ESDC Announces Data Agreement with CRA to Facilitate Driver Inc. Enforcement
The Labour Program at Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) and the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) announced September 11 data-sharing agreements to facilitate and coordinate inspections and enforcement in the federally-regulated road transportation sector.
Included in Budget 2024, this initiative supports efforts since 2022 to strengthen compliance in the trucking industry. The exchange of this information will enhance existing compliance activities of the Labour Program and the CRA in the trucking sector, including those aimed specifically at curbing the tax avoidance and labour abuse scheme within the underground economy, known as Driver Inc.
Both the Labour Program and the CRA respectively recognize the importance of addressing worker misclassification and non-compliance with tax law.
Accordingly, ESDC and CRA will identify in the coming months all information that needs to be shared between the two government entities, as well as:
- Identify and mitigate any privacy and security concerns;
- Determine the need for any legislative changes;
- Establish the process to share the information; and
- Put in place the data-sharing agreements.
“With your ongoing support and efforts, we continue our fight against unfair labour practices to help ensure workers receive the protections they are entitled to under the Canada Labour Code, while taking the necessary enforcement actions to ensure both payers and workers meet their tax obligations under the Income Tax Act,” ESDC stated to industry.
Additional updates will be forthcoming as ESDC and CRA complete the needed final steps.
“This agreement indicates a new level of heightened enforcement among these two key agencies to battle the sprawling underground economy, which is devastating our industry,” said CTA President Stephen Laskowski. “This is an important step which will help support promises government has made to end the widespread labour and tax abuse in our sector.
“We look forward to seeing this process completed and for these efforts to be deployed in the field to end these unscrupulous practices nation-wide.”
Ministers LeBlanc and Anand announce trucking pilot to improve movement of goods Français
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The ministers thanked the coalition of willing jurisdictions: Ontario; Nova Scotia; Manitoba; Prince Edward Island; Saskatchewan; Alberta; Newfoundland and Labrador; Northwest Territories; Yukon; and Nunavut for joining this effort to improve the efficient movement of goods — a crucial aspect to Canada’s productivity and affordability. The pilot project will be co-chaired by Newfoundland and Labrador and Canada.
Mutual recognition agreements in key sectors, such as transportation and trucking, have the potential to boost Canada’s productivity and economic growth. Experts forecast that adopting mutual recognition as a means to reduce barriers to internal trade could increase Canada’s economy by $200 billion per year.
Under this new trucking pilot, participating provinces and territories will commit to recognizing each other’s regulatory requirements, even where differences exist, such as oversized vehicle signage requirements, to allow trucks and the goods they carry to move across Canada more effectively, without compromising safety and security measures. The pilot, the first of its kind on this scale within Canada, will help governments test and measure what can be achieved through mutual recognition and will help drive future work in other important sectors of the economy, including labour mobility.
Today’s announcement is an important first step towards wider, national adoption of mutual recognition and builds on the Government of Canada’s demonstrated leadership and action to liberalize trade and boost Canada’s economic productivity.
If you know company suspected to engage in labour misclassification and other labour code infractions, WCB noncompliance, tax noncompliance, you can provide a tip for further investigation to the appropriate authority here: https://cantruck.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Driver-Inc.-tip-sheet-document-final-EN_public.pdf
