The program places drivers on closed work permits that tie them to a single employer in Canada, prompting criticism from labour advocates who have long argued that temporary workers\u2019 precarious immigration status makes it difficult for them to challenge poor safety practices or workplace abuse.<\/p>\n
Mike Hennessy, director of Teamsters Canada\u2019s freight and tankhaul division, which represents truck drivers across the country, said the findings show the government is \u201crubber-stamping permits for temporary foreign workers with little oversight or scrutiny of the companies that request them.\u201d<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
Mike Hennessy, director of Teamsters Canada\u2019s freight and tankhaul division, says there is little government oversight of the trucking companies that request permits for temporary foreign workers.<\/p>\n
Jennifer Gauthier\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n
In a statement, Employment and Social Development Canada spokesperson Jessica Lacombe said the temporary foreign worker program is a \u201clast-resort measure\u201d to address critical job shortages when Canadians or permanent residents are not available. Currently, temporary foreign workers make up just 1 per cent of the country\u2019s labour force, she said.<\/p>\n
Ms. Lacombe said the ministry screens employers seeking to hire temporary foreign workers by reviewing whether the company and job offer are genuine, and whether the company undertook efforts to hire Canadians and permanent residents first. <\/p>\n
All applications are \u201cassessed on their own merits, based on the information and documentation provided by the employer\u201d and informed by \u201cinternal and external information and intelligence,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
ESDC said it could not comment on individual companies\u2019 temporary foreign worker approvals and did not directly respond to questions about why trucking companies with serious safety issues were granted permission to use the federal migrant labour program.<\/p>\n
However, trucking employers are required to submit sector-specific documentation, such as safety certificates and fleet insurance records, said Ms. Lacombe. <\/p>\n
While temporary foreign workers make up a small percentage of Canada\u2019s 300,000-strong truck-driving work force, employers in the sector have increasingly turned to the federally administered program to fill jobs, data analysis by The Globe shows.<\/p>\n
Over the past decade, the number of temporary foreign truck driver positions approved by the federal government increased from around 1,000 in 2016 to a peak of 8,500 in 2024, according to The Globe\u2019s analysis of federal data on approvals ESDC issued to Canadian companies for temporary foreign worker hires.<\/p>\n
Last year, Ottawa introduced a suite of measures to reduce the number of temporary residents in Canada. In 2025, the number of approvals for truck driver positions dropped to 4,500. This remains a fourfold increase over 10 years. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
To assess program oversight, The Globe analyzed data obtained through freedom-of-information requests to provincial transport authorities and workers\u2019 compensation boards in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario and combed federal court filings under the Canada Labour Code, which governs interprovincial trucking. The analysis cross-referenced companies that have a history of violations with temporary foreign work approvals for truck drivers, as well as other roles such as dispatchers. <\/p>\n
The Globe identified at least 22 companies that were granted temporary foreign worker approvals by ESDC after the same ministry issued payment orders over successful wage theft complaints.<\/p>\n
In one case, Alberta-based Amanat Transport was granted permission to hire 14 migrant truck drivers starting in 2023, even though the company had failed to comply with a ministry order issued two years earlier to pay an employee more than $33,000 in unpaid wages. <\/p>\n
In late 2024, the company was slapped with a writ of seizure for its non-compliance with the ESDC payment order, federal court records show. Just months after the seizure order, the ministry once again granted the company authority to hire a dozen more drivers through the temporary foreign worker program.<\/p>\n
Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n Trucks along Highway 401 near Cambridge, Ont. Data analysis by the Globe found that employers in the trucking sector have increasingly turned to the temporary foreign worker program to fill jobs.Keito Newman\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n Amanat Transport\u2019s director, Harjit Kaur Bhullar, said in a statement that the company expected ESDC to garnish the $33,000 in unpaid wages directly from the company\u2019s bank account. <\/p>\n Ms. Bhullar said the company had no record of being served with the writ of seizure at the Calgary address listed in the federal court order, and was not aware of the outstanding wages until contacted by The Globe.<\/p>\n Amanat Transport did not hire all of the temporary foreign workers it was granted approval to bring to Canada, and also terminated several of them \u201cdue to the company\u2019s rigorous performance or safety standards,\u201d Ms. Bhullar said. She said the company supports strong oversight of the program and is now trying to fulfill the ESDC payment order.<\/p>\n ESDC granted approval to another carrier, Ontario-based A.R. Logistics 2005 Inc., to hire temporary foreign workers on seven occasions since 2021, for a range of roles from truck drivers to transport supervisors. <\/p>\n By the time the company was granted its most recent approval for an administrative assistant in the summer of 2025, ESDC had issued the company two payment orders over successful wage theft claims \u2013 including one worth $23,000. <\/p>\n The company also had other regulatory issues at the time of its temporary foreign worker approvals. It was placed out of service in the United States over safety issues in 2022, according to publicly available Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration records. It failed a safety audit conducted by the Ontario Transport Ministry the following year, commercial vehicle records obtained by The Globe show. <\/p>\n The company was given a conditional safety rating in Ontario, which indicates significant compliance issues but allows the company to continue to operate. It did not respond to multiple requests for comment.<\/p>\n A.R. Logistics 2005 Inc. temporary foreign worker approvals and regulatory incidents: A timeline <\/p>\n Trucking regulation in Canada is highly fragmented. <\/p>\n ESDC is responsible for enforcing workplace standards for interprovincial trucking companies and manages temporary foreign worker approvals and inspections. The provinces and Ottawa work together to set national safety standards, but provincial regulators license trucking companies and enforce road safety. Provincial workers\u2019 compensation boards provide benefits and income replacement in the event of a work-related injury.<\/p>\n Couple this complex ecosystem with an increasingly vulnerable work force and \u201cyou have a recipe for a disaster in terms of enforcement,\u201d said Dalia Gesualdi-Fecteau, a professor at the University of Montreal\u2019s School of Industrial Relations. <\/p>\n In the wake of a fatal accident in Brandon, Manitoba\u2019s Transport Minister has called for the creation of a national trucking registry to improve information-sharing on companies\u2019 safety records across jurisdictions. <\/p>\n Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n Manitoba\u2019s Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure Lisa Naylor, centre, has called for the creation of a national trucking registry.JOHN WOODS\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n The provincial government revoked Winnipeg-based Conquer Transport\u2019s safety fitness certificate in 2021. These certificates grant trucking companies authority to operate by confirming they meet minimum safety requirements. <\/p>\n The Globe\u2019s investigation found a company with the same name, and a matching Winnipeg post code, was subsequently issued approval by the federal government on three occasions to hire migrant workers \u2013 including five truck drivers in 2022 and another four drivers in 2024, federal data show.<\/p>\n The company is also registered under the same name and Manitoba address with Alberta transport regulators, records obtained by The Globe show. The Manitoba government has accused Conquer Transport of setting up another company in Alberta with a slightly different name, Conquer Transportation. <\/p>\n In late May, the driver of a Conquer Transportation truck failed to stop at a stop sign in Brandon, colliding with an SUV at \u201chighway speeds\u201d and killing a 49-year-old woman who was its sole occupant, according to the city\u2019s police force. <\/p>\n The driver, Brijpal Panwar, has been charged with dangerous driving causing death. He has been released on bail. A lawyer for Mr. Panwar told The Globe he had no information on the trucking company that hired the driver or how they did so. <\/p>\n Manitoba authorities told The Globe that motor carrier enforcement officers in the province observed a Conquer Transportation truck using Alberta plates in February, 2022, and determined that the company was operating the same trucks previously registered in Manitoba with a new Alberta-issued safety fitness certificate. <\/p>\n \u201cManitoba has been in regular communication with that province regarding this carrier since that time,\u201d a government spokesperson said.<\/p>\n Neither company responded to questions from The Globe. Alberta\u2019s transport regulator said it is investigating and Conquer Transportation is suspended with no authority to operate during the probe.<\/p>\n Over the past year, the body that brings together federal and provincial transport regulators has been reviewing ways to improve information sharing on safety fitness certificates. The office of the federal Minister of Transport said in a statement that Ottawa is committed to ensuring effective oversight over the trucking industry and applauds Manitoba\u2019s call for stronger co-ordination. <\/p>\n Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n Federal Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon, along with provincial and territorial ministers, recently signed a MOU on interprovincial trucking aimed at enhancing oversight and harmonizing rules and regulations.Adrian Wyld\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n The Globe obtained commercial vehicle registration information, including safety data, for more than 7,000 companies in four provinces under freedom-of-information laws to assess compliance history for companies using the federal temporary foreign worker program.<\/p>\n Each province provided slightly different safety metrics. Saskatchewan was the only province to disclose fines meted out to trucking companies over safety issues, along with the date of the penalty.<\/p>\n The federal government granted six Saskatchewan-based companies permission to hire temporary foreign workers after they had been slapped with fines for safety infractions by the provincial regulator. <\/p>\n The penalty records obtained by The Globe under freedom-of-information laws do not list the nature of the violations. A spokesperson for the Saskatchewan government said those details could not be provided for privacy reasons.<\/p>\n One company, Super Cat Transport, was approved by ESDC to hire five drivers through the temporary foreign worker program in 2025 even though provincial authorities in Saskatchewan had suspended the company\u2019s safety fitness certificate two years earlier. <\/p>\n The records obtained by The Globe show the company was issued six penalties for safety violations in January, 2023. Super Cat\u2019s safety certificate was suspended by Saskatchewan regulators later that year and has not been reactivated, according to the company\u2019s current commercial vehicle profile registered with the province.<\/p>\n One month after Saskatchewan first penalized Super Cat, the company was issued a safety fitness certificate in neighbouring Alberta. Federal data on migrant worker applications for Super Cat Transport list an Alberta post code. The company\u2019s corporate records list addresses in both Saskatchewan and Alberta.<\/p>\n A spokesperson for the Saskatchewan government initially told the Globe that Super Cat\u2019s safety rating was shared with Alberta regulators. Alberta\u2019s transport regulator said it had no record of that information being shared.<\/p>\n Saskatchewan\u2019s transport regulator subsequently acknowledged the information was not proactively shared, but that \u201cit routinely provides carrier information to other provinces when \u201csuch requests are received through the appropriate inter-jurisdictional process.\u201d<\/p>\n Super Cat\u2019s Alberta safety fitness certificate expired in January, 2026. The company did not respond to requests for comment over e-mail or phone. The Globe attempted to send letters to multiple addresses listed on the company\u2019s corporate records but the mail was returned as undeliverable. <\/p>\n The Saskatchewan government said it shares information with the federal government on trucking companies\u2019 safety records. The provincial Ministry of Immigration and Career Training issues registration certificates that are required to apply to the federal migrant labour program.<\/p>\n The transport regulator shared Super Cat\u2019s safety record with that ministry, a government spokesperson confirmed, adding that the ministry provides ESDC with information on Saskatchewan employers whose registration certificates have been suspended or revoked on a quarterly basis.<\/p>\n The Globe found in its recent investigation that poor information sharing between regulators allows so-called chameleon carriers \u2013 companies that set up in multiple jurisdictions to evade penalties or regulatory action \u2013 to proliferate. <\/p>\n Efforts to identify chameleon carriers are currently hamstrung by \u201csignificant gaps in communication between Canadian jurisdictions,\u201d says a submission by the Canadian Trucking Alliance to a House of Commons transport committee that has been studying what it describes as trucking\u2019s \u201cchanging landscape.\u201d<\/p>\n Responding to questions about companies applying to hire temporary foreign workers, ESDC spokesperson Ms. Lacombe said the department collaborates with provinces and territories to \u201ccomplement their efforts to promote employer compliance.\u201d The temporary foreign worker program has a total of 23 information-sharing mechanisms \u201cin various forms\u201d with other agencies and is currently negotiating 15 more such agreements, said Ms. Lacombe.<\/p>\n Ottawa is also working with the provinces to establish registries that would help screen companies that wish to hire migrant workers. To date, four provinces \u2013 B.C., Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Nova Scotia \u2013 have created such registries, while Alberta has introduced legislation to create one, Ms. Lacombe said.<\/p>\n Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n A transport truck drives across the Macdonald-Cartier Bridge in Ottawa. In Canada, the provinces and Ottawa work together to set national safety standards, but provincial regulators are tasked with licensing trucking companies and enforcing road safety.Spencer Colby\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n Workers\u2019 compensation boards are rich repositories of information on trucking companies\u2019 employment practices. According to Ms. Lacombe, the temporary foreign worker program has information-sharing agreements with just two of them, in B.C. and Northwest Territories. <\/p>\n Audits conducted by these boards can reveal a range of offences, from failing to report workers\u2019 injuries, which is illegal, to inaccurate payroll reporting. <\/p>\n Accurate payroll reporting is important because it determines how much companies pay in insurance premiums, which fund the workers\u2019 compensation system, and ensures workers injured on the job receive care. <\/p>\n Inaccurate payroll reporting can also indicate employee misclassification, an illegal practice that is of growing concern in the trucking industry. The model strips workers of basic labour protections by falsely treating them as self-employed.<\/p>\n More than 65 trucking companies in Manitoba, Ontario and B.C. were granted access to the migrant labour program after workers\u2019 compensation board audits identified compliance issues, according to audit records for more than a thousand trucking companies obtained by The Globe under freedom-of-information laws. <\/p>\n The Globe\u2019s analysis only included companies where workers\u2019 compensation boards identified underpayments of $10,000 or more, which would indicate underreported earnings for more than one driver, and one Manitoba-based company where an audit uncovered possible forgery. <\/p>\n Sikhan Wala Transport was granted approval for 12 temporary foreign workers in 2024, after a Manitoba workers\u2019 compensation board audit identified concerns the firm had distributed a forged clearance certificate. Clearance certificates confirm that an employer is in good standing with the compensation board, and are required to ensure proper workplace accident coverage. The board said it issued a warning to the company but did not refer the matter to law enforcement. <\/p>\n The company did not respond to The Globe\u2019s requests for comment.<\/p>\n An Ontario-based company, Stargate Logistics, was twice audited by the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board between 2019 and 2024, the records obtained by The Globe show, resulting in findings of more than $50,000 in underreported contractor earnings. <\/p>\n The same company also failed a Transport Ministry safety audit during this period. Since 2019, the company has been granted approval for more than 70 temporary foreign worker positions, most recently in the fall of last year, federal data show. The company did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n The Globe\u2019s recent investigation found that the number of trucking workers classified in census data as self-employed significantly increased between 2011 and 2021. While the category captures legitimate owner-operators, critics believe the increase also reflects mounting problems with misclassification.<\/p>\n Temporary foreign workers are less likely to be misclassified, because employers must keep migrant drivers on payroll to prove to ESDC they are paying the hourly rates set out in their federal work authorizations.<\/p>\n However, the Ontario Trucking Association argues that workers\u2019 compensation audit results are still relevant to ESDC\u2019s decisions to approve temporary foreign worker applications, because these records may provide insight into a company\u2019s overall compliance history and safety practices.<\/p>\n While Ottawa calls its temporary foreign worker program a labour stream of last resort, West Coast Trucking Association president Vijaydeep Singh Sahasi said the trucking sector could recruit more domestic candidates if wages and working conditions were better. <\/p>\n Long-haul trucking is the largest source of workplace complaints in federally regulated industries, ESDC data obtained by The Globe under access-to-information law show. <\/p>\n Companies \u201cwant to hire cheap labour, people who are desperate to come to Canada from other countries,\u201d said Mr. Sahasi. <\/p>\n He said he welcomes newcomers in truck driver roles, but worries about temporary foreign workers who have limited rights and sometimes substandard training that increases safety concerns on the road.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re exploited,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd your and my life are put at risk as well.\u201d <\/p>\n The Decibel: Labour violations in Canadian trucking<\/p>\n The Canadian trucking industry touches almost every aspect of commercial life \u2013 most Canadian products on store shelves made at least some part of their journey on the back of a truck. The conditions for drivers who got them there, however, are getting worse.<\/p>\n A Globe investigation by Sara Mojtehedzadeh<\/a> and Mahima Singh<\/a> looked into the concerns raised by drivers and experts in the trucking industry, and found widespread accusations of wage theft<\/a> and exploitation, violations of labour laws<\/a> and insufficient training<\/a>. Sara joins the show to talk about how this jeopardizes safety on the roads.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nearly 100 trucking companies with a history of safety infractions, labour violations and other regulatory failures have been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":790624,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1397,43,44,41,39,42,40,5756],"class_list":["post-790623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-appwebview","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-yesapplenews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=790623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790623\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/790624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=790623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=790623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=790623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}