Transport Committee on Feb. 2nd, 2026

[Will Greaves, Liberal, Victoria, BC]

If I have another—

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

You have three minutes.

[Will Greaves, Liberal, Victoria, BC]

That's lots of time.

Good morning, Ms. McAusland. Thank you so much for being here.

I wonder if you could elaborate on the question of data sharing. This is something that's come up a great deal as one of the impediments toward effective enforcement.

Could you speak more to what the obstacles to effective interjurisdictional data sharing are that you see?

[Linda McAusland]

Yes, I'm happy to.

We have a carrier data exchange. It was developed over 20 years ago, so it's very limited in the information that's provided. In order to exchange information, it has to be in the same format: The same fields and the same sequence of names need to be identified. There's been very little attention paid to it for some time. The board of directors has acknowledged that and we have a big project under way to update the carrier data exchange, the information that we exchange and how we exchange it.

The first steps are updating NSC standards 7, 14 and 15 and what's actually included in the carrier profile. What information can we include to eliminate the carriers who shop across the country when they get a bad rating? We're looking at our carrier profile and the inputs to that. We've identified that it's very different across the country.

We're looking at how we conduct audits, and we're doing a complete rewrite of NSC standard 15. As we start to identify the changes to the NSC standards, we're working on developing a system that can exchange information more effectively across the country.

[Will Greaves, Liberal, Victoria, BC]

Would it be fair to say that, in your view, given the nature of the data-sharing challenges and given the nature of jurisdiction around this issue, having the provincial and territorial governments willing to participate in some kind of data-sharing mechanism is essential for this information to move freely and effectively?

[Linda McAusland]

I would agree. At the board, we have that agreement. There are big obstacles in some jurisdictions. Some jurisdictions use a spreadsheet format. Others have very advanced corporate systems.

Having that exchange, we need to lift the minimum of what we're collecting and how we're collecting it. It's a factor of IT changes, regulatory changes and resource requirements.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Ms. McAusland.

Thank you very much, Mr. Greaves.

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. Harper, earlier in your opening statement, you said that there's clearly an extortion problem and a temporary foreign worker abuse issue in the trucking industry. This has been pointed out by other witnesses before you. However, some people have told us that it would be racist to target immigrant workers and make a connection between the exploitation of foreign workers and the Driver Inc. model, and that, basically, the only reason we would want to move forward on this issue would be related to that.

Where do you stand on that?

[Robert Harper]

There are Driver Inc. drivers who are not temporary foreign workers. The Driver Inc. model has enticed drivers, because they're not being taxed, to phone employers. We know of instances when they've asked if they do the Driver Inc. model, and then said they don't want to work there. It's not just temporary foreign workers who have been working at Driver Inc.

The reason the temporary foreign worker program is open to abuse is that, again, in many instances, we have people who come to work in Canada because they've paid an amount to a consultant outside of the country in order to get a job in Canada. Once they've done that, they've invested in working. If the employer doesn't like how they do their job or whatever, they say they can deport them in a minute, and whatever they've invested is down the drain. Part of that abuse is having a program where it becomes a pathway to citizenship. The government looking at the program as a pathway to citizenship is what has opened a lot of the abuse to the temporary foreign worker program. If you're not paying to come into the country, you are just working here. Maybe it becomes a point for a future application for permanent residency, but I think that's really what's opened it up to the abuse.

We had a housing shortage. I've heard from taxi drivers in both Ottawa and Winnipeg, who have told me about trucking companies. There are many people, truck drivers, living in a house paying exorbitant rents. They're abused through the rent. They're abused through paying their training costs, which is not legal. They're abused through the hours.

On electronic data and ELDs that record the driving, we have people, some of our members, who have been hired, and the first thing they say is, “I have one ID to enter my hours, but where's my second ID? My old company, the Driver Inc. company, had me enter data so that I could drive more than my regulated hours by having a second ID.” We know the abuses are going on.

Again, it's about public safety. It's about the employees and the competitors that are acting legitimately and complying with the law.

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

Thank you.

I would add to that.

People who do not have citizenship, who may have entered the country under the temporary foreign worker program or on a study permit, or who may be asylum seekers, find themselves incorporated as trucking companies and operating in a system and environment they aren't very familiar with. They barely know the laws, and they barely have any experience driving on the land here in Canada. Then they are told they are on their own and that no one is responsible for them, because there's an organizational screen, in fact, between the Driver Inc. structure and the actual employer.

Do you think it's reasonable to allow that?

One of the proposals we put forward is to prohibit people who don't have permanent resident status or citizenship from incorporating as businesses. When you have temporary status in the territory, you shouldn't be able to do that. You should only be working as a salaried employee. It's also about making sure that all the social protections are there.

Do you agree with this kind of measure?

[Robert Harper]

Absolutely. Under the work permits, most of the time, you're supposed to be an employee. Under the temporary foreign worker program, you're supposed to be an employee. The fact is that nobody pre-qualified the employers to see that they actually hired employees and then checked up on the employer later to make sure that those people were actually paid as employees.

You're not brought in as a temporary foreign worker to work as a contractor; you work as an employee. That's clear in the work permit and it's clear in the requirements. The fact that nobody follows up on it means that it's opened up to abuse. We shouldn't have people being incorporated as employees working as drivers.

There's also the question of incorporation. The T4As will only catch those drivers who are incorporated. There are people who are operating who are not necessarily incorporated; they're being paid as a separate contractor. The T4As wouldn't necessarily catch those people, either.

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

You alluded to businesses shutting down and then reopening under a different name in another province or sometimes in the same province. One of the recommendations we put forward was to create a data and offence sharing system. We're also starting to wonder if it might be necessary to establish a trucking blacklist to contain the names of certain individuals who are repeatedly being caught as a result of their unacceptable practices.

Do you think we should go that far? It's often the same individuals doing these things.

[Robert Harper]

Yes, I think sharing information would help, and this is the problem with the chameleon carriers. It's very difficult to check between jurisdictions currently. We share information among a lot of the jurisdictions, but it tends to be slow.

If you're identifying the principals, the directors, I think that would help identify when companies are changing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Harper and Monsieur Barsalou-Duval.

We'll start our second round with Mr. Lawrence.

Mr. Lawrence, the floor is yours. You have five minutes, sir.

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

Thank you very much.

My questions will be for you, Mr. Harper. We're going to focus on the GEM program, which, up until your testimony, I don't think we've heard anything about.

Could you start by describing the GEM program, the greenhouse gas emissions model?

[Robert Harper]

The GEM model, which started in January 2025, requires trucks in the heavy industries to meet certain greenhouse gas emissions limits. Certain things that limit the greenhouse gases and get credits can be purchased on trucks. Some of the vehicles that are bought have low-resistance tires on them, which gets them a positive credit. When they import them into Canada, they immediately replace the tires because they're not good for snow and they're not good for off-road use in the resource sector.

In the resource sector, we also have vehicles that are often used sparingly, probably 10 or 20 hours a week, but they're treated like they're run 40 or 50 hours a week, as in a conventional trucking company. When these people can't afford these trucks or can't find them available—and often they can't, because it's based on a California emissions regulation the EPA developed many years ago now, which has been reversed—they have to buy one high-priced new vehicle in order to buy another vehicle that they can actually use. Then they're parking some of these high-cost vehicles so that they can do work in the resource sector.

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

Then it's your testimony, if I'm not putting words in your mouth, that the GEM program or the taxing based on CO2 emissions or carbon pricing is driving up the cost for legitimate truckers and probably not having much of an impact in reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Is that correct?

[Robert Harper]

That's correct. It's because it's not practical. There are lower-emission technologies, such as compressed natural gas, or CNG, that show a lot better promise, but the current regulations are for zero, not better, so trucking companies are hesitant to invest in the technology. It's time-limited. It would be easier if they acknowledged that there are better options.

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

Then in terms of the nexus between the GEM program and Driver Inc., my thought here, if I'm understanding this, is that if you are a legitimate truck company, you're much more likely to have to take on additional costs of compliance than if you are a Driver Inc. model, which we've seen has been associated with the worst maintenance and the avoidance of GST and CPP payments. This would be yet another cost they could avoid that the legitimate carriers would have to incur. Is that correct?

[Robert Harper]

Yes, that's our testimony.

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

Thank you very much.

I'll end my questions here. That was very interesting, and I hope the analysts took note of it. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Lawrence.

Next we'll go to Mr. Kelloway.

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

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks to the witnesses for being here. I really appreciate it.

I spent a bit of time in Calgary—not last week, but I was in Calgary where I taught and went to school, so mad props for Calgary.

We've heard testimony from a broad cross-section of folks, from sectoral groups to organizations to individual business owners to those who have horrific stories to tell about how accidents and preventable accidents cost the lives of loved ones. It's very heavy but it's important to hear.

Mr. Harper and Ms. McAusland, thank you for joining us in this discussion. Ms. McAusland, I'll start with you.

There are a couple of things that I want to pick out.

When we're looking at recommendations that go forward from this committee, there are some consistent themes. One of them is a national database you talked about that would work between the provinces and the federal government. The provincial government would most likely implement that.

I'm wondering how we ensure that each province does that. You would think that each province would do that and that everyone would take part in it, but I'm looking at the mechanics of getting the provinces onside with that. Could I have your thoughts on that?

[Linda McAusland]

I would say for the most part that the provinces are onside with that. They've given me the mandate to update and invest money to develop a system. They've made resources available to update the NSC standards so that we are getting more consistency across the country in the way information is collected and what information is collected. The next step would be to develop a system that they could use. We're not proposing a database. We're proposing a data exchange system.

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

Okay.