The Insurance Bureau of Canada is backing calls for a national database for commercial trucking safety data, following a fatal collision in Manitoba involving a carrier that had its safety certificate revoked in the province five years ago but continued operating under a licence obtained in Alberta.
The May 27 crash in Brandon, where a transport truck allegedly ran a stop sign and struck an SUV, killing a 49-year-old woman, has prompted Manitoba Transportation Minister Lisa Naylor to urge Ottawa to create a national registry to allow provinces to track safety certifications and violations across jurisdictions. Federal Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon has since indicated the Government of Canada is prepared to support such a database.
The company involved, Conquer Transportation Inc., is the successor to a Manitoba firm whose safety certification was revoked in 2021 after it accumulated 30 convictions across five provinces, according to media reports. Between 2023 and 2025, it faced six further convictions across three provinces, including maintenance violations and the use of false logbooks. As of April 2026, Alberta transportation records had identified it as one of the highest-risk carriers in the province.
Industry representatives have described operators of this kind as "chameleon carriers" or firms that lose permits in one jurisdiction and re-emerge elsewhere under a different name, continuing to neglect maintenance and employ undertrained drivers. It is precisely this gap, wherein a carrier flagged as high-risk in one province, invisible to the next, that the IBC argues a national database would close.
Aaron Sutherland, IBC vice-president for Pacific and Western Canada, said the bureau has long advocated for a national database covering claims history and regulatory certifications for commercial truckers, to verify driving histories, address fraud and support better-informed underwriting and pricing across the sector.
The commercial case for action is stark. Between 2015 and 2023, trucking claim counts rose 83% in Ontario, 88% in Alberta and 86% across Atlantic Canada. Claim costs climbed even faster, including a 166% increase in Alberta over the same period, and commercial auto insurers have paid out more in claims and expenses than they have collected in premiums for several consecutive years, according to IBC testimony before the House of Commons transport committee.
That structural loss pressure sits in contrast to the broader Canadian commercial lines market, which has been softening. Marsh's Global Insurance Market Index recorded a 6% decline in overall Canadian commercial rates in Q1 2026, with the Canadian commercial liability market ending 2025 with a net insurance service ratio of 81%. Commercial trucking is a persistent exception — a line where the underlying claims environment has not followed the broader softening trend and where underwriters continue to apply close scrutiny to risk selection, precisely because the regulatory framework has left the quality of operators difficult to verify at the placement stage.
A 2024 report commissioned by IBC from MNP found that mandatory entry-level training programs for commercial truck drivers in many provinces and territories do not fully prepare drivers to operate a heavy truck in all conditions, and that additional onboarding and mentorship are needed. Driver training and qualifications are among the primary factors insurers review when underwriting commercial trucking policies. A national database giving underwriters access to verified claims and infraction histories would directly address the information gap that currently forces insurers to price for uncertainty rather than demonstrated risk.
Budget 2025 committed $77 million over four years, with ongoing annual funding of $19.2 million for the Canada Revenue Agency, to combat the "Driver Inc." scheme, in which some companies deliberately misclassify truck drivers as independent contractors rather than employees to avoid regulatory and tax obligations. IBC has welcomed that funding but argues the national database remains the most consequential outstanding step for both road safety and insurance market stability.
The Brandon collision is the most recent example of a pattern that regulators and insurers have been documenting across the country for years. In British Columbia, more than 34 collisions involving previously de-certified truckers hitting highway overpasses have been recorded.
In Alberta, 92% of commercial vehicles failed inspections conducted by the Alberta Sheriff Highway Patrol and Calgary Police. In Ontario, the Auditor General's special report on commercial trucking, released in May 2026, found that large commercial trucks accounted for 12% of vehicles involved in fatal collisions in the province between 2019 and 2023, despite representing only 3% of vehicles on the road.
Each of those failures has a direct insurance consequence: claims that could have been prevented, premiums that reflect systemic risk rather than individual operator conduct, and a market that cannot adequately differentiate between a carrier with a clean record and one that has simply moved jurisdictions. A national registry would not eliminate all risk, but it would give both regulators and underwriters the shared data they currently lack.
Liam McGuinty, IBC vice-president of federal affairs, said: "A safe, robust and strong commercial trucking sector is critical to the Canadian economy. All levels of government need to work together to advance solutions to support legitimate trucking businesses that follow the rules."
