The Long Haul Truckers: Life on Canada’s Highways
For more information on Missing Since January check out the production’s official page.
Out on the asphalt at 3:30 a.m. outside Québec City the only company is a steaming cup of coffee and the roar of a diesel engine. Jean-Paul, a twenty-year veteran of the Montreal–Toronto run, sits behind the wheel of his 18-wheeler, the tractor-trailer’s heater fighting off the –20°C air leaking through the cracked door seals. In this moment, his rig—a clutter of gum wrappers, empty energy drink cans, and dog-eared maps—is home and the entire world. Like thousands of his peers, he rises before dawn, navigating highways whose steel-gray ribbon vanishes into first light. Each route—whether turning west on Autoroute 20 towards Ontario or south toward the United States border—is a roll of the dice in weather, road conditions, and mechanical endurance, all to keep Canada’s economy moving. As a recent logistics report notes, over half of Quebec’s roads are rated in poor condition due to brutal winters[1]. Every frost-fissured pothole or traffic detour can mean lost hours, broken equipment, and frayed tempers—yet drivers like Jean-Paul press on, because a household’s groceries, hospital supplies, and store shelves depend on them.
The grind of each day leaves its mark. After weeks behind the wheel, even small setbacks—a snow squall on the 401, a full parking lot at a rest stop—feel personal. Throughout the pandemic, drivers reported extended hours and soaring fatigue: one survey of Canadian long-haul truckers found that more than 50% of drivers reported being fatigued, largely because they were forced to work longer and couldn’t find places to eat or park[2]. These complaints have only intensified in recent years. The sight of a closed fast-food drive-thru or a locked rest-area restroom on Quebec’s highways can send seasoned drivers scouring for fuel stations at the last minute. Even before COVID-19, trucking researchers noted that drivers battled poor diet and sedentary schedules: long-haulers have much higher rates of diabetes, obesity, and hypertension than the general population[3]. Such facts explain why Michel always packs oatmeal and fresh fruit in his sleeper—and why a call home from New Brunswick or upstate New York, to hear a child’s laughter, can be as vital as a prescription. If the body starts to fail, the business fails: there are no union sick days out here, only deliveries on time or cancelled freight, with heavy bills still due back at the office.
Quebec’s seasons impose extra hardship. In winter the Trans-Canada routes cut deep across snowy plateaus; in summer those same roads buckle under heat. Blizzards can strand rigs for hours or days. For many drivers out of Montreal or Trois-Rivières, the journey must account for weight restrictions each spring, when frost-thaw weakens the asphalt[1]. During thaw, bridges and culverts load up with melted snow, and Quebec’s notorious freeze–thaw cycle practically guarantees a spring harvest of potholes. Transport companies spend small fortunes on tire and suspension repairs, passing costs to their drivers or owner-operators. Jean-Paul recalls tales from colleagues: “Last spring I drove over a pothole that shot a jagged shard of ice through my radiator”—a $3,000 repair that slashed a week’s profit in one burst. When the highway crews resurface a stretch of road, it can bring detours that cost time and fuel, yet leaving it rough means metal torsions repeatedly slam against pavement. “There’s no escape,” one Quebec carrier told a logistics blogger in 2023—routine maintenance actually disrupts schedules, causing delays and more fuel burn[4], but worse is doing nothing at all.
The Cabin Routine
Inside the cab, drivers carve out a fragile routine. A midday ‘lunch break’ might consist of reheating last night’s stew on a tiny hotplate, hurried between mandatory “on-duty” checks. Electronic logging devices (ELDs), now mandatory for all federally regulated carriers since January 2023, track every minute behind the wheel. A slip in protocol can cost a fine; in fact, Ottawa now allows enforcement officers to write on-the-spot tickets up to $2,000 for hours-of-service violations[5]. So when Jean-Paul stops for rest, he sets an alarm on his tablet to log his next start. The security of the highway at night—or lack thereof—is always on his mind. Most provincial rest stops are spartan: a dimly lit lot, graffiti-scarred benches, occasionally a 24-hour Tim Hortons if he’s lucky. Shower opportunities come at big truck plazas, and they pay dearly for cleanliness. The freight hauler packs a bag every morning: some change of clothes, toiletry kit, maybe a small portable fan or heater for the sleeper bunk. Drivers commonly share tips about which rest areas remain open—and which aren’t: a study found that many U.S. and Canadian truck stops closed during Covid, turning “finding parking” into a day-long pursuit that cost drivers up to two hours per trip[6]. Out here, 1–2 hours idling on a dead cell tower for a rest spot or restroom is routine stress.
By mid-trip, the radio scan becomes a lifeline. CB broadcasts about road conditions still mingle with music and local news; truckers have always relied on it for a sense of community. Otherwise, podcasts or phone calls to home keep loneliness at bay. A blog post from a trucking association notes that social isolation is endemic in the trade—even more so with COVID—which can precipitate depression unless mitigated[7]. Many long-haulers cite as much: the 20 hours away from loved ones, the missed birthdays, the feeling that one’s family exists in a parallel world. On the other hand, some drivers confess they came for just that escapism: freedom from nine-to-five bureaucracy, the open horizon. In either case, the rig’s cab is a cramped philosopher’s retreat. It has become common to see satellite dishes or Wi-Fi routers in trucks, so drivers can stream a movie with their children thousands of kilometers away, or order supplies online and have them delivered to a highway rest stop. These small comforts—a satellite radio playlist, a cross-stitch kit, a phone video of a grandchild—quietly buttress morale. But they don’t ease the cost of absentee fathers or mothers, and the resignation that most days are measured in tarmac miles, not heartbeats at home.
The Economics of the Journey
Behind the wheel, every drop of diesel, every service interval is math. Diesel in Quebec carries a premium: after taxes and the province’s carbon levy, many drivers pay nearly $0.10–$0.15 more per litre than their Ontario counterparts. It is well-known among truckers that skirting the Quebec border for fuel (even in upstate New York) can save a few hundred dollars on a long run. One industry analyst quipped that many Quebec drivers “fill up their tanks in Ontario and then drive home proud of their savings.” Jean-Paul nods when asked: even on a tight schedule, he’ll detour 20 km just to fuel. This is part of the constant tradeoff: time versus operating cost. Onboard computers log every minute idling at a pump. Leasing his rig means Jean-Paul must also cover insurance and license fees that seem to climb yearly; recently he saw his annual insurance premium jump 20% overnight.
In 2023, these expenses became especially punishing. High interest rates inflated lease and loan costs for owner-operators. A Montréal newspaper tracked a Quebec owner-operator who surrendered his fleet after five trucks had become financial albatrosses[8]. “[I] repair my trucks and then sell them,” he told reporters. “I simply cannot keep up: interest, parts, fuel, insurance—everything’s skyrocketing.” His experience was not unique: repossessions by local truck lenders leapt from about one per month in early 2022 to one per week a year later[9]. As one trucking journal dryly observes, the bottom line is vanishing for many drivers, despite a booming freight market. (In contrast, 2021–22 had been a windfall: stronger freight rates and wage offers lured many into the trade.) StatCan data corroborates that dynamic: after postings hit a record 28,250 openings in Q2 2022, vacancies plunged by 45% to 15,350 by Q2 2024[10] as the freight glut eased. To tempt recruits, carriers have raised pay—the average offered wage for a veteran driver climbed from about $24.05/hr in 2021 to $27.10 in mid-2024[11]. But with 30,000 Canadians projected to exit the industry in 2023[12], the long-term outlook remains tight.
The math for drivers is brutally simple: when pay cheques are pinched and hours kept constant, working conditions must compensate. Many long-haulers take on runs just to avoid layoffs. During the Yellow Corp. bankruptcy in 2023, for example, hundreds of Canadian drivers suddenly found themselves jobless—even though their cargo and routes were quickly absorbed by competitors[13]. The collapse did not increase freight rates (thanks to overcapacity), so these drivers essentially lost pay overnight. In Quebec, moreover, language and permit issues can shape one’s career. There is an unspoken hierarchy: French-fluent, fully compliant Quebec-licensed drivers—especially union members—often see fewer assignments in English-speaking Ontario or the Prairies, and vice versa. In fact, in September 2025 Montreal-area drivers intentionally slowed traffic to protest what they called “illegal truckers” running freight without proper Quebec certification[14]. They argued such practices allow operators to undercut rates. Teamsters official Chris Monette blamed the government’s lax enforcement—”we’ve been talking about the same issues for years”[15]—and explained that many of these “Driver Inc.” drivers are often recent immigrants who, he says, sign on through fly-by-night trucking schools and never pay into pension or insurance schemes[16]. In effect, their employers can underbid honest carriers and “skirt other regulations at the same time,” he warns[17].
The industry’s trade groups have loudly echoed this message. In late 2025 the Canadian Trucking Alliance finally welcomed a federal probe into “Driver Inc.” practices, calling it “one of the most damaging schemes” in trucking[18]. CTA president Stephen Laskowski pointed out that misclassification allows companies to dodge payroll taxes, employment standards and insurance premiums, shifting billions of dollars away from public services like hospitals and roads[19]. (Ontario carriers have long lobbied for tougher rules on foreign drivers staying beyond tourist visas.) From the driver’s seat, the takeaway is grim: if a competitor is paying $0.30 per mile less because they hired “contractors” off the books, drivers’ own negotiators have little leverage. It explains, perhaps, why some older drivers lament a certain decline in professional pride. “We’re the backbone of this country,” Jean-Paul says one morning as sun breaks over the Saint-Lawrence. “But sometimes I feel the world treats us like grease monkeys.”
Beyond the Highway
What keeps someone like Jean-Paul going after all these years? Part of it, he’ll admit quietly, is identity. There’s a certain romance in solitude and machines: seeing the sunrise over the Laurentians in a red taillight, feeling the kingpin of a trailer wobble in a curve, hearing your daughter’s voice through a cracked phone speaker. Drivers trade stories—at diners or CB broadcasts—with a blend of humor and fatalism worthy of an old Western. (“If the road don’t kill me, the examiners will,” one quip goes.) Every fallen friend—a colleague lost on the Fredericton run, or a hero who stalled his rig on a bridge to save a child—reinforces an ethos of grit. Still, loyalty has its limits. Many younger drivers, seeing the picture, balk at training costs or the lonely lifestyle. Canada’s Trucking HR Council has set up programs to attract women, Indigenous youth and immigrants, yet their uptake has been slow[20]. In some regions trucking fleets are quietly giving overtime to part-timers, or piloting electric trucks to cut fuel costs—for instance, Quebec has become an early adopter of class-8 EVs in municipal garbage fleets[21]. But on long-haul routes through the Eastern townships or Northern Ontario swamps, electrification is still more fantasy than reality (range anxiety and charging deserts are real).
At a policy level, Ottawa and Québec have begun to notice. Transport Canada’s 2023 budget listed stronger enforcement of carrier rules and the looming Driver Inc. problem among its priorities. The same year, Québec introduced stricter entry-level training and held public forums on highway safety. Indeed, drivers themselves have lobbied for more rest areas and washrooms—demands that finally found political currency when COVID closures made on-road life unbearable[22]. And despite conflicting interests, one constant binds industry and legislators: preventing fatigue-related crashes. After a spate of high-profile wrecks in Québec (like a 2024 pileup on Autoroute 50 that killed a trucker and a child), regulators quietly edged in new truck-only speed limiters (capping trucks at ~105 km/h) and beefed up inspections. Every quarter, Transport Canada highlights more tickets for logbook violations and equipment defects. The message is clear: drivers have responsibility, too.
Still, when the route clears ahead and the kilometers accumulate, Jean-Paul often feels pride in being part of something much larger. “I might miss every dance recital, but I’m the reason those kids had a school bus waiting,” he says. Fellow drivers nod—a job nobody sees until something is broken, and then it’s treated as if the machine had to fix itself. Maybe that’s the hardest part: a society’s endless reliance on an army that nobody recruits, but on which daily life depends. Long-haulers in Québec carry more than loads; they haul the promise of supply, connection and normalcy across the vast silence of Canada’s land. And as much as they adapt with thermostats, Spotify and snacks, they also adapt by sticking together—in union halls or online forums—demanding the respect (and the restrooms, regulations, and reasonable pay) they’ve long earned.
Also, don’t forget to check out “Missing Since January” Behind The Screenplay page for more information on the writing inspiration and process.
