A new carrier group, the Canada Truck Operators Association, launched in Brampton
In January 2023, the CTOA drew more than 1,000 people to its first gala and said it would defend its members' driver classification practices.
In January 2023, a newly formed trucking group, the Canada Truck Operators Association (CTOA), held its first gala in Brampton, Ont. More than 1,000 people attended, representing about 200 carriers.
The association had been organized over the previous two months. Most of its member companies were run by people of South Asian background. It said it wanted a seat at the tables where trucking policy and legislation are made.
Who leads it
Executive director Jaskaran Sandhu, a Brampton lawyer and former executive director of the World Sikh Organization of Canada, said the part of the industry the CTOA represents had largely been left out of policy discussions. He cited a 2018 Newcom Media analysis that found 17.8% of Canadian truck drivers identified as South Asian, up from 1.8% in 1996, with higher shares in Ontario (25.6%) and B.C. (34.6%).
Driver Inc.
Sandhu said the group's members felt targeted by "legacy" associations campaigning against the Driver Inc. model. The Canadian Trucking Alliance says that model wrongly classifies employees as independent contractors.
The CTOA introduced a legal team to defend how its members classify drivers. Shari Cohen, a labour lawyer and partner at Davies, said the federal Labour Program sometimes took an overly simple approach to deciding whether a driver was an employee or a contractor.
About two dozen municipal, provincial and federal politicians attended the event.