[Cecil Terwilliger]

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The “Humboldt driver” is facing deportation and is fighting it…with support from some of the victims families.

His name is Jaskirat Sidhu. Most people know him only as "The Humboldt Driver."

On April 6, 2018, Sidhu was tasked with transporting a giant load of peat moss on tandem trailers, across Saskatchewan on unfamiliar rural roads. He had challenges from the beginning. First, his trailers got stuck in the snow and he needed to find a tow. Then his tarps came loose and he feared losing his load, and finally, at 5 p.m. while he was checking his rear view mirror to see if his ties were solid, he missed a stop sign. A chartered bus, carrying the Humboldt Broncos hockey club, was approaching the intersection and couldn't stop in time. The two vehicles collided, killing 16 people and injuring 13 others on the bus. Canada plunged into mourning.

Sidhu comes from a middle-class farming family in India. He immigrated to Canada in 2014 with a degree in commerce. His then girlfriend Tanvir Mann arrived in this country the previous year after completing a nursing degree in India.

Just three months before the horrifying collision, Mann and Jaskirat became husband and wife in a fairy-tale wedding back in India.

They didn't take a honeymoon, and returned to Canada where Mann had been accepted into a dental hygienist program in Toronto. Sidhu picked up a second job to support Mann going back to school. A friend suggested trucking and Sidhu completed a one-week training course. He then drove supervised for two weeks. When Sidhu got behind the wheel on that April day in 2018, it was one of his first solo long-haul jobs.

"Sometimes I sit and I hear the kids crying, the children crying, and I see all of the devastated pictures in my mind. And people are rushing, the firefighters, all of the first responders. Those things, they're still with me."

Sidhu is not a Canadian citizen. He is a permanent resident. Under immigration rules, anyone convicted of a crime that carries a sentence greater than six months is subject to deportation.

In January 2021, Green submitted a 415-page binder outlining why Sidhu should not be deported, citing his extreme level of remorse, lack of criminal history, low risk to reoffend and the fact neither drugs, alcohol nor excessive speed were a factor in the collision. Hundreds of letters of public support have also been included in the file. Among them, letters from three Humboldt families, including the parents of Evan Thomas, who died in the crash.

https://beta.ctvnews.ca/national/w5/...1_5607925.html