tarantini. Thank you for your opening statement, sir. You mentioned that licences are sometimes obtained through personal networks, and I wonder if you could elaborate on that for the committee. Trucking licences are issued by the relevant provincial authorities. When you say they're obtained through personal networks, is that fraudulent? What is the mechanism that's happening?

Clarify if you can, please.

[Vince Tarantini]

The issuing of driver's licences isn't limited to going to a testing facility and getting tested by the government; some individuals have taken it upon themselves to get the authority to issue licences. I've never had that interest, because it's very onerous and it's a responsibility that should be taken seriously by those who do it.

Many driving schools have been reported in the news lately as being shut down as a result of the fraudulent activities they'd embarked on. It's not a secret out there. Most drivers know this, whether they've obtained their licence through paying a fee of several hundred dollars for their licence.... Training climbed as high as $10,000 once the MELT program came into play several years back. Competition started to drive the price down, of course, but not to the point where you're paying hundreds of dollars instead of $7,000, $8,000 or $9,000 for a licence.

[Will Greaves, Liberal, Victoria, BC]

Thank you for clarifying that.

In your view, would one potential way to address the Driver Inc. model be through more effective oversight of the driving schools on the licensing side, as well as some of the other pieces that have been presented to the committee?

[Vince Tarantini]

Yes, and there's an association that has been lobbying hard for this. We, as an industry, want better-trained drivers. Don't we all? If you're taking a cab or a bus or are driving by a commercial vehicle on the road, you have some sort of idea that the person has been trained properly, and you have no concern—except there hasn't been quality training given to these individuals.

[Will Greaves, Liberal, Victoria, BC]

On the same point, would it be, in your view, advisable to have some kind of national or federal standard, rather than individual provinces' potentially having different levels of oversight or different standards that they monitor within their own provincial jurisdictions for driving schools?

[Vince Tarantini]

Yes, of course, but it needs to have a mentoring process and it needs to have an escalation process, similar to what Jeff was talking about earlier as a pathway for success.

A lot of trades have journeymen. They have a journey to get to the end of the road. Truck driving somehow gets the short end of the stick, even though it's a missile driving down the road. It can be turned into a weapon at a moment's notice.

With a lot of the accidents the drivers I've spoken to have had, they have no clear explanation for how they got into them in the first place. They just don't recall. They don't understand how they ran off the road or how the accident happened. Today, we have the benefit of having a lot of video cameras in our fleets, in other fleets and on social media. Drivers are just not ready for the accident until it happens. They replay it, and somebody walks them through it and says, “This is the moment you went wrong”, circling back to the beginning of the incident.

It's a little late to be training the drivers, but it needs to be done, even at that point.

[Will Greaves, Liberal, Victoria, BC]

Better late than never. Thank you.

Do I have time for another question, Mr. Chair? I have 30 seconds. Wonderful.

I'll direct my question to Mr. Burstall. Thank you very much for being here, sir.

We've heard at this committee from many witnesses, including today, that labour law violations— specifically regarding overtime, rest periods and safety protocols—may be significantly under-reported by drivers in the trucking and towing sectors. In your experience, what do you think leads to this under-reporting, and what would be the most effective way to address it?

[Mike Burstall]

By “under-reporting”, are you talking about the electronic logbooks and all of that?

[Will Greaves, Liberal, Victoria, BC]

Yes.

[Mike Burstall]

The towing industry is regulated with electronic logbooks. We're very well taken care of.

On the other end, for the transport, I understand that they're finding tricks to go around them, as they did with the paper logbook before. I'm a contractor in Montreal. We do several highways in the city. I've never seen so many accidents happening as have been happening in the past five years. A lot of them are not experienced drivers. They'll pull into a parking lot and hit a hydro pole. In the past, a driver would try to back up and wiggle around it, and he would get himself out. Now, with Driver Inc., they know how to go forward, and that's it. They don't know how to go backwards. They hit that pole and they keep going. They destroy other structures and hit overpasses. When drivers would normally back up, they'll try to go forward.

Experience is a big issue in the industry.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Greaves.

Thank you, Mr. Burstall.

We will continue with Mr. Barsalou‑Duval.

You have the floor for six minutes.