Shelley Spence cites Ontario Auditor General Trucking Report on 103.5 hours
Ontario auditor general trucking report findings show some private career colleges accredited aspiring commercial truck drivers without the minimum training required. Shelley Spence said the province’s licensing system also let some colleges alter student records and, in some cases, falsify qualifications.
Spence said, "Ontarians expect that licensed truck drivers have the mandatory training and experience required to safely operate their vehicles on our roadway." The report also found two of five private colleges reviewed offered less than the minimum required 103.5 training hours.
Shelley Spence report findings
The Ontario Auditor-General’s office enrolled students at five private colleges between June and December 2025 to look for training gaps. The report said some ministry-approved private career colleges could not produce records showing students had completed the required training components, while some colleges employed unqualified instructors.
It also said some colleges instructed students to sign off on training hours that were never delivered. In other cases, unregistered private career colleges that were not subject to provincial oversight successfully booked students for road tests.
Ontario road test system
Ontario truck drivers must complete mandatory entry-level training courses and then pass a road test to finish licensing. The report found serious flaws in that testing system, including colleges booking students at centres where exams involved easier turns and reversal testing and lower-speed-limit highways.
Ontario Ministry of Transportation data cited in the report found that drivers who travelled more than 50 kilometres from home to complete road tests had higher at-fault collision rates after licensing. Large trucks made up about 3 per cent of vehicles on provincial roads between 2019 and 2023, but were involved in 12 per cent of fatal collisions during that period.
Stephen Laskowski response
Stephen Laskowski, president of the Ontario Trucking Association, reacted to the report by calling its contents "chilling" and said, "They are, quite frankly, not surprising to those of us on the front lines." He also said, "The government's not protecting people on the roads."
Drivers of large trucks account for more than 70 per cent of all commercial vehicle operators in Ontario, and the report said driving violations such as failing to keep proper maintenance logs have spiked in recent years. The immediate pressure now falls on the province’s training and testing regime, which the report says needs tighter control over who can teach, who can record hours and where road tests are booked.
