On April 1st, 2025 — and no, this is not an April Fool’s joke — Alberta’s very own Maple MAGA minister Devin Dreeshen announced that the province has officially scrapped MELT (Mandatory Entry Level Training) for Class 1 drivers and replaced it with the new Class 1 Learning Pathway.
Alberta’s move comes without coordination from the rest of Canada, and in doing so, we've now added yet another inter-jurisdictional trade barrier. This, at a time when the federal government is actively trying to eliminate those barriers to better position Canada against rising U.S. protectionism and tariff pressure. It's like watching a team trying to score on their own net.
Let’s rewind a bit. MELT was rushed into place following the Humboldt Broncos tragedy — a horrific crash in which driver inexperience and training were contributing factors. What should have happened after that was a nationwide collaboration. All provinces and territories should have come together to create a standardized training curriculum for Class 1 drivers. What actually happened? Each province came up with their own version of MELT. The result: inconsistent standards and patchwork training across Canada. Sound familiar?
Now Alberta is charting its own course yet again with this new Learning Pathway — which, in theory, follows a Red Seal-style apprenticeship model. Industry has been asking for something like this for years. Great idea, right? In principle, yes. But in practice, it’s a problem.
Why? Because Alberta's Learning Pathway is not a real Red Seal trade.
We absolutely need a Red Seal certification for commercial drivers — but that needs to be federally recognized. A real Red Seal trade would give us access to federal funds for curriculum development, instructor qualifications, and standardized testing. It would also open doors for new drivers to access EI benefits, training grants, and WCB placements.
Better yet, it would legitimize the trade. Driving Class 1 would be a viable post-secondary option at community colleges and something we could actually present to high school students as a career path — a far cry from today’s patchwork model. Journeyperson status carries weight, distinction, and higher pay. When’s the last time you saw a Red Seal plumber working for minimum wage?
Canada’s had a driver shortage for 30 years. Back in the ‘80s and ‘90s, most drivers came from the family farm. Driving a truck was practically an apprenticeship in itself. But as family farms disappeared and trucking remained a tough, low-paying, high-burnout job, younger generations just weren’t interested.
So what did we do? Rather than fixing the job, we brought in foreign labour.
While immigration helped the numbers, it opened a whole new can of worms. Drivers came from countries with vastly different training standards, road conditions, and equipment. Language requirements? CLB 4 — about the equivalent of a Canadian Grade 5 reading level. Enough to follow safety instructions and fill out a logbook, but that’s about it. When the TFW (Temporary Foreign Worker) program expanded during COVID, truck drivers were added — many without language testing — and abuses followed: exploitation, slave wages, no benefits, and a highway safety crisis.
Meanwhile, Ontario’s corrupt driving school scandals allowed unqualified student visa holders to become truckers. That loophole’s closed now, but those drivers? Still on the road.
Here’s the bottom line: Shady trucking companies don’t want a Red Seal trade. Why? Because it would mean better pay, benefits, and protections. And that would end the low-wage loopholes that keep freight rates artificially low. Legitimate companies can’t compete — and the cycle grinds on.
So What Does This New Learning Pathway Actually Look Like?
Let’s break it down:
At first glance, it sounds more comprehensive than MELT — 133 hours compared to MELT’s 113. And it includes training in cargo securement, safety management, and loss prevention. Great. But let’s not forget MELT graduates still needed extra employer training to actually be road-ready — training in cargo securement, Hours of Service, weights and dimensions, daily inspections, etc. Why wasn’t that part of MELT in the first place?
So is the Learning Pathway better than MELT? Technically, yes. But is it good enough? Still debatable.
Also: Who exactly is “industry”? According to the Alberta government, curriculum input came from “industry stakeholders” and the insurance sector. Notably absent? New drivers and the companies that actually hire them. I’m not sure why we’re trusting the insurance lobby to shape driver education — but here we are.
And let’s talk about that “restricted” Class 1. It’s giving big graduated licence energy — which we tried before and abandoned because people simply didn’t bother to finish the process. History, meet repetition.
Final Thoughts: Another Self-Inflicted Wound
Instead of using the existing CCMTA (Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators) framework to build a national program, Alberta went rogue — again.
In an era where we should be removing trade barriers between provinces and working together on a national apprenticeship model, Alberta just made it harder for Class 1 drivers trained in-province to work across borders. Good job, team. We’ve paved the road to nowhere.
There have been lots of news stories recently of trucking companies abusing the Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) and Labour Market Impact Assessments (LIMA). It’s not a new problem but, it's a problem that has worsened in tough economic times, with blame often unfairly falling on immigrant workers, rather than the structural flaws within the programs themselves.
The reality is that foreign workers were invited to Canada because their skills were needed to fill gaps in critical industries like trucking, where there are not enough domestic drivers to meet demand. Therefore, it’s both unethical and immoral to penalize these workers by revoking their status when they were invited here. History tells us rounding up people for mass deportation never goes well. The core issue lies in the flaws of the programs under which they entered, as well as the lack of enforcement and oversight of these programs.
The government needs to allocate sufficient resources to enhance oversight. After all, if millions of dollars can be spent on projects like ArriveCan and the two Randy’s, surely the Federal government can afford more resources to monitor how these foreign worker programs are being administered. At the heart of the issue are “closed work permits,” which tie workers to a single employer, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation. Workers facing abuse are unable to leave their employer without jeopardizing their immigration status, creating a near-hostage situation where they cannot access basic social safety nets like employment insurance or welfare.
The Saskatchewan government’s contradictory policies illustrate how misguided approaches to foreign worker licensing can worsen the problem. The Saskatchewan government in 2021 prohibited all non-residents, including foreign workers, from driving on out-of-country Class 1 licences. This same government in 2024 is allowing foreign agriculture workers from 40 countries to drive on their home country's licence for up to a year, until May 21, 2025. Those countries include European countries, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Portugal and Taiwan. Similarly, federal investments, such as the $46.3 million allocated to Trucking Human Resources Canada for driver recruitment and training, exist because there is a critical shortage of truck drivers, not because immigrant workers are displacing Canadians.
The question then becomes: how do we fix this? One answer lies in closing the loopholes that allow unscrupulous trucking companies to employ foreign drivers who may not meet Canadian driving standards. At roadside inspections, it’s assumed that a driver with a valid Canadian license is working legally, but if they present a foreign license, there is no seamless mechanism for immediate enforcement or detention, as immigration issues are beyond the scope of provincial transportation roadside enforcement departments. The solution is for the federal government to crack down on these employers, rather than the workers themselves, through sanctions and more aggressive investigations. Why not give these drivers a legitimate path to citizenship or work permit and put them through the Red Seal driver training programs that are being developed?
In 2024, the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology released a paper calling for an end to closed work permits, marking a step in the right direction, but this remains only a recommendation. The Government of Canada has announced plans to overhaul the TFW program, though concrete reforms may take years to be implemented.
The bottom line is that immigrants are not the problem—broken immigration programs with little to no oversight are. It’s time to stop vilifying foreign workers and hold the government accountable for managing these programs. Big problems need big solutions that involve co-operation between Transport Canada, Canada Revenue Agency, Canada Immigration and Citizenship and Canada Border Services Agencies. Without this collaboration, Canada will continue to face a fractured system that leaves workers vulnerable and fails to meet the demands of key industries like trucking.
