Seriously, what company do you recommend for a new driver?!

Hourly. Seems more pay rate.

 

Is you license yours or is it tied to some sort of contract (EI or otherwise)?

Go specialized. Flat deck, tanker, etc. Lots of liquid bulk work these days is no touch, all driving, but the no-US might get in your way there. Flat deck is a lot of physical work, but it's not nearly as much as slinging boxes out the back of a pup trailer, it actually keeps you in shape.

And forget about being an owner-operator right now. Learn how to drive the truck first, learn the ins-and-outs of the industry before even considering building a business out of it. It isn't just buying a truck and drive it, there is far more to it than that.

Learn the term "lease-operator" and run away from anyone offering you one. Fast. They are not a fast-track to owning your own truck. They are quite literally a fast-track to bankruptcy. You get all the "joys" of owning a truck without the financial wind-falls.

 

Learning to operate in a land of No.

 

Since when do Canadian truckers use visa's to go to the US??
Just start with the Mega's doing dry van if you like long highway miles. Stay a year or two to learn the industry and then leave on your own path.

 

Unless you want to live in a truck the Manitoulin city work would hone your skills. You also won't be donating any of your time waiting on loads, truck/trailer repair as you would be hourly employee. They likely have decent benefits package

 

They are very micro managed.

 

Gordon Food Services, $24/hr to start. average 30+.

 

They also scale their city/local guys hours, based on predicted freight. Wacky start times also, sometimes 3am sometimes 7am. Slow slow Trucks (95km/hr) with every tracking device there is. Good benefits tho, its a great job for older guys looking to finish out their career, but young guys with some sense need a more wide open company.

I suggest Challenger as I always do, but Transpro looks decent, 0.42cpm with paid events is NOT low for Canada only, the average right now for Canada only is 0.38cpm + events.

Gordon Food Services is also not a driving job, its a manual slave labour job. 18 hour days, 1500-2000 cases of food by hand per shift, wheeler's and ramps in the snow. You get hurt, they drop you so fast your head will spin off. (Sysco Also).

Everything Zeviander said is gospel, also look into pallet based LTL. That's what I do now, 2 pallet minimum work, so no being a glorified UPS truck. Lots of miles, stops in cool places and backing practice, amazing hourly rates, good CPM and bonus pay. Loved it so much, I went O/O financed through RBC; No Lease.

 

You can't really be too picky without experience. Apply everywhere and hopefully something gives. Without experience and driving only inside Canada, you'll be competing with a lot of people for work - you should be able to operate a forklift, dolley, pumpjack and be able to lift over 100 lbs consistently for several hours. If not, you can probably get a job hauling gravel, but your CVOR will be toast pretty fast in that job, because companies often overload gravel trucks, and there's hundreds of people to fill those driver seats every time someone is fired or quits.

You will find that the single most important thing is to get your US visa* because you'll be competing with far less people if you drive cross border. Just a heads up, a lot of us are getting banned or denied at the border now simply because the US wants to keep the trucking on their side of the border for Americans only, as part of the America First plan. Having a clean record is a basic requirement and does not guarantee entry into the US like it did before. If you ever had a criminal conviction, pardon or not, juvenile or not, don't plan on being admissible every time you cross, as you will eventually meet the wrong agent at the booth. It's entirely that agent's discretion to let you in.

*-the type of visa you need is for a Business Visitor. Not a work visa. If you do apply for a work visa, that will complicate things if you want to get a FAST card because they will think you want to pull US freight (city-city runs inside the states) and that is prohibited on the FAST card program. Hopefully you did your homework on this first. The border agents, as they like to say, strictly follow the law. And they do.