7 Legislative Changes Canadian Carriers Need on Their Radar Right Now

If you run trucks in Canada, 2026 has felt like the year the rules caught up with you all at once.

The loudest change was federal: on December 4, 2025, the CRA lifted its moratorium on T4A penalties — $100 per missing slip plus $30 per day, backed by $77 million in enforcement funding and an ESDC inspection blitz that hit 250+ carriers in the Hamilton–GTA corridor. But while everyone was watching the tax man, legislatures in Ottawa, Toronto, Victoria, and Edmonton quietly moved on dashcams, inspections, fines, and driver training.

Here are seven bills a small carrier should actually be watching — with their real, current status.

1. BC now requires dashcams in heavy commercial vehicles — this is law

Bill M 217, Dashboard Cameras in Commercial Vehicles Act — Royal Assent

BC now requires every commercial vehicle over 11,793 kg GVW to run a compliant dashboard camera — 1080p, night vision, 72 hours of storage. This applies by vehicle weight, not fleet size: a single-truck owner-operator is covered the same as a 200-unit fleet, and drivers can't block or disable it.

What to do:check whether your existing camera meets the specs. "We have a dashcam" and "we have a compliant dashcam" are not the same sentence.

2. Ontario wants daily-staffed scales on Highways 11 and 17

Bill 49, Northern Highway 11 and 17 Safety Act — First Reading

This bill would staff truck scales on Highway 11 and 17 at least 12 hours a day. If your lanes run through Northern Ontario, that's the difference between the occasional open scale and near-daily inspection exposure on two of the country's most important east–west freight corridors.

What to do:nothing is law yet, but if your CVOR record couldn't survive a doubled inspection rate, that's worth fixing regardless.

3. A traffic conviction that causes serious harm could cost $50,000 and your licence

Bill 47, Fairness for Road Users Act — First Reading (Ontario)

This bill would create enhanced penalties when anytraffic offence causes or contributes to a collision resulting in death or serious bodily harm: fines up to $50,000, up to two years' imprisonment, and licence suspensions up to five years. For an owner-operator, a five-year suspension is the business.

What to do: watch-and-brief. If it moves past committee, it belongs in your next driver safety meeting.

4. Truck driver training schools face mandatory public inspections

Bill 93, Truck Driver Training Schools Accountability Act — First Reading (Ontario)

Mandatory recurring inspections of driving schools offering Class A training — every six months for schools under five years old, annually for established ones — with results published online. Insurance costs and collision rates track training quality, and a public record gives carriers a way to screen where new hires learned.

What to do: when hiring new Class A grads, start asking which school — and once inspection results go public, check them.

5. Employment standards fights in BC now require cash up front to appeal

Bill 10, Labour Statutes Amendment Act — Royal Assent (BC)

An employer found owing money to workers must now deposit the full determination amount beforebeing allowed to appeal. If a driver you've been treating as a contractor is reclassified and a determination lands for back wages, appealing means posting the full amount first. Combined with the CRA/ESDC enforcement wave, the cost of getting Driver Inc. wrong in BC just went up on both the tax side and the labour side.

What to do: if you engage incorporated drivers in BC, have your classification reviewed now — before a complaint does it for you.

6. Interprovincial trade barriers are actually falling — and carriers are the winners

Federal Bill C-5 (Royal Assent), Alberta Bill 21 (Royal Assent), Ontario Bill 2 (First Reading)

Not everything is a cost. Three bills are dismantling internal trade barriers:

• Federal C-5 — removes federal barriers to interprovincial trade and recognizes provincial credentials. Law since June 2025.
• Alberta's Bill 21 — automatically recognizes goods, services, and worker credentials from other provinces. Royal Assent, March 2026.
• Ontario's Bill 2 — would do the same for Ontario with reciprocating provinces. Still at First Reading.

What to do: if interprovincial expansion has been on your someday list, re-run the math. The barriers you remember may already be gone in some provinces — and not others.

7. Cross-border carriers: the Strong Borders Act is still moving

Bill C-2 — Second Reading (federal)

The omnibus Strong Borders Act tightens Canada–US border enforcement and — buried in its financial provisions — prohibits any business from accepting cash payments of $10,000 or more. If cash over that threshold ever moves through your business, that practice is on its way to being illegal, full stop.

What to do: get large cash payments into traceable channels now, ahead of the law.

The pattern behind all seven

One federal enforcement agency, one federal omnibus bill, and five provincial statutes across three provinces — each at a different stage, each on its own clock. And these seven are the trucking-obvious bills, the ones with "truck" or "highway" in the title. The changes that actually blindside carriers — like the BC labour bill above, or the CRA budget line that funded the T4A crackdown — are filed under labour and tax, where no trucking headline will ever flag them.

Nobody at a 5-truck operation has time to read order papers from four legislatures. That's how carriers end up learning about a rule from the inspector enforcing it.

Every bill in this article was surfaced by Legisail, which matches legislation to your specific business — your provinces, your lanes, the adjacent labour and tax bills this article couldn't know to include. It's free to try, and early supporters can reserve a Pro spot at a locked founding price before launch. Get started free.

This article is general information, not legal or tax advice. Bill statuses are accurate as of August 11, 2026, and bills at First or Second Reading can change substantially before passage. Consult a professional for advice on your situation.