If your trucks run routes through British Columbia, a new compliance requirement is on its way. In May 2026, the B.C. Legislature passed Bill M217, the Dashboard Cameras in Commercial Vehicles Act, with unanimous, bipartisan support, making British Columbia the first province in Canada to require dash cams on commercial vehicles. Once the bill receives Royal Assent, fleets have six months to install compliant cameras on every commercial vehicle they operate.
Here's what the law covers, and how to approach it so compliance does more for your fleet than check a box.
Bill M217 requires a road-facing dash cam that records continuously while the vehicle is in operation. The proposed technical baseline is straightforward: a forward-facing camera capturing the view through the front windshield, 1080p resolution or better, a minimum of 72 hours of footage retention, and night vision for low-light driving. The camera has to stay unobstructed any time the vehicle is on the road.
Responsibility sits with the vehicle owner, or with the lessee on leased vehicles. Enforcement will run through B.C.'s Commercial Vehicle Safety and Enforcement (CVSE) branch, the same body that already inspects commercial trucks. Specific fines and exemptions will be set out in regulations the province is still finalizing.
The act uses the existing definition of “commercial vehicle” from B.C.'s Commercial Transport Act, which centers on trucks with a licensed gross vehicle weight over 11,793 kilograms, along with National Safety Code carriers operating under a B.C. carrier licence.
One detail matters for any carrier with interprovincial or cross-border routes: the requirement follows the road, not the registration. A fleet based in Alberta, Ontario, or the United States that hauls freight into B.C. is covered the same as a B.C.-based operator. If your trucks cross into the province, plan as though the mandate applies to you.
Driver-facing cameras are not required. During committee review, the bill was deliberately limited to outward-facing cameras after privacy concerns were raised. Fleets can still add in-cab cameras for coaching, but that decision brings its own obligations under B.C.'s Personal Information Protection Act.
A six-month window sounds comfortable until you map out the work. You need to audit which vehicles are in scope, evaluate hardware, place orders, schedule installs across the fleet, brief drivers, and update internal policy. Procurement lead times and installer availability both tighten when an entire industry moves to comply at once. Fleets that start now will have their pick of options. Fleets that wait for the final enforcement regulations will be racing a hard deadline.
The law sets a baseline: a road-facing camera, 1080p, 72 hours, night vision. Meeting it with a standalone camera is simple enough, but a standalone camera can leave you managing video in one system and your GPS, speed, and engine data in another. When an incident happens, that's two places to look for one answer.
The fleets that get the most out of this are the ones that connect video to the telematics data they already collect. Footage shows what happened; paired with location and speed, it shows why, which is what resolves an insurance claim or a CVSE inquiry quickly. From there, the same camera can flag harsh braking, following-distance, and distraction events automatically, and feed a coaching workflow that addresses risk before it becomes a claim. The B.C. Trucking Association has reported that commercial drivers are not at fault in roughly 75-80% of collisions involving their vehicles, so clear, connected video protects your drivers as much as it satisfies a compliance line item.
We've helped fleets choose, deploy, and customize connected fleet technology since 2010, and that's the lens we bring to this mandate. We'll help you confirm which vehicles are in scope, compare compliant AI-dash cam options, and integrate video with your existing platform so footage and telematics live in one place rather than two. For fleets that want more than an out-of-the-box setup, we build the custom reporting, integrations, and data solutions that turn a compliance requirement into a real safety and liability advantage.
The clock starts the day Royal Assent is granted. If your trucks run B.C. routes, now is the time to plan. Schedule a call with a fleet expert to learn more.
