New truckers in Canada aren't being trained well enough. How do we fix that?

Twenty years ago, you'd find trucker Jacques Picotte pushing his limits — driving 16 hours straight, with only water and a bag of chips in the cab before resting at a pit stop.

Now, he's a truck driving instructor at College Boreal in Timmins, Ont. And he's proud to have built a reputation as one of its toughest teachers — even though there's wider pressure to train up and approve licences as quickly as possible to address the trucker shortage.

"We need schools that take pride in their training and put out a better driver — that's plain and simple," he told Ideas' Tom Howell in the radio documentary The Way of the Trucker.

He's not the only one. The Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC) released a report earlier this month saying similarly: that Canada needs more and better training for truck drivers — and that new drivers who haven't received adequate training are making the country's roads less safe. 

Driving has become riskier over the years, Liam McGuinty, IBC's vice-president of strategy, told The Current's Matt Galloway. Conversations between the bureau, insurance companies and truck drivers spurred the latest report.

"We're hoping the report serves as a bit of a wake-up call on, first and foremost, inadequate training," he said.

McGuinty said there's been an alarming trend in both the frequency and severity of collisions on the roads.

The report, released April 9, found that drivers with less training — and especially those with less than three years of experience — were more likely to be involved in collisions that also ended up in costly insurance claims, compared to those with more training and experience.

It recommended better and more consistent training at truck driving schools across Canada, the adoption of a graduated licensing system, and increased use of telematics — technology such as electronic logging devices — that collect valuable data on drivers' behaviour or performance on the road.

It also noted that Mandatory Entry-Level Training (MELT), a loosely defined minimum amount for training for all truck drivers, has been implemented in some provinces, but not all of Canada.

Those minimum standards were established in response to the 2018 Humboldt Broncos crash, where a collision between the junior hockey team's bus and a semi-trailer killed 16 people.

While experts have applauded the implementation of MELT requirements, many say that's only the first step to forging the safest possible truck driver workforce.

Its standards are only meant to enforce a mandatory minimum of training, and depending on the province, could only require a minimum number of hours behind the wheel before qualifying for a licence.

"In some jurisdictions, that's as low as 100 hours," McGuinty said.