The truck driver that ran a stop sign and crashed into the Humboldt Broncos bus and killed 16 people and injured 13 in 2018 is to be deported back to India.Jaskirat Singh Sidhu blew through the intersection on April 6, 2018 near Armley, SK, and T-boned the junior hockey players’ team bus.The deportation decision was handed down at an Immigration and Refugee Board hearing in Calgary on Friday. However, he will not immediately be taken into custody; first there will be a deportation risk assessment conducted and an opportunity for Sidhu to defer and file a request to have his permanent resident status returned on humanitarian grounds, per Discover Humboldt. His lawyer attorney Michael Greene noted Sidhu while undergoing this process will likely be allowed to stay in Canada if he asks for a deferral. Sidhu, who lives in Calgary and has been in Canada as a permanent resident since 2014, pleaded guilty to dangerous driving charges on March 22, 2019 and did not argue for a plea bargain. In January 2023 he was granted full parole after six months of day parole. Canadian law stipulates any permanent resident who is convicted of a crime that has a sentence of more than six months may not remain in the country. Greene earlier told the Canadian Press it was a “pretty open and shut case” because the law is clear about immigrant criminality. “There’s nothing to contest, so those (the rules) are as clear as day. These hearings are usually done lickety-split,” said Greene. The Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) in 2022 recommended deportation, and Greene went to court to fight it, arguing CBSA officials should have considered Sidhu’s previously clean record and the remorse of his client. The application was dismissed in December, 2023, but Greene pushed for a second review. “This is part of the sadness of the whole process. We’re left with a situation where permanent residents have no rights whatsoever to have their personal circumstances considered,” Greene said.“Our only mechanism is (that) after he’s ordered deported, we’re going to ask them to give back his (permanent resident) status (based) on humanitarian grounds.“But in the meantime, he has no status.”
