The Truth About CFTR and the Gaslighting of Quebec’s Trucking Industry

What Future Drivers Need to Know Before It’s Too Late

Quebec’s trucking industry presents itself as desperate for drivers. Governments talk about shortages, companies complain about a lack of labor, and training centers promote trucking as a fast, stable path to employment. At the center of this promise stands CFTR — Centre de Formation de Transport Routier, a government-financed institution designed to produce qualified professional drivers.

On paper, CFTR looks like the solution. In reality, it has become one of the clearest examples of systemic gaslighting in Quebec’s trucking industry.

What CFTR Actually Is

CFTR is a Quebec government-funded training program that prepares students to obtain professional driver’s licenses: Class 1, 2, or 3. Students can complete internal exams aligned with SAAQ requirements and graduate with a valid license.

The Class 1 truck driving program lasts around 600 hours, roughly six months of intensive training. Students learn:

• How to operate heavy vehicles
• Safety procedures and defensive driving
• “La ronde de sécurité”
• Regulations, inspections, and compliance
• Practical road skills designed to pass SAAQ exams smoothly

For comparison, the Trainning (Technik) version of the training is closer to 300 hours, roughly three months. Recently, new rules announced around mid-2025 suggest training could be to as little as 120 hours minimum.

The question is obvious:
Does reducing training hours fix anything — or does it expose how broken the system already is?

The Experience Trap

Here’s the contradiction no one wants to address.

CFTR graduates complete six months of professional training, yet when they apply for jobs, they are told:

• “You need 1 year of experience”
• “We require 2 to 5 years”
• “Come back when you have experience”

CFTR experience does not count as work experience.

So where exactly are drivers supposed to come from?

If:

• CFTR graduates are “inexperienced”
• Companies refuse to hire new drivers
• Experience can only be gained by being hired

Then the so-called driver shortage is mathematically impossible to solve.

This is not a labor shortage.
It is gatekeeping.

The Internship Illusion

One of the biggest selling points of CFTR is the idea that:

“You’ll easily get an internship and a job after.”

That is not guaranteed, and students are rarely told the truth upfront.

Reality:

• Not all students get internships
• Companies cannot absorb every graduate
• Some students wait years without ever getting placed
• Failure to secure an internship can be interpreted as a personal failure, even though students have no real control over placement availability

Students can complete training, pass exams, maintain clean records — and still end up licensed but unemployed for 2–3 years.

A trucking license that expires in relevance is not opportunity.
It’s a trap.

Hidden Selection, Favoritism, and Timing

Getting hired is often not about skill.

It depends on:

• Insurance policies
• Internal company risk tolerance
• Favoritism
• Timing
• Demographics companies quietly prefer
• Who the insurer is willing to cover

None of this is controlled by CFTR — yet CFTR continues to sell confidence it cannot deliver.

That’s the gaslighting:

“You’re doing everything right.”
“The industry needs you.”
“You’re almost there.”

Until you’re standing at 3 a.m., clean record in hand, speaking to a dispatcher who says:

“Come back when you have experience.”

Insurance: The Silent Gatekeeper

Insurance companies play a massive role — often bigger than the companies themselves.

They:

• Refuse to trust Quebec training programs
• Penalize companies for hiring new drivers
• Push premiums so high that companies avoid newcomers entirely

The result?
New drivers are blamed for risk they were never allowed to manage.

This creates a perverse system where:

• Companies claim shortages
• Insurers restrict hiring
• Graduates are locked out
• Responsibility is shifted onto students

The Industry’s Favorite Excuse

One of the most absurd moments new drivers face is being told:

“Get your CFTR certification.”

They already have it.

A CFTR certificate does not magically override insurance policies, nor does it force companies to hire. Yet this excuse is repeated endlessly to deflect responsibility.

What This Really Is

This is not about lack of skill.
This is not about safety.
This is not about training hours.

This is systemic gaslighting.

CFTR has become the buffer between government promises and industry refusal. Students are encouraged, trained, certified — then quietly abandoned once reality hits.

The Truth Future Drivers Deserve

Before entering CFTR, students should know:

• A license does not guarantee a job
• Internships are not guaranteed
• Experience requirements make entry nearly impossible
• Insurance, not skill, controls hiring
• You may be qualified and still excluded

The trucking industry in Quebec does not suffer from a driver shortage.
It suffers from structural dishonesty.

And until that is addressed, CFTR will continue to produce licensed drivers for an industry that refuses to let them in.

The truth only becomes visible once you’re affected by it.
By then, it’s already too late.

On a Facebook Comments

The Proof Was There All Along

A simple Facebook post says more than years of political speeches.

“Hello, I’m looking for work in Montreal and Laval. I’ve had an automatic Class 1 license for three years now. Unfortunately, I only have six months of Class 1 experience.”

What most people don’t realize is that those six months of “experience” are not a failure — they are the full length of CFTR training. That person completed government-funded professional training, passed exams, obtained a Class 1 license, and has been legally qualified to work for three years. The only thing missing was opportunity.

This means the problem already existed three years ago. New drivers were being trained, licensed, and then blocked from entering the industry. No shortage. No sudden crisis. Just silence.

If CFTR graduates cannot find work, if training does not count as experience, and if companies refuse to hire newcomers while claiming a labor shortage, then the system is not broken by accident — it is functioning exactly as designed.

This is not about skill.
This is not about safety.
This is not about effort.

It is about systemic corruption hidden behind legality. A system where responsibility is endlessly passed around while new drivers are left waiting, licenses in hand, careers frozen before they begin.

The truth about Quebec’s trucking industry doesn’t appear in government reports or corporate statements. It appears in quiet Facebook comments like this one — written by people who did everything right and were still shut out.

By the time most drivers understand this reality, they’re already trapped inside it. And that is the final proof that this was never a shortage it was gaslighting.