Rates Surge, Theft Alert: Canadian Freight Briefing

Good morning. It's May 4, 2026 — a busy start to the week on the rate and security fronts.

The freight recovery has crossed from anticipated to confirmed — Schneider's Q1 call, Traffix's Q2 market outlook, and surging LTL rates are all signalling the same thing: carriers are back in the driver's seat. The FBI issued a formal warning this week on cyber-enabled cargo theft, putting hard numbers to a threat that has been reshaping how brokers and carriers protect their freight for years. We also have a major Ontario enforcement blitz, a new Canada-US pipeline approval out of Washington, and California's landmark move to open its roads to autonomous heavy trucks — over the Teamsters' objections.

Rate cycle is confirmed — and double-digit increases are the new baseline

FreightWaves reports that Ontario-based brokerage Traffix, in its newly released Q2 2026 Market Update, is warning shippers to treat current rate levels as a new floor rather than a temporary peak. The brokerage projects freight costs running 10–20% above 2025 levels depending on demand conditions, with linehaul rates — excluding fuel — already up approximately 30% year over year, a figure the company says reflects a genuine supply-demand imbalance rather than a fuel-driven spike. Traffix Senior Director Alex Fuller estimated that higher rates will persist for at least 12 months before new capacity can catch up, with Canada-US cross-border lanes tracking the broader truckload trend.

Mack and Volvo recalling 5,000-plus trucks for brake defect

Mack Trucks and Volvo Trucks are recalling more than 5,000 vehicles after a service brake defect was identified that could result in loss of anti-lock braking and electronic stability control. Land Line reports that affected models include Mack 2025–27 Pioneers and 2026–27 Anthems, and Volvo 2025–27 VNLs and 2026–27 VNRs — trucks that are common on cross-border and long-haul Canadian routes. No accidents or injuries have been reported; owners of affected units should contact a Mack or Volvo dealer for inspection of the rear brake modulator electrical connectors.

Schneider declares the upcycle has "gained its foothold"

Schneider National reported first-quarter adjusted earnings of 12 cents per share, beating consensus by 2 cents, per Transport Topics. CEO Mark Rourke used the earnings call to state the carrier now believes the freight recovery has firmly taken hold, targeting mid-to-high single-digit rate increases on most contract renewals for the full year and double-digit increases for more transactional accounts where there is, in his words, more ground to make up. The company maintained its full-year 2026 earnings guidance of $0.70 to $1.00 per diluted share.

FBI issues formal cargo theft warning for US and Canadian freight industry

Truck News is reporting that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has issued a public service announcement warning the transportation and logistics sector of a sharp rise in cyber-enabled cargo theft. Estimated losses across the United States and Canada reached $725 million in 2025 — a 60% increase over 2024 — with criminals using spoofed emails, fraudulent load board listings, and compromised carrier accounts to intercept freight before it is ever physically moved. Canadian carriers and cross-border brokers are directly exposed; the Canada-US corridor is an active target for the identity-based schemes the FBI describes.

72 trucks pulled from road in GTA enforcement blitz

What carriers operating into or out of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) should know: a two-day sweep last week found nearly half of inspected trucks unfit to run. Truck News reports that Operation Highway Guardian, conducted April 29–30 by the Ontario Provincial Police with support from six partner agencies, resulted in 72 vehicles placed out of service and 211 charges laid across 148 commercial vehicle inspections. Violations ranged from mechanical defects and cargo securement failures to hours-of-service breaches, documentation deficiencies, and operating without a valid commercial vehicle operator's registration (CVOR).

Canadian diesel (Natural Resources Canada, May 1)

The national average of $2.237/L reflects a meaningful pullback from the April peak of $2.425/L (April 8), as crude prices eased from their highs. The east-west spread remains sharp — Vancouver and Montreal are running more than $0.46/L above Calgary, a difference that compounds significantly over a full month of cross-country operations.

US diesel (EIA weekly, April 28): approximately $5.74 per gallon. The US Energy Information Administration releases its updated weekly diesel figures today (Monday, May 5); check eia.gov for the latest reading.

Outbound tender rejections: 14.43% as of late April — above 10% for more than two consecutive months, a sustained level that historically signals carriers have regained pricing leverage over shippers.

Crude: Brent spiked this morning to $115 per barrel and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) is trading at $100 per barrel, extending the rally driven by ongoing supply disruptions from the Iran conflict. Both benchmarks are at levels not seen since the early weeks of the crisis, and the move will put additional upward pressure on diesel prices in the coming days.

OOIDA flags loopholes in new US independent contractor rule — a mirror of Canada's Driver Inc. problem

The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) filed comments on the Department of Labor (DOL)'s proposed independent contractor classification rule, warning that two provisions could be exploited to misclassify drivers — Land Line has the breakdown. The association's core concern is that a broad "health and safety standards" exemption in the proposed rule could allow large carriers to impose technology mandates — including speed limiters — on nominally independent owner-operators without triggering reclassification, effectively making them employees in all but name. Canadian cross-border carriers should note the parallel to Canada's ongoing Driver Inc. enforcement crackdown: both debates centre on the same underlying question of who genuinely bears the financial risk in a carrier-driver relationship, and how regulators draw that line.

One year on: Trump's highway safety executive order and what it means for cross-border capacity

April 28 marked one year since the executive order reinstating strict enforcement of English language proficiency (ELP) requirements for commercial drivers and directing a review of non-domiciled commercial driver's licence (CDL) issuance. FreightWaves reviews the order's first-year impact, with the most operationally significant effect being a measurable tightening of US-side driver capacity — a dynamic that continues to put upward pressure on cross-border rates and affect carrier planning on both sides of the border. Non-domiciled CDL enforcement remains an active watchlist item for Canadian carriers operating or hiring in the United States.

California clears heavy-duty autonomous trucks for testing and deployment; Teamsters vow court battle

California's Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) has adopted new autonomous vehicle (AV) regulations that open the door for manufacturers to apply for permits to test and deploy heavy-duty autonomous vehicles — an important shift in a state that previously barred all driverless commercial vehicles over 10,000 pounds. Confirmed by Overdrive, the new rules include enhanced oversight provisions: operators must respond to first responder calls within 30 seconds, and law enforcement can issue geofencing directives to clear autonomous vehicles from active emergency zones. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters vowed to challenge the regulations in court, calling the DMV process insufficiently transparent and warning that safety data on heavy-duty AV technology has not been adequately disclosed.

Trump approves Bridger Pipeline — Canada-US crude corridor takes a major step forward

A new Canada-US oil pipeline moved significantly closer to reality last week when President Trump signed a presidential permit for the Bridger Pipeline Expansion, a 650-mile project that would carry up to 550,000 barrels of Canadian crude per day through Montana and Wyoming, where it would connect to existing US infrastructure, Transport Topics reports. Sometimes called "Keystone Light" for its structural similarities to the cancelled Keystone XL project, the Bridger expansion still requires additional state and federal environmental approvals before construction — projected to begin in fall 2027 with a completion target of late 2028 or early 2029. For Canadian energy sector freight, the pipeline's approval signals renewed cross-border infrastructure momentum, though its timeline means near-term crude-by-truck and rail volumes will not be directly affected.

The freight industry recognized that cargo theft had gone digital years before the FBI issued its formal warning last week. The gap between when carriers and brokers began adapting their verification processes and when federal authorities formally acknowledged the threat tells you something worth understanding — both about how these criminal networks operate and about what "being ahead of the problem" actually requires.

FreightWaves unpacks how identity-based cargo fraud became a systemic threat starting in 2021, well before regulatory attention caught up, and what the industry's earlier response reveals about where the next vulnerabilities are likely to emerge.

Read the full analysis at FreightWaves.

$725 million — the estimated value of cargo theft losses across the United States and Canada in 2025, a 60% increase over 2024, according to the FBI. The average value per confirmed theft rose to $273,990 as criminal networks shifted away from opportunistic grabs toward targeted, high-value operations.