CTA wants hard CRA enforcement on Driver Inc.
The Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA) wants Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) enforcement against Driver Inc. to escalate dramatically. CTA president Stephen Laskowski told TruckNews.com that it is time for hard, fast, national enforcement from a tax, and labor code perspective.
Driver Inc. is a business model using employee misclassification where they register as companies, allowing trucking companies to not pay their fair share of taxes and source deductions.
Speaking on the sidelines of the Atlantic Provinces Trucking Association’s annual general meeting and conference in Moncton, N.B., on Oct. 19, Laskowski urged industry members to participate in the stopdriverinc.ca campaign. When a person signs up, a letter is sent to their member of parliament and various ministers, asking for a meeting, and seeking dramatic increase in hard enforcement by CRA.
He added that the CRA introduced an educational campaign on personal services business (PSB) which is the “legal” definition of Driver Inc. “There is nothing wrong with PSB if you are filing properly, the issue is no one is filing as PSB,” Laskowski said. If everyone in the industry speaks through this campaign, reinforcing that action needs to happen, the government will listen, he added.
Express entry program
Addressing the driver shortage issue, Laskowski said immigration is a key solution. He thanked the federal government for recognizing the importance of the truck driving profession and putting drivers into the Express Entry program – a path to permanent residency and citizenship.
The CTA will ask the government to make truck drivers and mechanics a priority for the program in 2023. The alliance will also seek a screening process for trucking companies applying for these drivers and mechanics to be brought into the country. The screening should be no different from when a company goes through a ministry of transportation safety inspection. The CTA wants the trucking companies to be labor-compliant, hire the workers as employees and protect their labor rights.
When asked about how these new entrants could be kept away from the temptation of Driver Inc., Laskowski stressed education and awareness are important. A worker starting with companies that follow the law, are labor-compliant, focus on safety, and treat employees with dignity and respect, will look upon Driver Inc. less favorably, he said.
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There is no driver shortage. All the trucking companies and industry has to do is start paying the drivers fair wages. They think $65,000-$75,000 a year is a good wage. Truck driver should be making between $90-$110,000 a year for the time we spend out there now that ELD‘s are coming out we will be making less and you are away from home more so why would you want to be a long distance truck driver, the only way this will work if all Chuckie becomes a regional you switch it every border and be home every night or every second night forget about them long-distance start switching up the US border or let the Canadian truck driver switch with US trucks then our supply chain will be better till then don’t talk about shortage of truck drivers because you guys been talking about shortage of truck drivers for the last 20 years an hour we just still are the same as back in 1986. The trucking industry in Canada is very sad. Thank you.
This is all good but with the influxes of immigrants coming from any country where there is almost no control do you really think it will work?? this economy is going for a dive and so are all of us.
Diesel price to date 2.79 dollar it is insane.
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In ont fix the insurance crisis and no driver shortage
We are finally seeing some traction on shutting down Drivers INC, it’s a cancer on our industry and it’s been allowed to spread. Trucking needs to be an attractive employment option for Canadians and newcomers to Canada, drivers INC exploits drivers to the point of forced labor. If you are pitched a drivers INC position by a company you should report them to your provincial trucking association. Shady Trucking companies literally disappear overnight and reappear as a new company just as quickly, reporting them will help CRA and law enforcement keep these shady operators on their radar.
How to report ESDC about employers who promote and do Drivers Inc. practice?
Once convertible wanted to take the air test everything will government in Ontario is crazy plus driver are not allowed to touch they brake and haft mto they they don’t even know if this happens will move to Quebec you pass once and that were the only province in Ontario that pass air brake test stupid government
At the same time we need paid sick days and hard enforcement of the overtime pay. More truck drivers should e get overtime like some companies in B C do after 8 hrs of driving or 9 hours on duty. The C T A needs to sit down with driver reps and the gov to make it so drivers will want to be paid as employees. When I and health care workers pushed for 11 paid sick days gov came back with 10. The C T A members I talked were angry that we were trying to make it a level playing field with driver to a corp account would be able to get the same paid sick days in some cases.