Families of Humboldt Broncos crash victims say they're shocked after province relaxes some licensing rules

The father of one of the victims of the 2018 Humboldt Broncos bus crash says he and other families of victims worked for years to get better regulations in place for foreign truckers — and a recent change by the Saskatchewan government is a step backward. 

It's "the complete opposite of what we've been mandating for these last five or six years," said Scott Thomas.

His son, Evan Thomas, was among the 16 people killed in the April 6, 2018, crash, when an inexperienced truck driver went through a stop sign at a highway intersection near Tisdale, Sask., and into the path of a bus carrying members of the Humboldt Broncos junior hockey team.

Another 13 people were injured.

In the aftermath of the crash, the provincial government promised to change the rules for foreign workers driving trucks on Saskatchewan roads. They changed them in 2021, prohibiting all non-residents, including foreign workers, from driving on out-of-country Class 1 licences — the type of licence that allows driving a semi.

Now, however, the province has relaxed the rules for temporary foreign workers in the agricultural sector. 

Documents obtained by CBC News reveal the province is allowing foreign agriculture workers from 40 countries to drive on their home country's licence for up to a year, until May 21, 2025.

Those countries include several European countries, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Portugal and Taiwan.

Dustin Duncan, the minister responsible for Saskatchewan Government Insurance — which handles driver licensing in the province — confirmed the exemption was made to help the agriculture industry, which relies on foreign workers.

He said workers who come to Saskatchewan after working in the agriculture sector in the southern hemisphere don't have enough time to complete mandatory training to get a Saskatchewan Class 1 licence before seeding begins.

To get a Class 1 commercial licence, drivers in the province normally have to complete the more than 120-hour mandatory entry-level training, or MELT, program, which came into effect in 2019.

"We're trying to strike that balance with ensuring that we have a MELT program that is very rigorous, but also trying to balance that off with allowing for temporary foreign workers from a limited number of countries that we have reciprocal licensing agreements with," said Duncan.

But Thomas believes that anybody coming to the province should be held to the same standards. 

"I think that opening the door to foreign drivers, just because some government perceived that [they're certified], is not enough. I think that opens a door and becomes a pretty slippery slope," he said.