Alberta points trucking industry at ‘best driver’ status

A drive to make trucking a Red Seal trade is gaining momentum in the aftermath of an unprecedented Alberta crackdown against bad actors.

Devin Dreeshen, Alberta’s transportation and economic corridors minister, said six months of investigations and audits targeted some of the root causes of unsafe commercial trucking, like non-compliant, fraudulent or illegal trainers, inspectors and haulers.

The crackdown — which saw Alberta close five driver training schools and remove 13 commercial operators from service — is part of an ongoing push to make roads safer while improving the occupation’s lustre as a career path of choice, Dreeshen said.

Alberta issued 39 disciplinary letters to driver training schools, more than $100,000 in administrative penalties and six corrective actions. Twelve instructor licences were revoked and four warning letters were issued to driver examiners.

“I think for too long bad drivers, bad companies and bad driver training schools were giving the industry a black eye by having poor drivers out on the roads,” Dreeshen said.
“Actions the Alberta government is taking will go a long way towards rebuilding that trust within the industry, so that people have that sense of pride when they see a semi-trucker being the best driver out on the road.”

The crackdown coincides with a continued effort to steer Canada towards a Red Seal trade system for truckers, with the help of an Alberta system introduced in the spring called Learning Pathway.

It upped training and experience requirements beyond those of a pre-existing, nationally recognized system for Class 1 drivers called Mandatory Entry-Level Training, or MELT.

The government found that MELT wasn’t having the hoped-for impact on trucking, like lowering insurance claims. So Alberta consulted the industry to create a homegrown system.

Learning Pathway includes up to 133 hours of instruction, including air-brake training, and it offers more hands-on skills and safety training than the 113-hour MELT does.

Earlier this year, the province estimated the driver shortage in Alberta at 4,260 vacancies. Alberta had about 12,500 commercial carriers that operated only within its borders. Another 6,800 operated in other Canadian jurisdictions too.

Heavy trucks registered in Alberta travel more than 10.5 billion kilometres per year or 29 million km per day, industry data suggests.

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Dreeshen, the UCP member for Innisfail-Sylvan Lake, said he’ll take the case for an apprenticeship program to an upcoming federal-provincial meeting of transportation ministers. He hopes to build traction for getting the required five participating provinces necessary for a Red Seal system.

Red Seals are earned through apprenticeships and a combination of training and hands-on experience. They demonstrate that tradespeople are qualified in multiple Canadian jurisdictions.
Also on Dreeshen’s agenda is speaking with the new national transport minister, Steven MacKinnon, about improving cross-Canada communication to prevent so-called chameleon carriers from operating.

Chameleon carriers avoid regulatory oversight by changing names, creating new entities and relocating operations across jurisdictional lines.

Indeed, the crackdown found plenty of fault with commercial trucking companies themselves, with 13 removed from Alberta service due to poor on-road performance, unsafe equipment or failure to meet mandatory safety standards. Seven were identified as chameleons.

Another avoidance strategy — known as Driver Inc. — is the practice of engaging contract drivers who aren’t employed by the hauling companies themselves. Through Drivers Inc. haulers don’t take responsibility for driver qualifications or support.

In July 2025, a week-long commercial driver status and classification check stop revealed that 20 per cent of the 195 drivers stopped were suspected of being misclassified, including several temporary foreign workers.

Said an Oct. 3 Alberta government news release: “These drivers often lack proper training and oversight and are vulnerable to exploitation.”
Dreeshen promises no solace for bad actors.

“There are obviously routine enforcement and compliance efforts that go on throughout the year by the department, but this level of crackdown, to be able to do this many audits, and to go this deep into the trucking industry, this was the first time at this scale,” he said.

“We don’t want to tip our hands, obviously, when it comes to enforcement and audits and when they may be coming, but I would anticipate more.”

The minister acknowledged that some schools and carriers caught in the net aren’t malicious.

Some are “obviously not fraudulent, or they’re not doing anything terrible, but maybe they’re not following the rules as closely as possible and need a nudge.”

The result of Alberta’s trucking improvements will be safer roads for everyone, Dreeshen said.

Accident numbers that show obvious truck driver negligence, like bridge strikes, should start dropping.

“We’ve been seeing drivers not knowing their proper load size or their routes, and striking bridges or going off the road. Those are very easy numbers to see come down when we actually take bad drivers off the road, which will obviously make our roads safer,” Dreeshen said.

Total traffic fatalities and major injuries have increased in recent years in Alberta, according to provincial data. Deaths went up nearly 11 per cent to 297 in 2023 over 2022, and major injuries eight per cent to 2,164.

Although the weight and size of big trucks make them especially threatening, industry and government data suggest a dramatic drop in annual collision totals in Alberta. 

Collisions are estimated at about 1,400 a year between 2016 and 2019 but only 700 a year more recently.