Following a tragic and preventable fatal collision this past week in Brandon, Man, the Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA) is once again sounding the alarm on the persistent and deadly threat posed by chameleon carriers operating within Canada’s supply chain.
A semi-truck driver faces charges of dangerous driving causing death after allegedly running a stop sign at highway speeds and killing a 49-year-old woman. It has since been revealed the trucking company involved had its safety fitness certificate revoked by the province of Manitoba in 2021. Instead of being permanently taken off the road, the operator engaged in the exact tactics that define a chameleon carrier – exploiting systemic interprovincial loopholes to disguise its past and keep operating, says CTA.
Despite losing its Manitoba credentials, the company was able to simply obtain a new licence through the province of Alberta and immediately get back on the road. Unsafe operators are routinely stripped of their credentials in one jurisdiction, only to shed their old identity and resurface under a new name in a neighbouring province, says CTA.
The fatal incident highlights a fundamentally broken oversight system where unscrupulous carriers can simply outrun their safety records at every level and in every province, says CTA president and CEO Stephen Laskowski.
“This chameleon carrier phenomenon allows bad actors to blend back into the industry with zero accountability, functioning as a continuous threat to public safety,” he said.
The industry and the public have reached a breaking point. As Aaron Dolyniuk, executive director of the Manitoba Trucking Association, rightly noted: “In our view, this accident is one that should not have happened, because this company should not exist.”
This is a story that repeats itself time and time again. A sweeping investigative report by the Globe and Mail this week detailed how easily chameleon carriers can evade enforcement.
“The report provides further alarming examples of why this regulatory blindness must be corrected immediately to protect the motoring public,” said Laskowski. “Relatedly, this tragedy is just the most recent painful reminder of a broken loop in our national safety framework.”
Recently, an Ontario Auditor General report echoed years of warnings by the CTA and the Ontario Trucking Association about the growing culture of lawlessness in Ontario and throughout Canada. The report also addressed the emergence of chameleon carriers, highlighting the dangerous lack of real-time data sharing between provinces, allowing non-compliant operators to exploit provincial borders to evade safety enforcement.
Federal and provincial transportation ministers are scheduled to meet this fall to develop a comprehensive plan to tackle the ongoing lawlessness in the trucking sector. While the CTA welcomes this meeting, it stresses action cannot come fast enough. The CTA has already provided government leaders with a clear, actionable blueprint specifically designed to target and eliminate the chameleon carrier loophole.
“Our plan enforces strict interprovincial data-sharing and establishes a unified national safety database so non-compliant carriers have nowhere left to hide. We do not need more discussion; we need immediate execution. Canadian lives depend on it,” says Laskowski.
