Driving instructors ‘accepting bribes’ allowing truck drivers on Ontario roads: Report

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Some may not be qualified to get behind the wheel but thanks to a “rigged” system, there are more and more truck drivers on Ontario roads.

That’s according to a leaked internal memo shared with CBC’s Marketplace that revealed “a number of employees have either resigned or been terminated this past year due to investigations that we have completed involving allegations of inappropriate and illegal behaviour.”

Examiners were believed to be “accepting bribes for issuing road test passes, to manipulation of automatic versus manual transmission certificates, to false driver experience being added to driver records,” the memo stated.

Ontario’s DriveTest centres are managed by a company called Serco — the memo, which was dated November 2023, was signed by Gary Cook, Serco’s vice-president of operations.

A DriveTest examiner responsible for testing people trying to obtain their commercial trucking licence told Marketplace she wasn’t shocked by the menu having heard about bribery for years.

“These people (who) took bribes gave licences for a murder weapon,” she noted. “In any accident of a transport (truck) versus a car, more than likely the person in that car is not going to walk away.”

The examiners have also been told to let some infractions slide during road tests, even if they are breaking traffic laws.

She also noted that examiners are investigated if they aren’t around the average pass rate, which could encourage some to pass people they shouldn’t.

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At least 103.5 hours of training is required by the province and across much of Canada, however many schools offering the Mandatory Entry-Level Training, a.k.a. MELT program, in Ontario say they drive nowhere near that amount.

One CBC journalist with hidden cameras posed as a prospective student at five different truck-driving school training yards with one instructor saying that the so-called mandatory hours behind the wheel “don’t matter.”

“It is our responsibility to get you ready for the road test,” he said, according to the hidden-camera footage.

“Maybe you will be ready in 90 hours or 30 to 40.”

The Ministry of Transportation governs the MELT program but it’s the Ministry of Colleges and Universities that regulate the private career colleges which offer the majority of truck training schools.

The office of Ontario’s Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria told the Toronto Sun, “We have zero tolerance for bad actors in our system. As we have already done, we will suspend any operator found to be in contravention of our regulations.”

The spokesperson added: “If Serco is unable to control fraud in the programs it administers, we will re-evaluate the contract with them. We expect full accountability from all partners, and failure to meet our standards will have severe consequences.”

The Ministry of Colleges and Universities told CBC that it has “taken action on bad actors to ensure that all training is done safely and to standard,” adding that “all career colleges are inspected regularly, as well as in response to concerns or complaints the ministry becomes aware of.”

Serco spokesperson Alan Hill said the company “operates under the strict testing standards set by the Ministry of Transportation. Our aim is to provide a full and fair assessment of each driver’s skills, while ensuring that the road test reflects the applicant’s overall competency.”

In response to the leaked memo, Hill said that Serco takes allegations seriously, and an investigation would be immediately launched that would result in the termination of those involved in any fraudulent or illegal behaviour.