12/08/2025
Report by Mylène Crête of La Presse
(Ottawa) The Trump administration believes Canada must do more to crack down on discount drivers at a time when the U.S. is tightening enforcement on its own territory. It is concerned about the risks posed by unqualified and poorly supervised truck drivers — both for the safety of Americans and for the future of the U.S. trucking industry.
“We continue to monitor this issue closely and we hope to see further progress,” a diplomat at the U.S. Embassy in Canada said during a briefing with La Presse. We agreed not to publish his name because he is not authorized to speak publicly.
The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) closed on Wednesday the tax loophole behind the rise of discount drivers, as Finance and National Revenue Minister François-Philippe Champagne had indicated in October.
Since 2011, the CRA had stopped imposing penalties on companies that failed to report fees paid to self-employed workers in Box 048 of the T4A slip. The moratorium was meant to give businesses time to comply. It was intended to be temporary, yet it remained in effect for 14 years.
Some trucking companies took advantage of this gap by recruiting drivers as independent contractors without declaring the payments, while the drivers themselves did not report their income to avoid paying taxes.
As of Wednesday, all trucking companies must declare service payments of $500 or more made during a calendar year. They have until February 28, 2026, to file for the 2025 tax year.
According to the U.S. Embassy, this latest announcement “is a step in the right direction,” but it is not a “silver bullet” for the discount-driver problem.
“Fixing the tax issue does not solve the problems related to driver training,” the American diplomat pointed out.
It also does not resolve the vulnerability of these workers, nor the over-indebtedness many are trapped in, and it does not fully address the fact that the freight rates offered by these trucking companies are unfair.
The work of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities on this phenomenon has drawn such interest from American diplomats that two of them attended a meeting in person earlier this fall. The committee’s work has been stalled for two weeks because of disagreements between the Liberals, Conservatives and Bloc Québécois.
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Crackdown in the United States
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy revoked the accreditation of nearly 3,000 trucking schools out of 16,000 nationwide last week due to non-compliance issues. “This administration is targeting every link in the illegal trucking chain,” he said in a statement.
The measure follows a presidential executive order signed by Donald Trump in April focused on safety within the trucking industry, which also emphasizes the requirement that truck drivers be able to understand and speak English.
Irregular immigration has been a central target of the Trump administration since the beginning of its mandate, and undocumented individuals working as truckers are no exception. Deadly accidents caused by poorly trained and undocumented drivers in Florida and California in recent months have further drawn attention to the issue.
Baljeet Singh, a trucker charged in Quebec with dangerous driving causing death after a fatal pileup on Highway 30 in 2022, was arrested in California while attempting to obtain a commercial truck driving licence. He had fled shortly after being questioned by the Sûreté du Québec.
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A troubling record
Discount drivers — or “Driver Inc.” operators — have been linked to several collisions in Quebec in recent years, including fatal ones. They are heavy-truck drivers, often from immigrant backgrounds, who work for lower pay without proper training and who do not own their own truck. In Canada, companies hire them as independent contractors rather than employees, meaning they receive no paid leave and no benefits.
“We worry that when they perform cross-border work, these drivers may endanger the safety of U.S. citizens on our roads.”
— A diplomat at the U.S. Embassy in Canada
Some of these drivers, who arrive in Canada as temporary foreign workers, end up being exploited. Companies that hire them at lower cost are able to reduce their freight rates, which is considered a form of unfair competition in the industry.
The Trump administration is also concerned that these drivers could be used to transport drugs or other illicit goods. “If they are being coerced into working, our concern is this: what else might they be coerced into doing?” the diplomat asked.
The administration further fears for the long-term stability of the U.S. trucking sector due to this unfair competition, especially at a time when protecting jobs “is a top priority.”
