New Ontario tow truck rules require training not available in the north

Small towing operators provide an essential service in northern Ontario where small communities are dispersed along highways that stretch across vast distances.

However, some of them tell CBC they've been struggling to hire new drivers to assist with roadside emergencies since Ontario officially imposed new industry requirements on July 1.

New tow drivers must now complete an approved training program involving online learning and one in-person six-hour session.

But there are currently only two authorized training providers in Ontario and one of them — CAA Club Group — only allows those in its contracted network to register in their course.

This leaves WreckMaster as the sole option for private operators that need to hire new staff.

Harder to hire in industry that already has staff shortages

"They're a small company that does not have the resources to provide for the entire province," said Dave Legault, general manager of Johnny's Transportation Services in the Chelmsford area of Greater Sudbury.  

WreckMaster said it's held a couple of in-person learning events in the past six weeks in Niagara, Etobicoke and Chatham-Kent.

"We schedule them where the demand has been," said company president Justin Cruse, adding less than a dozen students from northern Ontario have enrolled in the course. 

"Unfortunately as it stands now we're basing it on the number of students coming in and scheduling courses in those areas."

Pierre Deforge, who owns Le Towing, a small tow truck operator based in North Bay, said it's hard enough to recruit experienced drivers, let alone certified ones. 

"Everybody licensed is working already," he said. 

After weeks of trying, he eventually hired someone and paid them while they waited for one of the few available spots for in-person training in Toronto.

Getting this person certified cost Deforge $1,400 in course fees and travel expenses, which he says is a lot of money to pay for a new hire that might not even end up wanting to stay on the job.

"They should give temporary six month certificates so people can see if the work really suits them," he said.

Small operators can't become authorized training providers

At Lafond's Towing and Recovery in Sturgeon Falls, owner Pierre Lafond said the lack of access to training in the north is proof the province was thinking about  the south when it designed this policy. 

"The government focused on the GTA and didn't care about anybody else," he said. "What about us small companies up north? We have to travel to do this? It makes absolutely no sense." 

Legault said he wanted his company to become an approved training provider as he has several drivers with decades of experience on his payroll, but he didn't meet the criteria listed in the application package the province sent him.

That package states a potential provider has to be a community college, a private career college, a business providing educational services, a government or a safety organization. 

In other words, as a small northern Ontario company with tow trucks in its fleet, Johnny's Transportation Service does not qualify. 

As for Cruse, he said he believes other organizations are in the process of becoming approved training providers. 

Ontario's Ministry of Transportation told CBC in an email "this is an application based program and currently no service providers located in the north have applied."

It anticipates additional course providers will be added as applications are received.