Alberta boots 20 unsafe trucking companies as crackdown targets ‘chameleon’ carriers

The province has issued 443 penalties, eliminated 13 “chameleon” carriers and blocked another 40 from obtaining safety certificates as its trucking crackdown intensifies.

Source: X (Danielle Smith)

Author: Alex Dhaliwal

Alberta is hammering rogue truckers, booting 20 carriers off its roads and issuing 443 penalties in an escalating safety crackdown.

Transportation Minister Devin Dreeshen said Alberta has removed 20 unsafe carriers since October, including 13 “chameleon carriers” accused of changing names or operations to evade regulators.

“Our government is continuing to take tough enforcement action to improve safety across the trucking industry,” Dreeshen said Thursday.

“We are applying vigilant oversight of carriers and driver training schools through inspections, audits and targeted investigations.”

And the 13 caught operating are only part of the crackdown.

Alberta says documentation reviews prevented another 40 chameleon carriers from obtaining safety fitness certificates, while six carriers were removed from the International Registration Plan over the past year for misrepresenting their jurisdiction.

One of the most serious cases involved Conquer Transportation Inc., which was shut down after a fatal Manitoba collision exposed “willful and sustained non-compliance” and chameleon practices.

The province slapped the company with $16,500 in administrative penalties and downgraded its Safety Fitness Rating to Unsatisfactory, effectively shutting it down immediately.

The latest figures show Alberta’s trucking crackdown has intensified considerably since Juno News first reported on the province’s enforcement blitz.

Alberta has now removed 20 carriers, including 13 chameleon operators, while blocking another 40 from obtaining safety certificates.

Dreeshen previously called chameleon carriers a “disturbing trend.”

“They are essentially the same company moving to Alberta, changing the name and hoping they can start up without anybody noticing,” Dreeshen said.

“And the fact that our guys did notice and shut them down obviously shows that our enforcement is working.”

Alberta is backing a national database to close loopholes exploited by chameleon carriers, but carriers aren’t the only ones under scrutiny.

Alberta is also targeting the controversial “Drivers Inc.” model, where companies hire drivers as independent contractors in what the province says can be an attempt to avoid payroll taxes and employee benefits.

A three-day commercial driver status check in May found 20 per cent of the 81 drivers stopped were suspected of being misclassified, including several temporary foreign workers.

The province did not specify how many of those suspected of being misclassified were temporary foreign workers.

Juno News asked the ministry for the immigration status of those caught in the crackdown but received no response by publication.

Fraudulent training schools are also being shown the door.

Alberta says it has shut down five fraudulent Class 1 trucking schools and inspected 53 of the province’s 56 licensed Class 1 driver-training schools since April 1, 2025 — a 95 per cent inspection rate.

Previous enforcement reported by Juno News resulted in more than $100,000 in administrative penalties, 39 disciplinary letters and 12 instructor licences being revoked.

Alberta has also introduced driver experience records that follow Class 1 operators between employers, preventing bad drivers from leaving their safety histories behind.

“We have seen certain bad drivers have accidents, have instances where they are then moving from company to company and their bad driving record actually never follows them,” Dreeshen previously told Juno News.

Alberta is simultaneously pushing other provinces to support Red Seal certification for commercial drivers and has become the first province to begin work on formally designating commercial driving as a trade.

Dreeshen has stressed that the enforcement blitz is targeting bad actors rather than Alberta’s trucking industry as a whole.

“There are amazing truck companies [and] truck training schools across the province that are world-leading,” Dreeshen previously told Juno News.

But for companies hoping a new name or new corporate paperwork will make their old safety problems disappear, Alberta’s escalating crackdown is making that increasingly difficult.