More than six years after the horrific Humboldt Broncos bus crash, the man driving the semi-truck has been ordered to be deported.
An Immigration and Refugee Board hearing was held virtually in Calgary for Jaskirat Singh Sidhu on Friday morning, where the decision was handed out.
“I can’t consider humanitarian and compassionate factors,” Trent Cook from the immigration division of the board, who oversaw the hearing, told Sidhu.
“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.”
The decision was a forgone conclusion, according to Sidhu’s lawyer Michael Greene, who has said all that’s required to deport his client is proof that he is not a Canadian citizen and he committed a serious crime.
“That happened,” Greene said Friday. “There’s no contest, which is why we conceded those points and it was over and done with within a matter of minutes.”
Sidhu arrived in Canada from India in 2014 and was living in Calgary.
He was sentenced to eight years behind bars for dangerous driving offences in the Humboldt Broncos bus crash in Saskatchewan in April 2018 that left 16 people dead and 13 others injured.
Sidhu drove the semi through a stop sign at a rural intersection near Tisdale, Sask., into the path of the Broncos’ team bus. The junior hockey team was heading to Nipawin, Sask., for a playoff game at the time of the crash.Scott Thomas is the father of Evan Thomas, a Humboldt Broncos forward who was killed in the 2018 bus crash. He said Friday morning he is not surprised by the decision.“Our family has always said right from the beginning that we didn’t think that deportation was a necessary ending to this,” Thomas said.
“I think it’s unnecessary and piling on at this point, if you will. I feel bad for Mr. Sidhu because, like I said, I don’t think this is a necessary step for him and a necessary conclusion to all of this.”
Thomas went on to say that Sidhu has done his time.