Never ve thought ve vould see this headline: "
Indian immigrants get house arrest for running fraudulent truck driving schools in Ontario", but there it is, on the
Unpublished newswire this morning.
Yes, folks, this is about the notorious Singh School of Truck Driving... or one of such schools, at least. A judge of the Ontario Court of Justice was told at their trial that Gurvinder Singh, 69, of Laval QC, and Gurpreet Singh, 37, of Saint-Eustache QC "operated a truck driver school (not registered as a private career college nor authorized to offer MELT) that fraudulently did not offer its students the minimum training required to satisfy the MELT standards."
(Mandatory entry-level training (MELT) for residents of Ontario seeking to obtain a Class A licence, was introduced by the government of Ontario in 2017. MELT includes a minimum of instructional hours offered by qualified instructors teaching specific standardized skills deemed required by the Commercial Truck Driver Training Standard (Class A) of the Ontario Ministry of Transportation to safely drive large commercial trucks. Without proof of it, people who want to become commercial truck drivers can’t schedule a road test.)
The court was told that each of the offenders, at his respective truck driver school, obtained payment from its commercial truck driver candidates or students yet offered only basic truck driver training that did not comply with the MELT course standards. Both of the Messrs Singh "then circumvented the MELT certification process by paying for unlawful access to the (Ontario Ministry of Transportation’s) database to falsify their students' MELT completion," said Judge Pierre Roger in his decision.
"Each paid Charanjit Deol and her husband, who operated a registered private career college authorized to offer MELT, to access the (ministry's) database and upload information which falsely confirmed that the offenders’ respective commercial truck driver candidates or students had completed the MELT."
The Singhs "generally charged their students between $4000 and $5000 for the truck driver training that they offered. [the decision continues]. This is slightly less than what was charged for MELT training by approved or registered private career colleges.
"Their students were of South Asian ethnicity, largely new immigrants. The language spoken during training was mostly Punjabi." The Singhs "supplied trucks, trailers, instructors (frequently unqualified), and offered some commercial truck driver training which, however, did not meet the MELT standards."
The court heard that, between January 2019 and May 2021, Gurvinder and Gurpreet Singh "occasionally paid an interpreter, Hanifa Khokhar, to facilitate some of their respective students to cheat on their Class A knowledge tests. Ms Khokhar suggested some of the answers during her interpretation services." Her husband, Mohamed Khokhar, was also involved in the scam, by assisting his wife and collecting the money.
Judge Roger found that "despite the risks posed by licenced Class A drivers driving commercial trucks without having completed the MELT, there is no evidence that the Class A licence of any of the offenders' students was revoked or made subject to additional MELT training or related conditions. Similarly, there is no evidence why such measures were not put in place by the relevant authorities."
Well, that's Ontario for you. Any political party which cracked down on brown or black crime would alienate 1000s of voters (some of whom might actually be citizens), especially in the Greater Toronto Area, and more particularly Brampton and Mississauga ON. But let us return to the story.
In his decision, dated October 29th, the learned judge wrote, "This was an elaborate scheme by the offenders. It involved close to 50 truck driver students each and lasted over two years. The offences impacted the community and the truck driver students. The truck driver students were robbed of the proper training they had paid for, and their lack of proper training created an additional risk to the welfare of road users, impacting the community and the reputation of truck drivers."
So what happened to the Sikh fraudsters? All four of the co-accused plead guilty to fraud. The Crown argued that a penitentiary sentence is the norm in cases of large-scale fraud, and that the range in such cases is at least three to five years.
Counsel for the offenders argued that this was not a large-scale fraud. Alternatively, they argued that the circumstances of this case, including proportionality and parity of sentences, and the good standing of the miscreants in their community, warranted departing from the range. They said that a fit sentence for each of the offenders would be a conditional sentence of 12 to 18 months.
So what did they get? House arrest! Justic Roger gave both men conditional sentences of two years less a day, to be served in the community. O Canada!
The learned judge apparently was unaware of, or failed to take into account, the
years of trouble Canadian provinces have experienced with immigrant truckers, largely of the Sikh persuasion.
In 2018, 16 members of the Humboldt Broncos Junior A hockey team were killed when Jaskirat Singh Sidhu drove his big rig through a Saskatchewan highway stop sign at over 60 mph after ignoring its multiple preceding road signs and flashing lights.
Two years earlier, Sarbjit Singh Matharu, driving on two hours of sleep and with a falsified logbook, caused an 11-vehicle pileup on Ontario Highway 400, killing four.
A year later, transport truck driver Baljinder Singh rammed a queue of vehicles that had slowed to a stop in a construction zone, killing four. In 2019, Gurdeep Singh Dhaliwal was charged with stunt driving his semi on the 401, travelling less than 10 yards behind another transport truck.
In 2022, Mehakdeep Singh received five years in prison for killing two young children and their grandmother on the same highway when he rammed them at full speed.
Just last year, Balwinder Singh Dhaliwal was charged with driving his transport truck the wrong way on the 401. Another trucker, Ravinder Singh Rai, was caught driving drunk that year on Ontario Highway 11.
Earlier this year, Jagmeet Singh Grewal was sentenced to 10 years in prison for killing four people by crashing into a line of vehicles on a highway through Laval QC. A similar collision happened near Brossard QC, south of Montréal, in 2022, killing two and injuring 10. The driver, Baljeet Singh, fled to the United States and only returned to Canada recently after several months of extradition hearings.
Jaskirat Singh Sidhu, mentioned above, was ordered deported but has petitioned to have his permanent resident status restored... on humanitarian grounds. As far as Walt knows, neither he nor any of the other Singhs named above, has been removed from Canada. Most of them are likely still out there on the highways of diverse Canuckistan.
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Unpublished is about empowering Canadians
to become more engaged in what passes, in their woke country, for democracy. Walt recommends it highly.
