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Or sign-in if you have an account.And it was also in April that a B.C. judge gave 90 days of house arrest to trucker Dalvir Singh Jhattu for a 2023 B.C. crash that, according to police, could have easily have killed multiple people. Photo by RCMPFirst Reading is a Canadian politics newsletter curated by the National Post’s own Tristin Hopper. To get an early version sent directly to your inbox, sign up here.Enjoy the latest local, national and international news.Exclusive articles by Conrad Black, Barbara Kay and others. Plus, special edition NP Platformed and First Reading newsletters and virtual events.Unlimited online access to National Post.National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on.Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword.Support local journalism.Enjoy the latest local, national and international news.Exclusive articles by Conrad Black, Barbara Kay and others. Plus, special edition NP Platformed and First Reading newsletters and virtual events.Unlimited online access to National Post.National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on.Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword.Support local journalism.Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Access articles from across Canada with one account.Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments.Enjoy additional articles per month.Get email updates from your favourite authors.Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Access articles from across Canada with one accountShare your thoughts and join the conversation in the commentsEnjoy additional articles per monthGet email updates from your favourite authorsSign In or Create an AccountorFor causing a fiery crash just north of Kamloops, B.C., that killed two people, a non-citizen trucker will be required to pay $2,000 and undergo 18 months of probation.And the B.C. case is just the latest in a string of recent Canadian court decisions where a trucker was handed a controversially lenient sentence for causing a fatal crash, often due to inattention.In January, trucker Lovepreet Singh was sentenced to nine months in jail for driving his truck at full speed into a Toyota Corolla slowing for a construction zone. A brother and sister trapped inside the burning car were killed.This newsletter from NP Comment tackles the topics you care about. (Subscriber-exclusive edition on Fridays)By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc.We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try againEarlier this month, Ontario trucker Sukhwinder Sidhu was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in jail for a similar collision in which he plowed his rig into cars stopped at a construction site, killing former Canadian ice dancer Alexandra Paul.Just two weeks ago, a Thunder Bay, Ont., judge granted an absolute discharge to Indian trucker Ajitpal Singh for causing a fatal head-on collision with another trucker. In that case, Singh’s sentence was explicitly made light so that he would avoid deportation to India.It was in April that a Federal Court judge deferred the deportation of Jaskirat Singh Sidhu, the trucker who killed 16 members of the Humboldt Broncos hockey team in 2018 by speeding through a stop sign.In a decision condemned by several families of Humboldt Broncos victims, Sidhu — who served three-and-a-half years of an eight year sentence for the crash — was granted a 17-month pause in deportation proceedings so that he would have time to seek a permanent stay of deportation on “humanitarian and compassionate” grounds.And it was also in April that a B.C. judge gave 90 days of house arrest to trucker Dalvir Singh Jhattu for a 2023 B.C. crash that, according to police, could have easily have killed multiple people.Jhattu drove his tractor trailer at full speed into a tow truck that was in the midst of attaching a Mercedes that had been impounded by the RCMP. After Jhattu’s sentencing, RCMP released a video of the collision as part of its Slow Down, Move Over campaign.“Luckily the tow truck operator, the police officer, and the Mercedes driver were safely off to the side of the road, or they would certainly have been killed,” Corporal Michael McLaughlin with the BC Highway Patrol said in an accompanying press statement.In the most recent sentencing decision out of Kamloops, Harpreet Singh pleaded guilty to driving without due care and attention in an April 2024 crash where his tractor trailer crossed the centre line and collided with a CN Rail work truck. Both vehicles would explode into flames after colliding.Killed was Singh’s passenger, Dharminder Singh, and CN Rail employee Juver Balmores, a father of three.Crown prosecutors did not pursue criminal charges against Singh, and agreed to the $2,000 fine and 18 months of probation. Castanet Kamloops reported that Singh had come to Canada from India in 2023, the year before the collision.The issue of dangerously inexperienced truck drivers was recently the subject of an Ontario Auditor General’s Report finding lax oversight of driver licensing and certification schools.“We found that some students at registered private career colleges obtained (Entry Level Training) certificates without completing all mandatory training hours and elements,” read a summary published on May 12.The same report also noted that while large commercial trucks represented just three per cent of the vehicles on Ontario roads, they were involved in 12 per cent of all fatal crashes between 2019 to 2023.Teamsters Canada, meanwhile, published a report last month finding disproportionately heavy usage of temporary foreign workers in the trucking sector. Between 2010 and 2024, the report wrote that TFW approvals for truck drivers “more than quadrupled.”“Although TFWs in trucking represent a small percentage of all permits issued under the TFW program, a quick review of online data shows that truck driver is often the 5th or 6th most requested job classification,” it read.Last year, the Burnaby RCMP spearheaded an inspection drive on commercial trucks throughout the Lower Mainland, only to discover that more than half of them were not meeting basic safety standards.In January, police announced that of 2,901 trucks inspected, 1,610 did not meet provincial standards and were “placed out of service.” “While there are many commercial vehicle operators who are doing their due diligence and prioritizing safety, unfortunately we are still seeing those who are not properly maintaining their vehicles — including repeat offenders,” said an RCMP spokesman at the time.Despite all this, the general statistics do continue to show that fatal truck crashes are in decline.In 2023, the most recent year for which data is available, Statistics Canada found that there were 377 fatalities as a result of a collision involving a commercial motor vehicle.This is one of the lowest on record; eight per cent lower than the 411 recorded in 2010, and 32 per cent lower than the 560 recorded in 2005.In a Tuesday speech in Montreal, the Bank of Canada’s Nicolas Vincent said the country’s teenagers and twenty-somethings are facing a worse labour market than at any point in the last 35 years. Long-term unemployment among youth “exceeds what we saw during the recession in the early 1990s and in the global financial crisis of 2008–09,” said Vincent, the bank’s external deputy governor. The situation is so much worse than would be expected, given Canada’s overall economic health, that Vincent suggested it’s a direct result of the massive influx of low-skilled workers imported into the country since 2022. “Between 2022 and 2024, there was a large influx of young people from abroad,” Vincent said. “This intensified competition in Canada for lower‑skill and entry‑level jobs.”One of the more controversial outcomes of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s January trip to Beijing is that his government struck a “cooperation agreement” between the RCMP and Chinese law enforcement. This is despite multiple alleged incidents of Chinese law enforcement harassing dissidents or expats on Canadian soil. Which is part of why both the NDP and the Conservatives have demanded to see details of the policing agreement. In a statement to Global News this week, the RCMP gave their answer: “No.” Or more specifically, “the RCMP will not unilaterally make public or share the contents of an MOU with a third party without the concurrence of the other party.”Steven Guilbeault, architect of a latticework of Trudeau-era environmental policies ranging from plastic straw bans to the EV mandate, is resigning in protest from the House of Commons. In a statement, the former environment minister chiefly cited his opposition to Liberal government plans to approve a new oil export pipeline to the B.C. coast. But as is typical of Canadian protest resignations these days, Guilbeault’s not going to do it for awhile. He said he’s going to remain a Liberal MP until at least the summer, and then resign. In the wake of a series of coyote attacks in the Toronto area, Ontario Premier Doug Ford told reporters that his own anti-coyote strategy is to howl like a wolf when in their presence. before heading into the caucus room at Queen’s Park in Toronto, Ontario on Tuesday, May 26, 2026. (Peter Power/Postmedia)First Reading is a Canadian politics newsletter curated by the National Post’s own Tristin Hopper. To get an early version sent directly to your inbox, sign up here. Get the latest from Tristin Hopper straight to your inbox Join the Conversation This website uses cookies to personalize your content (including ads), and allows us to analyze our traffic. Read more about cookies here. By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.