Humboldt Victims Get Their Say
CBC 28 JAN 2019.
The sentencing hearing began today in the Humboldt Broncos bus crash case, and the number of people who want to attend has required some special arrangements, correspondent Susan Ormiston writes from Saskatchewan.
On this bitterly cold Monday morning in Melfort, Sask., hockey moms and dads, billet families, and Humboldt Broncos teammates struggled into a community centre which had been transformed, overnight, into a courthouse.
Body-scan security now restricts the entrance to the Harry Vicker Centre, a sports and events venue in this town of about 6,000 people. Saskatchewan Judge Inez Cardinal’s desk was carted into the large gymnasium on Sunday night and set up on a riser, with a black curtain draped behind. Lawyers’ tables were spread out in front.
The local courthouse simply could not accommodate the hundreds of people who wanted to attend the sentencing hearing for Jaskirat Singh Sidhu, the 29-year-old truck driver who pleaded guilty to 29 counts of dangerous driving causing death and injury.
"This is uncharted ground," says Aaron Fox, a defence lawyer in Regina who is unconnected to this particular case, but who has acted for clients facing similar charges.
"The most challenging part of the decision for her [Judge Cardinal] will be how to address the fact that there are so many people killed and seriously injured," Fox says.
"It isn't a case of deciding you'll get X amount of time for this offence and then we'll multiply it by the number of charges. It is a situation where, at the end of the day, you'll look at it and say 'OK, what's what's the best total sentence.'"
Case law suggests sentencing for such charges ranges from a fine to five or six years in prison, while the maximum sentence is 14 years for causing death and 10 years for injury -- but there has never before been a case with so many casualties.
"I don’t know that she can render a decision that’s going to satisfy many of the people that are involved," says Mike Nolin, a Saskatoon lawyer.
For the families who’ve travelled here from Alberta, Manitoba and other parts of Saskatchewan, this week will resurface the wounding pain of last April 6. The collision site is just 65 kilometres from here, its memorial crosses sprouting out of the snow.
The court has received 75 victim impact statements, 65 of which will be read aloud to the court by family. Together they will be a searing tally of the pain and suffering, not only for those who lost loved ones, but also for the 13 surviving players still trying to recover, some from debilitating injuries.
Chris Joseph, whose son Jaxon was killed, said the sentencing may be even more difficult than his son’s funeral, for all the memories which will rush to the surface again.
But at least there will be no trial -- no battle -- to live through.
The truck driver's lawyer, Mark Brayford, said Sidhu told him, "I cannot make things better and I certainly don’t want to make things worse," by having a trial.
The hearing is set to run for three to five days this week, and when it ends, the Judge still could reserve her decision.
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