Great, well documented article. Working in the trucking insurance industry for 30 years has been wild. The number of foreign owned trucking/logistics companies has skyrocketed and most have a similar business model based on short term profits built on abuse of drivers and short cutting regulations and laws which are costly to comply with. State regulators and enforcement tend to look the other way blaming lack of manpower. I personally will not work with anyone who operates outside the laws and therefore don’t have much local business.
I interviewed an insurance pro for my podcast once and ended up having to take it down; some insurer he mentioned in passing had a robot scanning the net for any mention of their name, and threatened legal action against my guest.
Wow, well done! I live in the province where the terrible crash that killed the young fellas who lived to play hockey occured. The day it happened, when my work colleague, who is from Humbolt, and I heard the news, we turned to each other, and said in one voice: "The trucker blew the stop sign." There could be no other explanation. We both have lived and driven rurally, and we both teach English as an Additional or Second Lanaage. We know the roads first hand, and we know the background of the people, men, who are driving, either trucks, taxis or other vehicles. They are either illiterate in their first language or have in general very low English and comprenhension skills. Further, they have no experience driving in winter. Your article is so very right.
The carnage is easily preventable.
Ancother problem you mention is that accidents, even car accidents, are not reported clearly and with enough detail. Example: last winter I was having some lights changed out on my vehicle. My son and were speaking with the owner of the oil change facility. We had recently then a sudden winter storm. That weekend, the owner said, he was speaking with an RCMP friend who said many people were killed on the road, one small Canadian family, and the others, about 10 people, were all newcomers to Canada who could not speak English (no sign reading) and had never experienced winter. These details did not appear in the reporting.
Further, many do not take driving infractions seriously. My students think going through red lights or stop signs is no big deal. They don't pay the tickets, but rather do "community" they say, meaning community service in lieu of payment. One student bragged about her taxi-driver husband's good skills: "Only 3 tickets teacher," in one week, for red light and stop signs.
I could go on.
Thank you for your article. Great work. We must fix this immigration problem.
You should check out the Russian drivers in Northeastern BC who can’t speak English and have to use an interpreter to get their CDL. They have a lot of accidents as well
Nicely done piece. As a 30+ years veteran US CDL holder, I can find no fault with it. It's getting worse every day out here. Thankfully, I'm nearing retirement from this mess.
Informative article. It takes a lot of time & energy to research, dissect & organize it all into something anyone can read. As you're aware I've driven across Canada in all types of weather as a citizen driver not a professional. Always I respected the rig driver & was comfortable with our encounters on the highway...but not any more! The carnage is unacceptable & the fault should be laid at the door step of our governments. Both federal & provincial. If I have to graduate over a couple of years to get a regular drivers license then someone please explain to me why a professional doesn't have to. Thanks for the work and information.
In the /Devil's Dictionary/, Ambrose Bierce defined "accident" as "An inevitable occurrence due to the action of immutable natural laws."
I have said for decades that a HUGE portion of "open borders policy" isn't policy at all, in the conventional sense, but decisions made in the logistics sector (both land and sea) and unchallenged by spineless, bought-and-paid-for conventional-sense policymakers.
The rise of intermodal has a huge death toll attached.
Articles like yours should be a staple of every news outlet...but their rice bowl isn't filled with public safety. It's filled by advertisers and investors in whose interest lies moving the most cargo at the least cost. "Cost" not including the death toll.
Plus the Tech Bros call the shots, and we know what they think about H1Bs. Challenge them, and they autistically melt down with grotesque sexual fantasies.
The news outlets also go out of their way to obscure the identity of the drivers. It was something my darling, the news geek, used to track locally, regarding ongoing disastrous truck-related events on I-5 between the Canadian border and Portland. (Darling predicted significant worsening with the unfolding globalist plan to develop the Olympia, WA, to Portland corridor extensively, and amp up ports including Grays Harbor and south. IIRC there are even plans to build an international airport somewhere down there. I.e., between Sea-Tac and PDX. Indians and Chinese are buying up farmland and small businesses hand over fist.)
The other should-be target of investigation: those "training schools."
I suspect it will get worse as intermodal grows. I don't have time at the moment to dig out the numbers I saw recently that the global intermodal market was valued at something like $47 bn and set to double every 6 years (12+ % growth per year).
Similar things happen at the other end of intermodal--maritime (Key Bridge, anyone?). Also rail. But those disasters tend not to suck so many innocent bystanders into their maw (East Palestine notwithstanding). They tend more toward damaging infrastructure. Whose rebuilding is tonic for the GDP.
As disturbing as all of this is, it's great to see the immigration issue finally getting discussed openly. For far too long, we have been cowed into keeping silence for fear of being labelled as "racists."
(The whole concept of "racist" as a negative epithet is completely nonsensical when you stop to think about it - every honest person on the planet is racist in the sense that we all prefer our own, and that is just the natural order. But I digress.)
The corruption is certainly deep. Thank you Gord for tracking all of this and putting such a well-researched article together on this.
Another brave man who has been following this issue for a long time is the American Craig Nelsen. He's also posted a lengthy piece that parallels so much of what has been documented by Gord.
The people and players are somewhat different, but the parallels between Gord's discussion of the trucking industry and Craig's discussion of the broader problems of imported labour are unmistakable.
Northwestern Ontario has the worst highways to travel in all of Ontario and no one making any policies down east give a single flying fuck.
They should all be forced to drive between Sault Ste Marie and Kenora, in winter, to see how bad things are. Trucks are in the ditch DAILY. With all the rock cuts and no divided highway between Thunder Bay and SSM it's terrifying at times.
Just the other day there was a fatal accident that closed hwy 17 outside Upsala.
But who cares, it's not like it's a highway that virtually everything east-west relies on. Just look at what happened when the Nipigon Bridge was down for repairs.
The Nipigon River bridge problem of a few years back ought to have been a wake up call to our leaders; it is literally Canada’s most vulnerable chokepoint.
Interesting how they built a new scale near Thunder Bay, rather than increase training standards or upgrade the road, which proves my hunch that they’re more interested in compliance rather than improvement.
The west including the USA also "are emasculated and powerless in the face of the forces which brought him here in the first place, and are unable to deport or depose those forces."
my edit at of early Jan 2025 the West is unwilling to reject the global banker collectivists like Soros because these hospitals, universities, governments, corporations are bribed and live for the fat paychecks
Thank you for bringing attention to the problems caused by mass third world immigration to the trucking industry. We often hear about crappy mass Indian imports into the software/tech sector and other office-based professions, but much less so about their impacts in the trades and blue-collar fields.
Our governments and industry leaders are completely corrupt, short-sighted parasites to allow this to happen. This is turning our formerly safe highways and roads into third world free-for-alls.
It's time to say no more. No more mass third world immigration. No more scab labor. They cannot, and can never be trained, to function within our societies. Culture and politics are downstream from genetics, and they are genetically, cognitively, and temperamentally incompatible with the functioning of our formerly first world, high-trust European civilization. It's time to start saying this whenever possible, and to no longer fear the magic words thrown out to hide the fundamental lies dispossessing us from the societies that our ancestors built.
Another rabbit-hole to go down is DOT drug testing. I was fired after pointing out that the company I worked for was literally violating every rule concerning drug testing. I filed grievance with the state (Texas) and the feds, and neither would investigate, though I had the documentation to prove it. I wound up suing in federal court. I had a clean, 15-year accident free driving record. Also, as far as I know, the two worst commercial crashes in Texas involved foreign drivers as well.
How about enforcing the immigration laws as they exist. So we can bring the most qualified into tech & get the new foreigners trained up properly. Bye bye to the flood of illegals. R u w/ Vivek & musk o against them?!? 🤔😃
” Given the humungous balls required to advertise about parasitizing themselves on another countries industry, backed up by a verifiable lie that only corporate lobby groups and the government believe, it’s no wonder that the folks behind Canadian Bazaar took that article down.”
This isn't balls. This is a culture of pathological arrogance.
Wow, awesome article, well stated, I have been seeing this for years, yet no one wants to talk about all the accidents with big rigs have sky rocketed, not only that if they cannot speak English they should not be driving. Happy New Year!
Excellent article, thank you much for compiling the information old school drivers know but the public is ignorant of. Being a 3rd generation Cdn driver for 38 years know first hand the absolute shit show this industry has become at the behest of government and corporations. Look no further than Jason Kenney as immigration minister and you will find complicit greed.
Great, well documented article. Working in the trucking insurance industry for 30 years has been wild. The number of foreign owned trucking/logistics companies has skyrocketed and most have a similar business model based on short term profits built on abuse of drivers and short cutting regulations and laws which are costly to comply with. State regulators and enforcement tend to look the other way blaming lack of manpower. I personally will not work with anyone who operates outside the laws and therefore don’t have much local business.
Thank you for reading.
I interviewed an insurance pro for my podcast once and ended up having to take it down; some insurer he mentioned in passing had a robot scanning the net for any mention of their name, and threatened legal action against my guest.
Way too many attorneys working for insurance companies.
I commend your efforts in bringing this chicanery to light.
I remember highway driving in the 70's and 80's and how lucky I considered myself to find a big truck on the highway in a blizzard.
I'd get in their tailstream and be confident they'd see any trouble ahead.
Nowadays, I get as far away from big trucks as I safely can. I've seen too much dangerous driving to trust any big truck driver these days.
Though I'd get behind you, Gord. Good job!
Wow, well done! I live in the province where the terrible crash that killed the young fellas who lived to play hockey occured. The day it happened, when my work colleague, who is from Humbolt, and I heard the news, we turned to each other, and said in one voice: "The trucker blew the stop sign." There could be no other explanation. We both have lived and driven rurally, and we both teach English as an Additional or Second Lanaage. We know the roads first hand, and we know the background of the people, men, who are driving, either trucks, taxis or other vehicles. They are either illiterate in their first language or have in general very low English and comprenhension skills. Further, they have no experience driving in winter. Your article is so very right.
The carnage is easily preventable.
Ancother problem you mention is that accidents, even car accidents, are not reported clearly and with enough detail. Example: last winter I was having some lights changed out on my vehicle. My son and were speaking with the owner of the oil change facility. We had recently then a sudden winter storm. That weekend, the owner said, he was speaking with an RCMP friend who said many people were killed on the road, one small Canadian family, and the others, about 10 people, were all newcomers to Canada who could not speak English (no sign reading) and had never experienced winter. These details did not appear in the reporting.
Further, many do not take driving infractions seriously. My students think going through red lights or stop signs is no big deal. They don't pay the tickets, but rather do "community" they say, meaning community service in lieu of payment. One student bragged about her taxi-driver husband's good skills: "Only 3 tickets teacher," in one week, for red light and stop signs.
I could go on.
Thank you for your article. Great work. We must fix this immigration problem.
You should check out the Russian drivers in Northeastern BC who can’t speak English and have to use an interpreter to get their CDL. They have a lot of accidents as well
Would be curious to know which company is sponsoring them into the country or are they running from conscription in Russia?
Nicely done piece. As a 30+ years veteran US CDL holder, I can find no fault with it. It's getting worse every day out here. Thankfully, I'm nearing retirement from this mess.
Thank you for your comment sir
One of our fellow truckers did find some small faults, and I just made a response piece.
https://autonomoustruckers.substack.com/p/responding-to-criticism-of-truckers
Informative article. It takes a lot of time & energy to research, dissect & organize it all into something anyone can read. As you're aware I've driven across Canada in all types of weather as a citizen driver not a professional. Always I respected the rig driver & was comfortable with our encounters on the highway...but not any more! The carnage is unacceptable & the fault should be laid at the door step of our governments. Both federal & provincial. If I have to graduate over a couple of years to get a regular drivers license then someone please explain to me why a professional doesn't have to. Thanks for the work and information.
Absolutely mighty article. I salute you.
In the /Devil's Dictionary/, Ambrose Bierce defined "accident" as "An inevitable occurrence due to the action of immutable natural laws."
I have said for decades that a HUGE portion of "open borders policy" isn't policy at all, in the conventional sense, but decisions made in the logistics sector (both land and sea) and unchallenged by spineless, bought-and-paid-for conventional-sense policymakers.
The rise of intermodal has a huge death toll attached.
Articles like yours should be a staple of every news outlet...but their rice bowl isn't filled with public safety. It's filled by advertisers and investors in whose interest lies moving the most cargo at the least cost. "Cost" not including the death toll.
Plus the Tech Bros call the shots, and we know what they think about H1Bs. Challenge them, and they autistically melt down with grotesque sexual fantasies.
The news outlets also go out of their way to obscure the identity of the drivers. It was something my darling, the news geek, used to track locally, regarding ongoing disastrous truck-related events on I-5 between the Canadian border and Portland. (Darling predicted significant worsening with the unfolding globalist plan to develop the Olympia, WA, to Portland corridor extensively, and amp up ports including Grays Harbor and south. IIRC there are even plans to build an international airport somewhere down there. I.e., between Sea-Tac and PDX. Indians and Chinese are buying up farmland and small businesses hand over fist.)
The other should-be target of investigation: those "training schools."
I suspect it will get worse as intermodal grows. I don't have time at the moment to dig out the numbers I saw recently that the global intermodal market was valued at something like $47 bn and set to double every 6 years (12+ % growth per year).
Similar things happen at the other end of intermodal--maritime (Key Bridge, anyone?). Also rail. But those disasters tend not to suck so many innocent bystanders into their maw (East Palestine notwithstanding). They tend more toward damaging infrastructure. Whose rebuilding is tonic for the GDP.
As disturbing as all of this is, it's great to see the immigration issue finally getting discussed openly. For far too long, we have been cowed into keeping silence for fear of being labelled as "racists."
(The whole concept of "racist" as a negative epithet is completely nonsensical when you stop to think about it - every honest person on the planet is racist in the sense that we all prefer our own, and that is just the natural order. But I digress.)
The corruption is certainly deep. Thank you Gord for tracking all of this and putting such a well-researched article together on this.
Another brave man who has been following this issue for a long time is the American Craig Nelsen. He's also posted a lengthy piece that parallels so much of what has been documented by Gord.
The people and players are somewhat different, but the parallels between Gord's discussion of the trucking industry and Craig's discussion of the broader problems of imported labour are unmistakable.
https://craignelsen.substack.com/p/importing-cheaper-humans
Also - Happy New Year!
Happy New Year to you too Gord!
Thank you for your kind words, and I look forward to checking out Craig’s work.
Northwestern Ontario has the worst highways to travel in all of Ontario and no one making any policies down east give a single flying fuck.
They should all be forced to drive between Sault Ste Marie and Kenora, in winter, to see how bad things are. Trucks are in the ditch DAILY. With all the rock cuts and no divided highway between Thunder Bay and SSM it's terrifying at times.
Just the other day there was a fatal accident that closed hwy 17 outside Upsala.
But who cares, it's not like it's a highway that virtually everything east-west relies on. Just look at what happened when the Nipigon Bridge was down for repairs.
The Nipigon River bridge problem of a few years back ought to have been a wake up call to our leaders; it is literally Canada’s most vulnerable chokepoint.
Interesting how they built a new scale near Thunder Bay, rather than increase training standards or upgrade the road, which proves my hunch that they’re more interested in compliance rather than improvement.
Increased training standards? Upgrading the roads? No! Let them all just barrel down the hills during a snowstorm, it'll be fine
The west including the USA also "are emasculated and powerless in the face of the forces which brought him here in the first place, and are unable to deport or depose those forces."
my edit at of early Jan 2025 the West is unwilling to reject the global banker collectivists like Soros because these hospitals, universities, governments, corporations are bribed and live for the fat paychecks
Thank you for bringing attention to the problems caused by mass third world immigration to the trucking industry. We often hear about crappy mass Indian imports into the software/tech sector and other office-based professions, but much less so about their impacts in the trades and blue-collar fields.
Our governments and industry leaders are completely corrupt, short-sighted parasites to allow this to happen. This is turning our formerly safe highways and roads into third world free-for-alls.
It's time to say no more. No more mass third world immigration. No more scab labor. They cannot, and can never be trained, to function within our societies. Culture and politics are downstream from genetics, and they are genetically, cognitively, and temperamentally incompatible with the functioning of our formerly first world, high-trust European civilization. It's time to start saying this whenever possible, and to no longer fear the magic words thrown out to hide the fundamental lies dispossessing us from the societies that our ancestors built.
Another rabbit-hole to go down is DOT drug testing. I was fired after pointing out that the company I worked for was literally violating every rule concerning drug testing. I filed grievance with the state (Texas) and the feds, and neither would investigate, though I had the documentation to prove it. I wound up suing in federal court. I had a clean, 15-year accident free driving record. Also, as far as I know, the two worst commercial crashes in Texas involved foreign drivers as well.
How about enforcing the immigration laws as they exist. So we can bring the most qualified into tech & get the new foreigners trained up properly. Bye bye to the flood of illegals. R u w/ Vivek & musk o against them?!? 🤔😃
” Given the humungous balls required to advertise about parasitizing themselves on another countries industry, backed up by a verifiable lie that only corporate lobby groups and the government believe, it’s no wonder that the folks behind Canadian Bazaar took that article down.”
This isn't balls. This is a culture of pathological arrogance.
Wow, awesome article, well stated, I have been seeing this for years, yet no one wants to talk about all the accidents with big rigs have sky rocketed, not only that if they cannot speak English they should not be driving. Happy New Year!
Excellent article, thank you much for compiling the information old school drivers know but the public is ignorant of. Being a 3rd generation Cdn driver for 38 years know first hand the absolute shit show this industry has become at the behest of government and corporations. Look no further than Jason Kenney as immigration minister and you will find complicit greed.
Sir - thank you for your kind comments.
As for Kenney - yeah, it’s easy to blame Trudeau, but this shit has been going on for much longer, though he is guilty of accelerating it greatly.