Truck driver facing deportation

CALGARY — A lawyer for the truck driver who caused the deadly Humboldt Broncos bus crash says his client is one step closer to being deported to India.

Lawyer Michael Greene says Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada has rejected a request for Jaskirat Singh Sidhu to stay in the country as a refugee.

Greene says that decision means the Canada Border Services Agency is now under a legal obligation to remove Sidhu from Canada as soon as possible.

He says he’s not sure when that might be, but plans to ask for a deferral.

A previous application to restore Sidhu’s permanent resident status is still being decided.

That application argues Sidhu should be allowed to stay on humanitarian grounds because he has a child with complex medical issues.

Sidhu drove through a stop sign and into the path of a bus carrying the junior hockey team at a rural intersection near Tisdale, Sask., in April 2018. Sixteen people died and 13 more were injured.

Sidhu pleaded guilty to dangerous driving offences and was sentenced to eight years in prison. He was granted full parole in 2023, and the Immigration and Refugee Board ordered the following year that he be deported.

MONTREAL RUSHES ROAD REPAIRS

MONTREAL — The City of Montreal says it’s launching a blitz in the coming days to fill the numerous potholes that are plaguing the streets.

Claude Pinard, chair of the city’s executive committee, says this winter is one of the worst for potholes since 2018, calling the state of the roadways “catastrophic.”

Pinard told reporters the city has awarded 10 contracts without public tenders to three companies to repair the roads within eight days.

He says the contracts, totalling roughly $500,000, do not stipulate how many potholes have to be filled.

Over the past few weeks, Montreal drivers have been grappling with difficult road conditions after a January warm spell led to the rapid formation of potholes across the city.

Earlier this week, Montreal Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada posted a video on social media standing next to a tow-truck driver and describing how she had just blown two tires driving over potholes.

CAA-Québec, a non-profit road-assistance organization, has said flat-tire service calls in Montreal and its Laval suburb jumped 75 per cent from Jan. 9-20 compared with the same period last year.

HARPER DIGITAL ARCHIVE LAUNCHED

OTTAWA — Former prime minister Stephen Harper has officially launched his archival collection, which includes more than a million photos, a quilt and a hockey card.

Harper spoke about the collection at a panel Thursday alongside Canadian political historian Arthur Milnes and archive project leaders Élizabeth Mongrain and Darrel Reid.

Mongrain, who is a manager and senior strategic adviser at Library and Archives Canada, said the project is the largest digital archive acquisition ever undertaken by Library and Archives Canada.

She said it includes more than 400,000 digital records, 4,000 sound recordings and many other types of media, like plaques, architectural drawings and even temporary tattoos that were sent to the former prime minister.

Harper, who served as prime minister between 2006 and 2015, said he sat for about 50 hours of video interviews at his home in Alberta to discuss his life, political career and time in office — creating an “oral history” that will be accessible to the public in 2030.

Until then, said senior political archivist Kelly Ferguson, Canadians can view thousands of records online, including photos, audiovisual files and speech transcripts.

» The Canadian Press