{"id":849061,"date":"2026-08-07T06:06:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T06:06:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/849061\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T06:06:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T06:06:13","slug":"alberta-shuts-down-trucking-company-linked-to-fatal-collision-in-manitoba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/849061\/","title":{"rendered":"Alberta shuts down trucking company linked to fatal collision in Manitoba"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Alberta<\/a> government has shuttered a trucking company linked to a recent fatal collision in Manitoba after an investigation found violations, including deliberate and prolonged regulatory non-compliance.<\/p>\n

Conquer Transportation set up in Alberta in late 2021; an associated company had its safety credentials revoked in Manitoba earlier that year, regulators have said.<\/p>\n

Alberta took action against Conquer Transportation after one of the company\u2019s trucks was involved in a deadly crash in Brandon in May, Transport Minister Devin Dreeshen said in a Thursday statement. <\/p>\n

Police have said the truck failed to stop at a stop sign, colliding with an SUV at \u201chighway speeds\u201d and killing a 49-year-old woman who was its sole occupant.<\/p>\n

Manitoba authorities have said they previously decertified a related company, Conquer Transport, over chronic safety issues. The province subsequently accused the company of setting up in Alberta under a slightly different name.<\/p>\n

Trucking companies deemed unsafe permitted to employ temporary foreign workers<\/a><\/p>\n

A probe launched by Alberta regulators in June concluded that Conquer Transportation engaged in \u201cwillful and sustained non-compliance,\u201d according to the minister\u2019s Thursday statement. Investigators also identified \u201cchameleon practices\u201d at the company \u2013 referring to carriers who move jurisdictions or change names to evade enforcement.<\/p>\n

After the investigation, Alberta downgraded the company\u2019s safety rating to unsatisfactory, \u201ceffectively shutting down its operations immediately,\u201d the Thursday statement said. The company was penalized $16,500 for unspecified infractions.<\/p>\n

In an interview with The Globe and Mail, Mr. Dreeshen said his ministry was committed to putting \u201cboots on the ground\u201d to ensure adequate safety enforcement.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been cracking down, but I still think there\u2019s more to go for sure,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mr. Dreeshen did not describe the infractions uncovered at Conquer Transportation but said inspectors identified \u201cabnormalities\u201d in how the carrier was operating. <\/p>\n

Conquer Transportation did not respond to requests for comment. <\/p>\n

In the vital trucking sector, weak oversight is leaving Canada\u2019s workers unprotected and unsafe<\/a><\/p>\n

A Globe investigation published earlier this year found that poor information sharing and weak penalties are undermining enforcement efforts in the trucking sector. In June, The Globe revealed that Conquer Transport was granted permission by the federal government on three occasions to hire temporary foreign workers, after its safety fitness certificate was revoked by Manitoba regulators in 2021.<\/p>\n

These certificates grant trucking companies authority to operate by confirming that they meet minimum safety requirements. <\/p>\n

The May collision involving Conquer Transportation prompted Manitoba to publicly call for the creation of a national trucking registry to better share safety data.<\/p>\n

Mr. Dreeshen\u2019s statement Thursday said work was under way through the Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators (CCMTA). The body is governed by representatives of Canada\u2019s federal, provincial and territorial governments responsible for transportation and highway safety. It is currently developing a \u201cnational database\u201d to close loopholes in data sharing that some carriers currently exploit, the statement said. <\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the CCMTA told The Globe that a timeline for delivery of a carrier data exchange will be established in the fall.<\/p>\n

The effort is \u201csomething that I\u2019ve been pushing, and other transportation ministers across the country have been pushing,\u201d Mr. Dreeshen told The Globe.<\/p>\n

Editorial: A loophole you can drive a truck through<\/a><\/p>\n

Manitoba Transportation Minister Lisa Naylor said in a statement to The Globe that the province was \u201cpleased to hear Alberta has taken action against Conquer Transport and is aligned with our calls for a federal trucking database.\u201d<\/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

In May, Brandon police said the driver of a Conquer Transportation truck, Brijpal Panwar, had been charged with dangerous driving causing death after colliding with an SUV at \u201chighway speeds.\u201d He was released on bail and is scheduled to appear in court in the fall.<\/p>\n

In his Thursday statement, Mr. Dreeshen said Alberta authorities are taking \u201ctough enforcement action to improve safety,\u201d including issuing 443 penalties and taking 20 unsafe carriers off the roads since October. <\/p>\n

Thirteen of those companies were \u201cchameleon carriers\u201d that changed their names or relocated to avoid scrutiny, the statement said. Mr. Dreeshen said the province has also prevented 40 chameleon carriers from obtaining operating authority in the province. <\/p>\n

Manitoba minister calls for national trucking registry after fatal accident involving decertified company<\/a><\/p>\n

Robert Harper, president of the Alberta Motor Transport Association, said more robust data sharing between jurisdictions \u2013 including tracking carriers\u2019 assets \u2013 is crucial to identifying such carriers. <\/p>\n

Mr. Harper said Conquer Transportation\u2019s safety record in Alberta prior to the May fatal accident was among the worst in the province \u2013 pointing to the need for more proactive inspections. Trucking companies\u2019 safety records are publicly available in Alberta through their carrier profiles.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn increase in audits and focus on companies that have poor safety fitness certificate ratings would be invaluable,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mr. Dreeshen said the province was also cracking down on driver misclassification, a practice that The Globe\u2019s recent investigation found has become increasingly prevalent in trucking. The practice refers to companies falsely treating drivers as self-employed to evade payroll contributions and basic labour protections.<\/p>\n

A May inspection blitz found that 20 per cent of the 81 truck drivers stopped were suspected of being misclassified, including several temporary foreign workers, the minister\u2019s Thursday statement said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Alberta government has shuttered a trucking company linked to a recent fatal collision in Manitoba after an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":275529,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,43,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,44,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,41,39,42,40,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-849061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-headlines","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-news","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849061","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=849061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849061\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=849061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=849061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=849061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}