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TORONTO: A Punjabi man, who killed 16 Canadian hockey players in a road crash in 2018, has been ordered to be deported to India.
Jaskirat Singh Sidhu, who came to Canada as an international student from Punjab in 2014, crashed his semi-trailer into a bus carrying junior hockey players of Humboldt Broncos Club at an intersection near the town of Armley in Saskatchewan province on April 6, 2018.
He was sentenced to eight years in jail, but granted parole in 2023.
Sidhu had earlier challenged his deportation in a federal court which rejected his plea last year
As a last resort, he appealed to the immigration minister to reconsider his deportation on humanitarian grounds as he is a married man with a daughter.
But during a hearing held virtually in Calgary on Friday morning, the Immigration and Refugee Board told him that his plea has been rejected.
Trent Cook of the Immigration and Refugee Board told Sidhu, “I can’t consider humanitarian and compassionate factors. My sole role today is to make a finding on whether the minister has established the facts that support their allegation that you’re inadmissible for serious criminality.
“I am satisfied that the minister’s report is well founded. I am required by law to issue you with a deportation order.”
However, Sidhu is unlikely to be sent to India any time soon as his lawyer can appeal against the deportation order on other grounds.
Sidhu married his girlfriend Tanvir Mann, a trained nurse from India, in 2018 – just three months before the crash.
After his return from India after his marriage, Sidhu did just one-week driving course and two weeks of supervised driving before taking up the the job of a driver for the long-haul semi-trailer.
Driving between the speed of 86-96 km, he didn’t heed the red-light signal, ramming his semi-trailer into the bus which was already in the intersection, killing 16 young players.
Since he is just a permanent resident not a citizen of Canada, Sidhu faces deportation to India.
His lawyer Michael Greene has contended that since his client has no criminal background he should not be deported.
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