You could do a lot worse than Bison, yes, you will be on a 13 week training program but it’s not the same as their noob “driver finishing program”, most of it is simply the time from when you start to passing your test, which can, for some, take a long time. You need to learn the pre trip and air brake, pre trip is long but fairly straightforward, air brake is a bit of a joke, it’s complex compared to most other provinces and Bison want you to learn it word for word, no deviation before they’ll put you in for test, its different for every person and of course the non English speakers really struggle but you will be training for these things with others most likely all the time waiting for a test date which could be 5-8 weeks depending on availability. Once you pass you are straight out on a mentor trip with an in cab instructor (a bog standard driver who gets paid extra to “mentor” you). You’ll go long haul into the states and you’ll be assessed on paper, you don’t run team as said, you will be doing virtually all the driving, they will just be a passenger. You may get sent on several trips, depends how you do. From experience mine was relatively short, passed my test 4 weeks after starting, went on one mentor trip, was assigned a truck the day I got back and was the solo on long haul, bad for me because I was on training wages then for another 8 weeks regardless of how far I drove, it did wind me up but I knew it could happen if I got all the actual training done quickly. ■■■■ it up and just make sure you go on short trips and take 2 days off every time you get back, no point pushing yourself until you’re paid properly for it. Get yourself a room to rent and training wages are more than enough to house, clothe and feed you, what’s the point of renting a hotel room, waste of money, just rent a room, plenty on Kijiji.
You are a number at Bison, big company, until fleet knows you, then you get a name, tbh, they aren’t bad and I’ve had zero grief off them, just the usual nonsense you get from any big company. 12k miles is your target but by no means are you guaranteed it unless you really do work flat out, if you do 24days a month you may or may not hit 12k, lots of short trips around Midwest with booking slots the next day etc so you may only get 400 miles one day but then 630 the next, it’s up and down, you’ll make reasonable money though, trucks are well maintained, mostly Freightliner Cascadia rather than Volvos, trailers hit and miss because there are so many stand trailers and it relies on driver defecting stuff out on the road and fixing it, which obviously doesn’t happen like it should so guaranteed you’ll end up fixing everyone else’s buggered trailer when you have to swap to a loaded one at a shipper.
Bulk carriers is a company that a lot of Immigration agents will try and place you with, that’s enough of a warning sign. I think any name with “bulk” in is a warning sign from everything I’ve ever read.
If you work out of Winnipeg you won’t be going West, LCVs do that, you may once in a blue moon over to Calgary or California but most work is Midwest, Ontario with occasional runs down into the bible belt or much more unusually to Florida.