Big Rig Fatalities on Canadian Roads

"[There has been 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."

Ontario Auditor General report 

Canadian Trucking Alliance

"Although TFWs [temporary foreign workers] 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."

"TFW approvals for truck drivers] more than quadrupled [between 2010 and 2024]."

Teamsters Canada report

 

"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."

RCMP spokesman

(Source: Government of Canada data)

 

Evidently there is a severe shortage of long-haul truckers in Canada. The result may be that governments are turning a blind eye to inadequately trained drivers. In many instances young men from the Indian subcontinent who travelled to Canada on student visas to attend Canadian universities are likely to be among those classified as temporary foreign workers who are hired by trucking companies that are not too terribly wedded to Canadian trucking requirements to fill the gap in low numbers of truck drivers' availability. These are young men whose presence in the country was for a specific purpose -- higher education -- who have just not bothered to show up for classes. They are also people whose visas have run out with the expectation that they will leave the country.

 

The rash of serious trucking accidents that have been occurring when large transport trailers are being driven irresponsibly can be at least partially attributed to the illegal presence of foreign temporary workers. What is equally troubling is that those who have been involved in, who have caused lethal road accidents, are being handled with undue consideration despite their having been responsible for lost lives as a result of careless handling of big rigs on busy highways. A non-citizen trucker who caused a fiery crash north of Kamloops B.C., killing two people has been handed a $2,000 fine and 18 months of probation, as an example.

 

Lovepreet Singh drove  his truck at full speed into a Toyota Corolla that had reduced speed at a construction zone. Singh's lack of attention caused the death of two people trapped in the burning car. Sukhwinder Sidhu, an Ontario trucker, responsible for a similar collision when he plowed his rig into cars stopped at a construction site that killed a woman was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison. A judge in Thunder Bay, Ontario granted Indian trucker Ajitpal Singh an absolute discharge. Singh had caused a fatal head-on collision with another trucker; that lighter sentence helped Singh avoid deportation to India. 

 

Jaskirat Singh Sidhu whose failure to stop at a stop sign at an intersection caused the death of 15 members of the Humboldt Broncos (Saskatchewan) hockey team in 2018, and last month had his deportation deferred. Mr. Sidhu who had served three-and-a-half years of the eight-year sentence ordered for causing the crash can now take advantage of a 17-month pause in deportation to enable him to seek a permanent stay on "humanitarian and compassionate" grounds. He had expressed  his profound sorrow on behalf of those young men who died so needlessly.

 

Photo: Eassons Transport

 

A judge in British Columbia gave 90 days of house arrest to trucker Dalvir Singh Jhatta for a crash that police stated could have killed several people, when he drove his tractor trailer at full speed into a tow truck attaching a Mercedes impounded by the RCMP. "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" stated Cpl. Michael McLaughlin of the BC Highway Patrol. 

 

In an April 2024 crash, Harpreet Singh pleaded guilty to driving without due care and attention when his tractor trailer crossed the centre line and collided with a CN Rail work truck, causing both vehicles to explode into flames, killing Singh's passenger Dharminder Singh and CN Rail employee Juver Balmores. Criminal charges were not pursued, as Crown prosecutors agreed to a $2,000 fine and 18 months' probation. 

 

While large commercial trucks represented three percent of the vehicles on Ontario roads, 12 percent of all fatal crashes between 2019 and 2023 were caused by these trucks, according to a report produced by an Ontario Auditor General report studying lax oversight of driver licensing and certification schools. A report published last month by Teamsters Canada found disproportionately heavy use of temporary foreign workers in the trucking sector. TFW approvals for truck drivers between 2010 and 2024 "more than quadrupled", the Teamsters report found.

 

The Burnaby RCMP spearheaded an inspection drive on commercial trucks last year throughout the Lower Mainland, discovering that over half of those trucks failed to meet basic safety standards. Police announced that of 2,901 trucks inspected, 1,610 were "placed out of service" for failing to meet provincial safety standards. Statistics Canada found that as a result of a collision involving a commercial motor vehicle, there were 377 fatalities for 2023, the most recent year for data availability. 

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