Should Broncos' Crash Semi-Driver Jaskirat Sidhu Have Pled Guilty?

There's never been justice for anyone in the Humboldt Broncos' bus crash. There never will be, but we can all stop making things worse anytime now.

If you needed it, perhaps the most straightforward evidence that semi-driver Jaskirat Singh Sidhu was not the sole guilty party for the Humboldt Broncos’ bus crash, was the emergence of Saskatoon-based defence lawyer Mark Brayford as his counsel.

Photo: Radio Canada, Susan Ormiston

Brayford doesn’t lose.

Well okay, there was that whole Robert Latimer thing, the case that shot Brayford and his hair to fame (relative to Saskatchewan, anyway).

But today, you couldn’t pay Brayford to lose if you tried.

Diminutive, yet somehow still also larger-than-life, the former Saskatchewan playboy once drove the only Porsche in the province (probably, it was the Nineties). Now he has about a dozen (pretty cool) kids and is one of the best defence lawyers in Canada.

Jaskirat Sidhu, the driver of one of two vehicles involved in the fatal April 6, 2018 highway crash that killed half of the Humboldt Broncos’ 2017-18 Jr A team, was initially represented in court by Satnam Aujla of the Merchant Law Group. Aujla was still Sidhu’s lawyer at the end of November 2018.

A Government of Saskatchewan report (which I encourage you to read for yourself) into the safety of the crash intersection was quietly released right before Christmas, on December 12, 2018.

The investigation and report, contracted by the provincial government to McElhanney Consulting Services Ltd. (McElhanney), details why and how the Government of Saskatchewan ignored the intersection of Highway 35 and Highway 335 until it was too late.

Let’s be clear that Sidhu admits he missed four warning signs alerting him to the intersection of Highway 35 and 335, as well as an oversized stop sign with a flashing red light, before he barrelled through that intersection. 

Despite all that, there are indications that within the bounds of Canadian law (which last I checked still matters) Jaskirat Sidhu was not necessarily guilty of the specific Criminal Code charges he faced of dangerous driving, or even a Criminal Code charge at all.

He could have pled not guilty to dangerous driving charges and went to trial.

Or he could have pled it down to careless driving, which isn’t a criminal conviction.

You know, like the traffic ticket Scott Moe got in 1997 for killing Joann Balog in what was, essentially, an identical highway collision, wasn’t a criminal conviction.

"There was no evidence that he chose to drive through that stop sign," Mark Brayford said at Sidhu’s sentencing hearing. "I wanted to know why this happened. I'm disappointed to tell people I can't say. He doesn't know."

For me, that sentence of Brayford’s at the hearing spoke volumes. The charge of dangerous driving involves making a choice to drive… dangerously.

Regardless of how Sidhu pled that day in January 2019, the pain toll was going to grow. Perhaps justice wasn’t necessarily served by his decision to plead guilty.

After his conviction, Sidhu lost immigration status in Canada. He is facing imminent deportation.

No matter what country he was born in, Sidhu’s life is equal in every way to yours and mine. It is worth exploring whether Sidhu deserved more of a chance to live his life than he gave himself.