'AI hallucinations' in doctors' notes flagged by Ontario auditor's report

Trucking

While large commercial trucks make up just three per cent of all vehicles on Ontario roads, they accounted for 12 per cent of fatal crashes from 2019 to 2023, the auditor noted.

On trucker training, problems included falsified certificates from “unregistered” private career colleges that were working with registered colleges to enter student records into the Ministry of Transportation system.

Calling truck driver training a “crucial step” in road safety, the auditor looked at six private career colleges and found that two schools awarded students entry-level certificates falling well short of the mandatory 103 training hours, at just 59 and 81 hours. The schools were not named. 

The auditor’s office enrolled students in six training programs. 

“Two of our students were not taught key truck driving elements, such as left turns at major intersections, reverse parking and emergency stopping,” the report said.

As of March 2025, the auditor said 54 of the 216 registered private career colleges with trucking courses had “never” been inspected by the ministry and just 54 per cent of the 81 colleges had not been reinspected as required at the five-year mark.

The report quoted one of the undercover “students,” who said, “I was only given 12 hours of classroom sessions instead of the 36.5 hours required. I was told to sign off on having completed my classes prior to doing them.”

Noting that the audit examined issues raised in previous years, Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria said the government has “zero tolerance for any of those bad actors,” and that his ministry’s enforcement unit has done 50 inspections on schools since last fall.

Some of the operators have been shut down, Sarkaria said, and in some cases the Ontario Provincial Police have laid charges.

Sarkaria said his ministry accepted all 13 of the auditor’s recommendations, which include greater oversight such as surprise inspections of schools and better sharing of information with the Ministry of Colleges and Universities, which oversees the training.

NDP MPP John Vanthof (Timiskaming—Cochrane) said some training programs undercut higher-quality schools by charging less.

“And it drives the good truck driving schools crazy,” he said. “It drives them crazy because they’re trying to do it right.”

Interim Liberal leader John Fraser said the need for police investigations into some schools shows the government has “no control” over the training and is “not paying attention.”

As a result, Fraser said, Ontario has “people on the road who should not be driving on the road (in) very large trucks.”

Artificial Intelligence

Spence found concerns about the use of AI when doctors meet with patients.

The “AI Scribe” transcription app used by doctors instead of taking notes was problematic, with evaluators noting “inaccuracies in the medical notes generated by most of the approved vendors’ AI Scribe systems” that included “AI hallucinations.” 

Spence also flagged concerns with staff in the Ontario public service using “unsafe and unsecured” websites on phones and computers supplied by the government, “creating risks of potential unauthorized data exposure.”

By allowing staff to use “unapproved, unsafe and unsecured AI websites,” the auditor concluded that the Ministry of Public and Business Service Delivery is not preventing “potential serious data misuse by third parties.”

Minister Stephen Crawford said those issues were found during the training period but would not say if all public service workers are currently using the government-approved Microsoft CoPilot Chat. 

The government, Crawford said, has a “terrific cybersecurity team” to oversee any issues.

But Stiles said the auditor’s report shows “clear issues” in Ontario’s expansion of AI.

“The government needs to start paying attention,” she said.