On May 12, Ontario’s Auditor General released a scathing report on the state of Class A entry-level training and oversight in the province of Ontario.

In a previous article, I summarized key findings from this report.

On September 21, Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation announced that a standardized curriculum will be implemented in 2027. 

Will this make a difference, and what is the role of MCURES and MTO in the ELT file?

For a bit of background, there are two government departments that share oversight of the Entry Level Training File. The Ministry of Colleges, Universities, Research, Excellence & Security (MCURES) oversees Registered Ontario Private Career Colleges, and the Ministry of Transportation (MTO) oversees the training schools from a Commercial Vehicle Safety perspective. As explained in the links above, the AG made 13 recommendations for changes regarding oversight, compliance, and overall improvements in ELT as a result of the findings in the AG’s report. Some of the recommendations were for the MTO and some for MCURES. 

Some improvements and increased oversight have already occurred, and some were in place prior to the AG’s report. Many of these improvements have resulted from consultations between the MTO and industry stakeholders, including the PMTC, that have been ongoing since January 2025. 

Some of the commitments and changes we have made will have a positive impact. The MTO has announced a six-month waiting period after someone obtains their full Class G licence before they can attempt a Class A, addressing concerns about gaining experience. Someone arriving in Canada from jurisdictions without reciprocal agreements with Ontario for licence exchanges may have to wait over two years to obtain a Class A licence, depending on experience. This also addresses experience concerns and the fraud issues the industry has experienced. 

The MTO has developed a Commercial Vehicle Training & Oversight Branch to oversee schools for safety and compliance, and has committed to visiting all schools for on-site audits in cooperation with MCURES. Many audits have already occurred. The MTO is working with industry on many other items through our consultation process, and we expect more improvements in the coming months. We see many of these items as positive steps and as things we have been asking for many years. The recent progress is appreciated.

As for the most recent announcement regarding a standardized curriculum, in our view, it is much ado about nothing and will have little to no effect on the safety of the training industry. A standardized curriculum is not the issue in entry-level training, and to be blunt, is not something the industry has been asking for. The MTO’s new announcement caught many training schools off guard, and many I have spoken with are upset, as they have invested a ton of money and resources in recent months to meet a new curriculum requirement from MCURES.

Background on Curriculum

Currently, if a school wants to teach Entry-Level Training in Ontario, it must meet a training standard. The standard requires at least 103.5 hours across several competencies. The school must submit the curriculum it intends to teach to MCURES, which will review it and either approve or reject it. If approved, and if it meets all other requirements to be an Ontario PCC, as well as MTO requirements to operate, it will be approved to teach ELT.

In December 2024, MCURES sent a bulletin to approved schools detailing requirements to submit detailed, minute-by-minute lesson plans as part of a new curriculum requirement, due by July 1, 2025. This also caught schools off guard.

On May 26, 2025, MCURES issued a new bulletin extending the deadline to October 1, 2025. On September 23, 2025, MCURES issued another bulletin with a new deadline of July 1, 2026. The last bulletin came out a week before the October 1 deadline. Many schools had already submitted their new curriculum to meet the timelines announced by MCURES. In essence, whether you agree with the new requirements or not, compliant schools did the work required to meet the new standards, while schools that had not made the required investment were given a lifeline to continue training. 

During the September announcement, tweaks were also made to the curriculum requirements, meaning schools that had already submitted their curriculum, reviewed by SMEs as required, had to change it again, have it reviewed, and resubmit it, all at their own cost. Schools that had not complied, and should have been shut down, were allowed to continue training, while schools that had complied now absorbed all the costs. From speaking to schools that had submitted, the time required to bring in staff, including instructors, to develop minute-by-minute lesson plans, rewrite the curriculum, have it reviewed by SMEs, and submit it, along with other admin costs, would be an investment in the $20,000 range. If you add revenue lost while an instructor is off the road instead of training, this cost would go up even more. This is a per-location cost, so if a school has more than one location, these costs would be even higher. As far as I am aware, MCURES has not approved any of the submitted curricula to date.

As we move forward to September 21, the MTO announced a new standardized curriculum that will take effect in 2027. All the time, effort, and resources invested above have been rendered useless. Schools that had no intention of complying and would have been shut down have now been handed a lifeline by the MTO. They can now continue to operate and compete against other schools at a financial advantage, as they will receive the curriculum at no cost, while others invested thousands of dollars to comply with announced requirements and deadlines. This appears to reward the very schools we have been advocating to weed out for non-compliance. In our view, this announcement is a solution looking for a problem, and one stakeholders at the table did not ask for. 

Mike Millian

President

Private Motor Truck Council of Canada